kichadi mishap

[healthymusician]

Hi Shelley,

I ate kichadi last night for dinner. This morning I drank dandelion tea with ginger, cardamon and cinnamon and followed it with more kichadi. About 2-3 hours later I had MAJOR heartburn. Unfortuntely I forgot my water today, which always helps, but I am wondering why this happened? Is it possible to have too much digestive fire? This along with menstrual cramps (which I ask about in another post), for which I finally popped a tylenol, caused me to throw up, right in front of my students at work! I guess that is just as good because I don't want any yucky tylenol in me anyway. Anyway, just wondering what was going on in there. If it helps to know, I have been having very thin bowel movements for a while now, so maybe things are just a little screwy inside.

Thank you!

[shelley]

oh NO you poor thing!!!

That was the worst part of being a teacher, being so tied to the classroom schedule. Always had problems finding time for bathroom breaks, especially since a group always came in to hang out at lunch time LOL!

Yep, it is very possible to increase digestive fire too much. When eating Kichadi you don't need so much spicy tea, peppermint is better because it still increases the power of digestion but has a cooling effect rather than hot effect overall.

If it happens again, just drink/eat something like yogurt, raita, kefir or milk, or take calcium, as soon as you possibly can. When the indigestion happens hours after eating it's due to too much stomach acids. Calcium will help to neutralize it. That's what Tums mostly are, calcuim. But they use a form of aluminum too so they're not great.

In everything you want to find a balance - when we're weak the pendulum is too far to the left of center. You don't want it right at the center, quiet and still. If you overdo your intervention it just swings way to the right! and thus you're out of balance yet again.

The Simple Soup recipe in the Kitchen forum is a perfect recipe for eating something that is totally easy to digest without increasing digestive fire once you've established good healthy digestive fire and want to merely maintain it.

[healthymusician]

great. thank you. I am totally getting the hang of this.

Another quick question: In my stools there are off-whitish flecks. It doesn't look like rice per say, but maybe more like couscous. Gross! This is the case almost always, regardless of what I eat. It stopped briefly during a really healthy period. Do you think this is parasites?

I haven't been able to find the herbs you recommend at the health food store. Do you recommend Clarkia or another commercial brand of parasite cleaser?

Thanks again!

[shelley]

Check our Amazon links, most of the herbs are there. Clarkia is good, and Parastroy, for parasite cleansing.

White flecks can be bits of garlic or sesame seeds. They don't digest much, particularly sesame seeds.