Roshi's Raw Lifestyle » instructional

how to make sauerkraut

rishi — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:14:00 +0000

One of the ways that I keep my diet balanced is by eating a portion of fermented foods daily. Most traditional cultures include some fermented foods in their diets, because of their contribution to a healthy body and their extremely long shelf life. Dishes and drinks, such as sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, cheese, kefir, and pickles, are chocked full of healthy bacteria that promote regular digestion and enliven the body. My favorite way to get my daily dose of bacteria (besides Kombucha, that is) is a nice sauerkraut. Sauerkraut has been made in Central and Eastern Europe for hundreds (possibly thousands) of years. Like its name implies, its sour, a little sweet, and quite pungent. My favorite thing about it is the super simple preparation.

Ingredients

* 2 heads of cabbage
* 4-5 tbsp real salt

Directions

Shred the cabbage heads using a grater or food processor. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cabbage and salt. Using your hands, massage the salt into the cabbage. As you massage the salt in, juices from the cabbage will start releasing, and the cabbage strips will start to shrivel up a bit. After about 5 minutes, you’ll notice plenty of juice collecting in the bottom of the bowl. At this point, place a small plate over the cabbage and then place a clean heavy object on top of the plate. The weight is meant to submerge the cabbage pieces into the liquid to allow for healthy fermentation. You may cover the bowl with a muslin cloth to ensure nothing gets in to the mix. Allow the mix to sit for 7 days. Thennnnn eat up!

For more variety and flavor, feel free to mix in other vegetables. My favorite way to make sauerkraut is to add 4-5 leaves of collard greens, a 1/4 tsp of red chili powder, and the juice of one lemon (see the result in the third picture). Get creative and see how you like it!

–Rishi

sheetali pranayama

rishi — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:17:57 +0000

Sheetali pranayama is a breathing technique to reduce heat in the body. It is often referred to as the “Cooling Breath”. Using the cooling tendencies of the tongue, sheetali pranayama only allows cool, relaxed breaths to enter the body. These breaths have the effect of lowering the temperature of the body, as well as cooling the mind. People with disorders resulting from excess heat in the body/mind, such as high blood pressure, acidity, or ulcers will benefit greatly from the daily practice of this pranayama. Remember, since this technique is very cooling to the body, it is preferrable to practice it in warm weather compared to cold weather.

For further reading, check out these links:
http://yogashaastra.blogspot.com/2008/05/beat-heat-with-sheetali-sheetkari.html
http://www.healthandyoga.com/HTML/news/sheetali.html
http://living.oneindia.in/yoga-spirituality/yoga/sheetali-surya-bhedan-pranayama.html

–Rishi

series of pranayama videos

rishi — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:25:43 +0000

Since I got back from India, I’ve been wanting to do a series of videos on pranayama, since most of the videos I found that actually explained the techniques well were in Hindi. Now that I finally have some free time, I’m going to really get these started. I’ll try to make these as easy to follow and as full of useful information as possible. I won’t go into too much detail, however, because there is a lot of supplemental info about pranayama all over the web.

So here they are, the first two videos in our series on pranayama:

Pranayama – Part 1: Introduction

Pranayama – Part 2: How to Sit

If you have any comments or questions about the videos, please leave them below.

I hope you enjoy these!

–Rishi