54 The Complete Home Guide to Herbs, Natural Healing, and Nutrition
helping to finish off half-digested foods.
You can pickle foods easily using apple cider vinegar. This type of vine-
gar helps regulate the balanced output of stomach acid, correcting overac-
tive and underactive conditions. The sour fl avor can really be exciting, and
chiles, which couldn’t ordinarily be eaten raw, can be when softened by the
pickling process.
Salty foods heal and nurture the kidneys, adrenals, bladder, and thy-
roid. Salty flavor is in all sea vegetables, such as kelp, nori, wakame,
and so on. Parsley and celery are considered salty and make an excel-
lent “dried and sprinkled-on” substitute. Do not use too much salt,
as the kidneys will suffer. The dangers of high salt intake are so well
publicized that it is almost more important to say, these days, that a
little good-quality salt should be consumed — some people need more
than others.
“Spicy” really sums up two flavors, hot and pungent. Spicy foods support
and nourish the lungs and colon, opening both and allowing them to oper-
ate with the ease they should. This category includes hot peppers, mustards,
and horseradish. They generally aid circulation, encouraging the delivery of
oxygen and nutrients and the expulsion of waste products and toxins.
Neutral tastes include, among others, rice, potatoes, sago, arrowroot, ba-
nana, yam, turnip, parsnip, and millet. They nurture and ground the body,
feeding and toning. They are one of the most unifying of all flavors, provid-
ing harmony and balance.
Sweet flavor heals and nurtures the stomach, spleen, and pancreas, thus
improving digestion, if used in a balanced way. Some positive sweeteners
are real maple syrup, brown rice syrup, barley syrup, cold-pressed organic
honey, date syrup, whole licorice, sweet herb (Stevia), peppermint leaf, and
certain culinary herbs.
Sugar inhibits the ability of white blood cells to destroy bacteria. Just
two teaspoons is enough to diminish our immune-system response dra-
matically; it also consumes calcium, stripping the body of one of its most
necessary minerals. If sugar is to be used, then real cane sugar is rich in es-
sential minerals and vitamins and provides a better alternative than most.
Blackstrap molasses is sweet and loaded with iron and calcium, which also
makes it a good substitute for sugar. Try using a little licorice on occasion.
Sweet herb (Stevia), which is three hundred to fi ve hundred times sweeter
than sugar, does not feed yeasts, fungi, and other unwanted gastrointestinal
microorganisms, and it helps improve digestion by stimulating the pan-
creas. Made as a tea and kept in the refrigerator, a small amount could be
added to herbal teas. Both this and licorice are very useful for hypo-
glycemic people who need a sugar boost.
We all start life with a sweet tooth — breast milk is sweet and, as such, it
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