Fasting for better health

I am doing my weekly fasting while I am writing this article.

What is fasting? Fasting is not to eat anything voluntarily. It can be as short as one day, and as long as a few days or a week. In all the traditions of different religions, there is the practice of fasting. Eg, Muslims fast for a month in the annual Ramadan, they only eat or drink anything before sunrise and after sunset. Also, Indians are used to fast in different festivals.

I remember why did I start my first time fasting a few years ago. I was in Amma's Ashram (Amma is my guru, she is famous for giving hugs to everyone) in South India, learning different kinds of spiritual practices, eg meditation, yoga, chanting, selfless service etc. Besides, in silence and fasting are also part of it.

Although I always heard people in the ashram fast regularly, but I couldn't make the determination. You have to know that I really love eating, only by just imagining that I should not eat, I suffer. Until one of my ashram friends told me one day, 'Amma said, if we cannot even control our senses, how can we control our mind?' She really woke me up immediately, because if I put so much effort to calm my mind through meditation, but I forgot to laid a good foundation, wasn't it like learning running before I could even walk?

Since then, I started to fast once a week, in between I paused because of different reasons, I resumed it again, stopped and resumed again. At first, I allowed myself to do a fruit fast, that's to eat one kind of fruit on that day. I tried once, but I found that it was worse than not eating anything, because if I allowed myself to eat fruit (I chose banana), on the contrary, I ate a lot and it caused discomfort in my stomach.

So I tried not to eat anything at all, but just drinking water. The duration of fasting is from the time after dinner on the previous day, until before breakfast on the following day, that's around 36hours. Although at first I struggled a lot and I always felt I was hungry, but once I could keep up until a certain time of the day, I didn't feel hungry anymore. On the day after fasting, my mind was so sharp and so clear, I also felt very light, and I found that meditation was especially good after fasting.

Fasting is not only good on the mind and heart level, it is very important on the physical level also. In Indian Ayurveda, it says as our bodies are susceptible to different toxins, fasting is the best way to detox. Ayurveda also says, fasting is the best healing method as it can remove the sources of diseases through detoxification.

Moreover, fasting can cleanse our bodies, boost up immunity and balance metabolism.

Amma even explains it in a much better way, 'Our digestion system is like a machine, unless we fast, it will never take a break. Any machine which works 24hours a day can easily break down. So fasting once a week can maintain our machines in a better way.'

Of course I have to say that, not everyone is suitable for fasting, some people may experience stomachache or feeling weak, if so, you need to do it according to your ability. For example, you can try to fast after lunch, like Buddhist monks, or you can do the fruit fast or juice fast (drink only fruit juice or grass juice), and you should choose a day which you don't need to work. When your body get used to it, then you can try the whole day fasting.

Crazy for bread

Home-made, super yummy whole grain raisin bread.

I love bread, especially those dense and super think whole grain bread. But here in HK, except in the Western bakery and Western supermarkt, you can only find those fluffy white sliced bread, baked with lots of yeast and air. I remember when I first came back to HK, I spot out the so-called 'Whole grain bread' in the local pastry shop, I asked, 'Why is it still so white?' 'Whole grain bread is like this.' It seems that there is a different definition of whole grain bread among us.

As a result, at that time, in order to buy a real loaf of whole grain bread, I would deliberately take the ferry to Central (of course I would do other shopping as well). When I came to know that there was bread machine in the world, I was really excited, and I was so lucky that I got it as a house-warming gift from my good friend. Since then, my house was always full the the aroma of freshly baked bread.

The great invention────Bread machine.

By then, my house was always open to international couchsurfers. Obviously, Europeans and Americans are bread-eating people, so the 1kg bread was always not enough for us every morning. But I remember that sharing real bread, plus putting different spread like fruit jam, peanut butter and fresh fruits was one of the happiest moments in life.

I love to go to a particular Western supermarket to buy bread flour, normally the products they sell are really expensive, but I find that bread flour is particular cheaper than other places. The one I use most to make bread is the already mixed Six Seeds Bread Flour (with Sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, linseeds etc), very convenient to use and the bread tastes exactly the same as those in Europe.

Next is Pumpernickel Bread Flour, it is a kind of very German bread, very very dense and heavy in texture, not everyone like it, but I love it. I love it especially when I can taste the caraway seed when it gives me a spike of taste.

The above are all pre-mix flour, it is not easy to get it done wrongly. But I do love to mix my own flour, esp with Whole Grain Bread Flour and Spelt Flour (An ancient floor widely used in and before Middle Age, it is the ancestor of modern wheat and is very nutritional), also add my favourite sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried fruits and nuts etc, it tastes great.

In fact, there are many benefits of baking your own bread. First, as I live on an island, so I don't need to deliberately go to town to buy bread anymore; it is more economical, as a loaf of read bread in the Western bakery costs more than 30HKD, a package of bread flour only costs 45HKD, and it is sufficient to back 3 loaves of bread; these kinds of bread do not use too much yeast (the function is to help them to expand a lot in size), so it won't create too much gas in your body; for sure there will not be preservatives and chemical in home-made bread; you can select your own organic floor and ingredients, and you don't need to tolerant those unhealthy white bread anymore; you can add as many seeds and nuts as you want, as they are usually kept like jewels that you can only find a few in a loaf; you can eat freshly baked bread whenever and wherever you like, isn't it like dreaming?

Except using bread as sweet like putting jam, I like using bread to make Italian Bruschetta. However, in order to suit my specific vegetarian diet, I skip the favourite ingredient in Italian cooking──galic, but in my opinion, they are more light and delicious!

I first take a slice of thick bread (usually they use baguette, but I think it is very airy, without that dense texture) to toast, can toast it until it is crispy also, then put a spread of thick avocado paste on it (choose the most ripen one, then you can use them like jam), add a pinch of Himalayan salt and toss some extra virgin olive oil on it, you can also put some slices of black olives on it. The secret is, you have to eat it while it is still hot......Yum! With such simple ingredients, the taste is incredibly delicious, quickly try it out!