9.10.2012 印度的黃金──Ghee

金黃的Ghee與烘過的麵包搭配一流

Ghee為梵文，指的是一種經淨化的奶油（Clarified butter），顏色金黃，香味濃郁，口感甚重，在南亞的菜式中被廣為使用。同時，它也有很高的藥用價值。

第一次接觸Ghee是三年前在印度的時候，那時我正在服食一種印度Ayurveda醫學裡推介，能淨化肝臟的印度草藥Neem（苦楝），能淨化肝臟便也能同時解決皮膚多豆豆的問題。還記得那時在印北由於每天也喝一杯當地最普遍的Lemon Ginger Honey Tea，令我面上長滿前所未有地多的豆豆。藏醫說我的肝臟運作得不太好。

在一些朋友的介紹下，認識了Neem。在印度買草藥丸就如在香港買成藥一樣，大部份雜貨店或超級市場的貨架上總有一大堆草藥任君選擇，價廉物美。你可能會問：「隨便服食會出亂子嗎？」對，其實服食草藥時也要跟據每個人的體質，本人便因此而碰上了一個小問題。

服食Neem後，本人的皮膚確實變得十分滑溜，也甚少再長豆豆。可是我卻常常覺得異常口喝，無論喝多少水也不夠。

直到我到達南印的Ashram，它裡面有一個Ayurveda的診所，我隨便跟義工職員聊起這個問題，她才點醒了我：「看你的樣子，你應該是Vata（體質的一種，這種體質的構成以空氣為主），而Neem正正就有抽乾的特質，因此你便乾上加乾。」我頓時恍然大悟，她繼續解釋：「不過只要配合Ghee一齊服食，你便能繼續使用Neem了。」

於是我立即跑到Ashram裡的雜貨店，買了由Ashram裡養的母牛之牛奶所姑提煉的Ghee（可惜翌年她們便停止在Ashram裡自行生產Ghee了，這些home-made Ghee與大量生產的包裝Ghee之質素實在差天拱地）。於是，我於每次用餐時，也在食物裡混入一湯匙Ghee，它除了令食物的味道更香濃，亦即時解決了我被「抽乾」的問題。

自此，我便愛上了這股金黃香濃的味道。因此，雖然我不吃牛奶、一般牛油和芝士（因著難以消化的原因），卻依然會吃具有藥用價值的Ghee。

Ghee除了能滋潤我的脾胃，也能幫助吸收食物。

認識我的人也知道我吃很多，卻不怎麼長胖，就是不吸收了。Ayurveda裡指出，Ghee能把草藥的功效帶到最深的人體組織，幫助吸收。在Ayurveda裡，便常常利用Ghee作為媒介，混和了草藥後，便直接作按摩使用。此外，在Ayurveda的排毒過程裡，也用上Ghee，因為Ghee能把內臟裡的毒素自然地吸收出來。

此外，Ghee擁有差不多各種油類中最高的煙點（Smoke point），意思是即使用Ghee來高溫烹調，它也不會變質和喪失營養價值。

Ghee也十分八搭，基本上用於任何食物中也十分美味。在印度美食中，Ghee便最廣泛用於北印的主食Naan（印度的厚薄餅）以及南印的主食Dosa（用米粉和豆粉做的薄煎餅）上。本人亦甚為喜愛在烘過的home-made bread上塗一層Ghee，然後再塗其他果醬。

事實上，如此美味和有醫學價值的Ghee已被歐美的有機食物世界發掘及生產。因此，在有機食物店也能找到由歐美生產的Ghee。不過在香港，有機Ghee的價錢確實很貴，一小瓶約200克已承惠約100元。要找便宜一點的，可到重慶大廈的印度雜貨店，由星加坡入口，450克也只是約50元。

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!

My specific vegetarian diet

As I was overseas in the past few years, I have developed a specific diet which not everyone can comprehend easily.

My lovely Sweet Basil, not only it is good looking, its fragrance helps to expel mosquitoes, and it is a very delicious salad ingredient.

First of all, I am vegetarian, but I am not a simple vegetarian. From the original philosophy, it is an integrated spiritual diet which infuses Chinese medicine, Indian Ayurveda (A natural therapy which mainly uses herbs, its philosophy is very similar to Chinese medicine), European biological concept and wisdoms from everywhere in the world. I found that I can choose to extract the best from them, they are complementary, but not conflicting.

I believe ‘What you eat is what you are.’ And our body is just like a temple, we have to respect and love it. Will you offer rubbish to the deities in the temp? Of course not! So why would we eat junk food? This is totally unreasonable, so we have to make sure we know what we put in our mouths.

In the perspective of Chinese medicine, my body constitution is cold. So since young, I had quit eating cold food, 99% of the time I don’t drink cold drink and cold sweet soup. Since then, my menstruation pain had lessened. I even tested it when I was a student by drinking a few cans of cold drinks in the month, my pain was increased (of course this is one of the reasons only). I hadn’t eaten watermelon (its property is cold) for ages, but I couldn’t resist eating with other volunteers, after I finished my farm work under the hot sun in Long Vally workcamp. The result was my cycle came 5days earlier!

From the perspective of Ayurveda, my body constitution is air and fire (Vata-Pitta), so I should avoid eating dry, gas-producing, chili and bitter food. In order to balance my body constitution (just like the five-elements concept in Chinese medicine), I have to eat more oily and heavier food. Therefore, I always remember to replenish my oil, like always eating avocados and I generously put a lot of extra virgin olive oil in my salad, to balance my dry body.

From the perspective of European biological food, I have tasted the differences between organic and not organic food, I have also tasted the differences between food with added preservatives and chemicals. There are plenty of fresh, organic and suitable for vegetarians delicacies in the supermarkets or cooperatives in Europe, such as quinoa, couscous, polenta (grains made with maize), spelt and tempeh (fermented food made with soy beans) etc. And the most important point is that they are much cheaper than those in Hong Kong!

From the meditation spiritual perspective, I don’t eat the five strong smell food (like onion, galic and chives etc) and ginger. 2500 years ago, Buddha had already pointed out that these kinds of food will arouse our sentiment and desires (one Italian friend jokingly pointed out that, no wonder they are so passionate, because Italian cuisine is full of onion and garlic.). If the purpose of your meditation is to empty all your emotion and five senses, you wouldn’t want to put double efforts if you could just put half.

Besides, learning bit by bit from different part of the world, I also learnt that not to drink one hour before and after eating, nor during eating. Because liquid can dilute the gastric acid, slow down the digestion. There are reports about drinking a glass of cold drink during meal increases the risk of having heart diseases.

Although I love eating different kinds of cheese when I was in Europe, my body is still not European, just like we don’t have the enzyme that helps to decompose alcohol, so our faces easily turn red and we are drunk easily, my stomach also feel slow when I have eaten cheese and milk products. So I seldom eat them. As I also don’t eat eggs, I am almost a vegan.

I don’t drink because my liver is not so good. I don’t take caffeine, because this is not the essential nutrition for our body, its diuretic nature is also a burden to my dry body (not suitable to Vata-Pitta). Except boosting one’s energy, I really don’t see any other positive functions for our body.

As a result of all the above factors, my specific diet is developed.

Many people asked, ‘If you don’t eat this and don’t eat that, you don’t have anything to eat then?’ If you speak from a Chinese style vegetarian perspective, yes, because the Chinese style just has mixed veggies hot pot, mixed veggies hot pot with red yeast, mock chicken, mock goose, stir fry veggies etc. They are boring and do not provide enough nutrients.

However, the world of vegetarian is very open, wide and colourful, the food is also incredibly delicious. Let me share my secret, for example, we can get everything we need from a bowl of salad.

Let’s look at what I usually put in my salad:

The core food: Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots (full of dietary fibre) and extra virgin olive oil.

My secret receipt is to put: Red beetroots (full of iron), Jicamas (help to quench our thirst, full of proteins and vitamin C), quinoa (full of proteins and calcium), avocados (fat, vitamin B and E etc), different nuts like cashew, walnuts and hazelnuts (proteins, carbohydrate, vitamin B, different minerals and calcium), different seeds like sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds (full of proteins, vitamin B and E), different dried fruits (iron, vitamin C and antioxidant), flaxseed powder (only the grounded one release its omega 3 nutrient), brewer’s yeast (full of proteins).

The nutrient which vegans always lack of is vitamin B12, usually people eat vitamin supplements, but I found the oat mix with grains’ essence by Greenmax with fortified vitamin B12. So I usually add this powder instead of milk into my porridge in the morning breakfast.

So you see, only s bowl of salad plus a glass of oat mix drink can supply you with all the nutrients your body needs, so do you still have excuses that eating animals is for your health?

The all-encompassing salad, plus heavy taste pumpkin soup with different vitamins and minerals. They can fill your stomach, but you will feel light and healthy after eating them.

In fact, it is not difficult to be a vegetarian, it all depends if you have the heart, persistency and determination. Be the change you want to see! If you want the world to be better, you should start off from yourself! Let me introduce my favourite vegetarian restaurants next time.