This Lentil Cilantro Soup exquisitely supports the water/winter organ pair of the Bladder and Kidney. This is the perfect soup to catch the tail end of winter in harmony food support. This pair of organs, when in balance, support our need to restore, unplug, dream and merge into higher states of consciousness.  The seeds of the year are planted during the winter, sprout during spring. come into full bloom in summer and return to the earth during fall. What have you planted this winter in the quiescence of the season?

The soups can be created and enjoyed in any order.  However, the order of the soups as presented journeys you through the 12 organ network in order of energetic flow.  One or two may even become your favorite go to soups throughout the year. The first and last vegetable combinations concentrate on the Metal element organs: large intestine and lung respectively.

All Nourishing Winter Soup Cleanse recipes can be found  a few posts back (click here).

Wanna dive deeper into the cleanse with spices, soup toppers and self-care actions?  Check back in for our upcoming posts or follow our blog to have the posts delivered to your email

Gardening Tip:  Direct Sow Cilantro Seeds

In the south, we are able to have fresh cilantro during winter and spring simply by direct sowing every three weeks. I watch the weather and sow my seeds just before or during the rains. So sow those seeds! 

Fill your kidneys with blue-black light

Compliance Tip: Element Wisdom Cards

Choose an Element Wisdom Card each day to support the organ systems, seasonal harmony or your constitution. These unique messages support your seasonal health & elemental constitution as determined by your 5 element practitioner or our Seasonal Medicine Element Quiz.

Spices: 

Peppercorns: 

nature: hot, pungent

action: opens pores, promotes sweating, warms abdominal organs

direction: outward

affinity:  Liver, Lung & Kidney

Whole Foods Tip: Cilantro Berries

Discover the delightful in between stage from cilantro leaf to coriander seed – the amazing, little known cilantro berry.  This tender green pod pows with flavor.  I love to eat it fresh, toss in into the end cook stage of a stir fry or fancy up my salsa. 

Toppers:

Chives: 

nature: warm, pungent

action: warms coldness. supports sexual function, removes dampness

affinity: Kidneys

Pollinator Tip: Bees adore the Cilantro flowers.  Like buckwheat, they are an early source of pollen and nectar to forage. If your spice plants bolts, bee happy – don’t worry.

Self Care:

To support the kidney and its expression as the adrenal: tonify the vagal nerve to move into rest & digest mode.

How to practically soothe your nervous system and improve vagal nerve tone:

• Take a cold shower or plunge
• Splash cold water on face & neck
• Sing, laugh, chant, hum, & hug
• Restore the microbe of the gut
• Relax jaw tension
• Meditate on loving kindness
• Positive Social Connect

.

xoxoxoxo Sarita

Soup Cleanse recipes can be found  a few posts back (click here).

Wanna dive deeper into the cleanse with spices, soup toppers and self-care actions?  Check back in for our upcoming posts or follow our blog to have the posts delivered to your email

The soups can be created and enjoyed in any order.  However, the order of the soups as presented journeys you through the 12 organ network in order of energetic flow.  This and upcoming posts provide organ specific self care suggestions as well as spices and toppers to add to each soup to power up the effect of each vegetable combination. 

The winter soup cleanse as a method of preparing the body for a spring cleanse, resetting after over indulgence and a nourishing and gentle act of a self care to resent our habits. Our goal should always be to first optimize the functioning of our bodies to aid elimination when we undertake a detox.  

One of the most important and frequently overlooked areas of a cleanse or detox is to prepare the body to efficiently clear the toxins that are stored in the body. We eliminate waste via our

• lungs via carbon dioxide gas
• large intestine via feces
• skin via sweat
• liver via detoxification pathways
• bladder via urination

The first soup in the winter nourishing soup cleanse series focuses on the elemental metal pair of organs: the lung and large intestine. The onion/garlic base is a pre-biotic with their long fibrous strands of fructooligiosacchrides and insulin that feed the microbiome. Onions are warm in nature, promote sweating, resolve phlegm and act as a diuretic. Do you notice how many of the avenues of elimination just onions hit? Garlic is hot in nature was recognized as an antibiotic long before the advent of pharmaceuticals. In fact, it was a standard item in military ration kits through the ages. It also has anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-helminth properties. If onions and garlic aren’t your thing, visit our post on soup stock variations. If onions and garlic aren’t your thing, visit our post on soup stock variations.

Beyond the base: concentrate your efforts on spicing and topping to enhance the power of the soups.

Spices: 

Black & White Pepper: 

nature: hot, pungent

action: warms internal organs, eliminates phlegm

direction: downward

affinity:  Large Intestine & Stomach

Nutmeg:

nature: warm, pungent

action: warms internal organs, eliminates phlegm

direction: downward

affinity: Large Intestine & Spleen

Toppers:

Avocado: 

nature: sweet, cool

action: moistens lungs, intestines, skin

affinity: lung and large intestine

Self Care:

To support the large intestine add abdominal massage.

To support the lung add breath work and  dry brushing

I hope you enjoy this journey!  Be creative.  Love your body with healthy foods.

xoxoxoxo Sarita

The soup cleanse is developed with simplicity in mind.  However, onion and garlic base may not be the best fit for everyone or we might tire of the same flavor or feel creative. A percent of people are sulfur intolerant; in these cases, I suggest a simple vegetable stock or herbal tea.  

My favorite long game way to create vegetable stock is to consistently contribute all the trimmings from my organic vegetable meal prep into a collective freeze.  I save all the heads, tails, skins, peels, cores from vegetables and fruits that cross my cutting board and add them bit by bit to a collective in the freezer.  When needed, I simply add the fresh and frozen scraps with chosen whole spices to very clean water and simmer on medium-low with lid on for 10-15 minutes once the stock has come to a gentle boil.  

A short game to create a quick soup base is brewing or warming herbal tea.  My winter favorite quick tea bases are ginger, chai and green tea.  Over the years, my tea ritual has evolved to almost exclusively bulk teas.  The quality of the herbs are superior and the cost overall less when we re-brew the leaves.  As long as there is color in the second or third or fourth ‘washing’ of the leaves, there are powerful antioxidants and phytonutrients.  The additional benefit is that it naturally decaffeinates the teas by water processing.

Herbal teas deliver botanical medicine.  

Vervain Collective Tranquilium Tea by Oracle

To free the medicine, we choose the best preparation method, temperature, and timing.  Boil or steep the herbs multiple times until there is little color left.  Combine all brews into one large container and drink room temperature or cool from the refrigerator throughout the day or over the next few days. For more information about tea preparation visit our previous post Brewing Teas: free their medicine.

There are just a few basic ‘rulz’ and a lot of room for making it your own.  In my practice, I have learned that co-creating plans supports your wellness journey.

1. No Grazing. Allow 4 to 5 hours between each meal.  This allows the nerve complex known as the migrating motor complex to move food out of our stomachs through the small intestine, optimizing nutrient absorption, maximizing digestive power while sweeping misplaced bacteria into the colon for elimination.  The MMC starts two hours after eating. Snacking between meals slows or stops the digestive process.

2. Fermented Foods. Add one to two servings of non dairy fermented foods daily. I suggest 1-2 oz of kombucha, raw sauerkraut, miso soup, kim chee, etc

3. Whole Foods. You may choose to add these soups once or twice daily to a whole foods diet free of process and refined foods.  Another option is start the day with vegetable or bone broth or miso soup, a mid day meal of in season greens sautéed in coconut or olive oil sprinkled with seeds or nuts and evening soup. You may choose to rest the digestive system further with a week of ‘smashed, mashed, pureed, broths and teas’ or intermittent fasting. Make it work for you.

4. Water and Herbal Tea. Drink ½ your body weight in clean water daily including a cup or two of your favorite detox or calm tea and supplemental mineral water or drops. During winter I always cycle back around to calming and adaptagenic teas ~ watch for our upcoming post: Teas: Adapt & Calm to dive deeper. This is the time to shop local and buy from  your peeps.

5. Grocery Lists. I’m not a fan of grocery lists.  We live in a time in which all fruits and vegetables from all parts of the globe are in season all the time in our commercial grocery stores or can be shipped to our door. I’m inviting you to shop your local farmer’s market, harvest your yard.  Absolutely whenever possible buy organic – it’s richer in minerals and free from pesticides and chemicals.  No spray is also a better choice.  Fresh is better and frozen is still good. Really look at the produce when you are shopping. Which produce looks the healthiest? the most vital?  the most alive? Choose that one.  If one or two of the vegetables from the soup cleanse ingredient list is not available – skip it. 

6. Soup Share. Consider recruiting a friend or family member to parnter with during the cleanse week.  You all could each prepare 1/2 of the soups and together you have the whole with 1/2 the work.  Check in daily. Genius!!
7. Add One. Subtract Three. Add one external element of support.  In addition to one form of circulation/movement daily ~ dance time, qi gong shaking, yoga, stretching, walks, sauna, therapeutic bathing ~ add support like our Element Wisdom Water Deck or your favorite pod cast or inspirational.  Subtract three sources of overstimulation:  social media, radio, news, TV, netflix, all technology after sunset, etc

On my first clinic of the season, I opened a deck Water/Winter element wisdom cards and choose this card to start off our season.  I chose the card – You are resilient.  After a year like 2020, I happily receive this affirmation. Last year, I completed the Element Wisdom Card Decks in real time. Each deck of 73 cards (Water, Earth, Wood, Fire, Metal) guides us through one of the four seasons or through the 18 days around each Transitional time of the two solstices and equinoxes.  This year, I will be taking us deeper by diving into the cards, offering practical and simple seasonal support, and delivering via our blog subscribers with inspirations on SM.  If you want to stay up to date sign up here or click the grey envelope on our website: http://drsaritaelizabeth.com/ You can now also search the blog by keyword or card title.  And follow us on IG while your at it!

I always feel more resilient when I eat vital, simply prepared foods.  This week, I will guide you through a gentle holiday reset to help you feel better too! Spoiler alert:  the winter is NOT the best time to detox – save that for spring and fall.  I will guide you in seasonal harmony throughout 2021 as I am developing on-line and in-person group experiences.  I want to witness your health transformation this year.  xoxoxo Sarita

Learn more about how to use your Element Wisdom Card decks on our Ways to Play tab.  And if you haven’t yet discovered our cards – learn more & purchase here.

If you grew up in the south it is likely you have heard the old adage “God made dirt, and dirt don’t hurt,” but is there something really to that?  You many have seen a tv show about individuals with a drive to eat non-food items also known as pica, but when it comes to eating dirt, this phenomenon is often referred to by a more specific term “geophagia.”  When someone is exhibiting geophagia they are most likely struggling with a deficiency.  In some parts of Africa eating the soil is considered a telltale sign of a pregnancy.  One of the most interesting examples of geophagia is the kaolin ingestion common in the Georgia Piedmont region that appears to me mostly generationaly driven.  If you visit many small stores in this region you will come across “novelty” dirt, but the locals all know the dirt isn’t likely to be just a novelty.  If you grew up in this area you may have developed an affinity for the taste of this dirt and crave it like others crave various treats from their childhood.  With all this draw to eat dirt, is there any health benefit to eating dirt?  Let’s dig a little deeper.

In recent years microbiologists and immunologists have been working hard to discover what is causing the great shifts in allergies and inflammatory diseases which have been witnessing an upturn since as early as the 1980’s. A new study from Russia and Finland has found that children who were growing up in the country as opposed to more urban areas experienced fewer allergies and had more Acinetobacter naturally occurring on their skin.  Acinetobacter is one of the good bacteria that you were warned about killing if you kept using so much hand sanitizer.  To test their theories scientists brought out the mice. They took one group of mice kept in clean litter in a laboratory setting and a second set of mice in soil saturated litter and stored in a barn. After 6 weeks the mice in the “dirty” cage were less susceptible to allergens and asthma and had a greater presence of “good bacteria” in their guts. The mice in the “dirty” cage also had higher levels of anti-inflammatory proteins that are known to ward off asthma.  

Perhaps a more familiar form of soil used for health purposes is clay.  Bentonite clay is used internally to bind toxins as part of some detoxification routines.  One of our most popular chinese herbal supplements ~ Classical Pearl, created by my teacher in Portland, Oregon, has a small amount of mineral rich clay that is used synergistically to detoxify while balancing organ systems.  During the recent months we have made several changes to our practice.  One of these is moving all of our product sales to e-pharmacy providers or special orders when the product is not available.  Our patients receive a three month prescription that can be directly ordered and delivered to their home.  This is made possible by Crane Herb Company, whose mission follows:  We are dedicated to empowering Chinese herb practitioners in their lives as healers. To this end, we offer you and your patients the finest herb products, prescriptions, books, and medical supplies that we can find. And boy are we grateful for them during these changing times.

In short, a little dirt probably won’t hurt.  You definitely should keep washing your hands, especially when you have been out in public, but some bacteria is ok.  The bacteria on your garden fresh vegetables might even help you be healthier.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/the-influence-of-soil-on-human-health-66885

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/would-you-like-side-dirt-eating-soil/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10071665