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A couple nights ago Kayin (our 6 year old son) came down after we put the kids to bed and he had a bad case of hiccups. I remembered finding something for Demitri about 8 months ago that worked great, so I looked up hiccups in my Ayurvedic Cooking for Self-Healing book (the one pictured to the right). Here is what I wrote back in April about our experience with Demitri:

One day last week our four-year-old son Demitri had the hiccups when we were getting everyone ready for bed. I remember reading about a recommendation for hiccups in my ayurvedic-cooking book, so I decided to give it a try. Here is the recommendation:

“To stop hiccoughs, eat 2 chopped bananas mixed with 1 teaspoon of ghee, ½ teaspoon of honey and 2 pinches of ginger powder.”
-Ayurvedic Cooking for Self Healing by Usha Lad and Dr. Vasant Lad, page 189

I already had half a banana left from one of my children on the counter so I put it in a little bowl, cut it up with a butter knife and fork, used a spoon to put in a little bit of ghee, used the knife to add a little bit of honey (the honey we use has never been heated so it is semi-solid), and added one shake of ginger powder. Then I mixed everything up and gave a spoonful to my son. Although it tasted sweet to me he was in a sad mood and said he didn’t like it, but after one bite he didn’t have any more hiccups! He hasn’t had any hiccups since then, but I won’t forget this remedy – it brought us great relief, since hiccups at bedtime can keep everyone up late.

This time I didn’t have any leftover bananas and Kayin said he was hungry so I used one whole banana, broke it into pieces, then added half a spoonful of ghee, half a spoonful of honey, and a few shakes of ginger powder. After mixing it up I gave it to Kayin. He liked it and dug in, but halfway through he stopped and said he was done eating and done with hiccups, and proceeded to go lay down and go to sleep. I got to eat the rest, it was Yummy!

After our first son was born we experienced many health issues that we didn’t understand, which caused us to launch many desires for health and the understanding of health issues. We learned about Dr. Westin Price, who was a dentist that traveled the world to study primitive cultures about 70 years ago. He wrote a great book about what he learned, called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. You can follow the amazon link to the right to learn more about that book.

I read the book cover to cover and was fascinated by the pictures and stories of people in about ten different primitive cultures where he traveled. In every case the vibrancy of the people was directly correlated to the quality of the foods they ate, and the pictures are a very dramatic illustration. I’m a visual learner so I appreciated all the pictures:)

Later we were introduced to another book called Nourishing Traditions, which is a cookbook based on the lessons learned from Dr. Price and his studies. I was excited about this book and spent a couple years trying out different recipes and learning about foods I had never heard of before.  This is the book I’m referring to:

I wrote about a dozen of my favorite recipes inside the front cover with page numbers so I could refer to them often.  One thing I began cooking everyday for breakfast was some type of grain prepared like oatmeal.  I bought about eight different types of grain and tried a different one everyday for variety.  I narrowed down the list based on what the most people in our family liked to eat (and what was a better price), until I got down to rice, wheat, and oats.  Candice didn’t want the babies to have wheat because it is harder to digest, so then I had rice and oats.  For the past year or so I’ve stayed with oats because they provide more calories than rice (due to their fat content).

I learned from the Nourishing Traditions book that all seeds and grains have built in protection against deterioration (like being digested in your tummy) that is designed to preserve the nutrients until germination.  But if you soak them you can remove this “protection” just like warm, wet soil does.  So I got a hand grinder and ground about a cup of grain at night so I could soak them in water with a little apple cider vinegar (I can’t remember the reason for the vinegar) overnight before cooking them.  The hand mill I had is pictured to the right:

I later got a Nutrimill to save me about 20 minutes of grinding every night.  The result is closer to oat flour than oatmeal, but I appreciate the time savings and the cooked result looks about the same. I use the Nutrimill, as pictured on the left:

During this time Candice began a 3 year apprenticeship with Dr. Shamosh in Phoenix, AZ to learn Chinese Herbology and Indian Ayurveda.  I learned a few things from her studies, including the importance of the six tastes to digestion.  We got a poster that we put up in the kitchen which detailed the energetics of food, including many spices.  I experimented with many different spices in my oatmeal and tried to cover all the tastes, and we all enjoy it now.  It’s still a bit different everyday because I don’t measure anything, but I think that’s part of the fun:)

So here is my latest oatmeal recipe, with estimations as to how much I use of each item:

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5 cups of oats
• 2-3 cups of water
• 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 Tbsp Coconut Creme, Ghee, or Butter
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Molasses
• 1 tsp Raw Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Cardamom
• 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Ginger powder (only in the winter when it’s cold, because ginger is warming)

Directions:
First grind the oats and cover them with water and a little apple cider vinegar in a pot or bowl, and stir them up to remove clumps. Cover the pot or bowl (I use a big plate for this) and let it soak overnight. When you’re ready to cook it, put it in a pot, add some more water, and stir to get it mixed up again. Turn on the stove to medium or medium-high heat and mix in all the other ingredients (everything except vinegar since that’s already in). The higher you turn the heat, the faster it will cook, but you’ll need to stir more then. Even on low you’ll need to stir every once in awhile so you don’t get uncooked clumps in the mixture. I’ve learned that I can get it cooked and ready in 15 minutes if I cook it on medium-high and stir almost constantly. If the heat is too high then you won’t be able to keep it from sticking to the bottom and burning a bit no matter how fast you stir, but if the heat is medium or lower it may take 30+ minutes to get to a good consistency (this is based on a typical electric stove in the USA, gas stoves will likely cook faster). I know it’s done when the mixture thickens and looks more like lava than soup- the thickness will depend on the water/oats ratio - if it’s too thin you can cook it longer, if it’s too thick you can add more water. I like it best when the bubbles combine and cause the oatmeal to “burp”.  When I serve the older kids I put a little honey or maple syrup (we call maple syrup “waffle sauce”) on top, but when I feed or serve the babies I don’t add anything.

If you’re wondering about the 6 tastes, they are sweet, salty, sour, astringent, pungent, and bitter. The sweet and salty tastes are well covered in the list above, but here’s how I get the others:
Sour - Vinegar
Astringent - Cinnamon, vinegar
Pungent - Cardamom, Cinnamon, Nutmeg
Bitter - Cardamom, Vinegar

You can learn more about the importance of the six tastes to our healthy digestion (from an Ayurvedic perspective) by reading an article Candice wrote on her site at http://phxherbs4kids.com/nutrition-articles/1-our-digestive-experience-an-ayurvedic-perspective.html.

Last night we were up late and I didn’t grind any oats.  So when the kids woke us asking for food I made scrambled eggs and chocolate milk (not necessarily the best combination, but I was tired and that’s what they asked for).  Our five children (mostly the older three) ate nine eggs and asked for more but that’s all I had so I gave them some toast.  I appreciate my oatmeal:)