Hunger and Hope

At first I didn’t want to write about the topic of hunger because it is an issue that is very hard to resolve, but my researches are now telling me that there is hope to resolve hunger.

Here in the Philippines, the less fortunate Filipinos have been very creative in fighting hunger. One extreme example is hanging a dried fish or “tuyo” at the middle of the table so that each member of the family can smell it right under the nose while eating only rice. Another example is to add any sauce on top of the rice, or others would add the oil from cooked pork. Even the middle class Filipinos would do that to suppress hunger in between meals, if they are not health conscious. Others would lengthen the availability of rice in their homes by cooking rice congee, instead of the usual cooked rice.

The more unbelievable ways to fight hunger are countless, but people practicing them are exposed to a lot of health risks which include food poisoning and of course, malnutrition.

The past week, I’ve been researching about "Spirulina", a blue-green algae that can help me and others prevent cancer, the main reason why I became interested about it, in the first place. It is now called the "21st century food", because of its potential to solve malnutrition. A lot of studies have been conducted, involving preschool children, to analyze the potency of its vitamins. It can be produced easily therefore there is hope that not only hunger but more importantly, malnutrition, can be resolved.

I’m glad that United Nations has set up an institution to fight malnutrition , and this is the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina against Malnutrition (IIMSAM). This organization hopes that Spirulina would save the lives of almost 900 million people worldwide that are affected by malnutrition.

"In the year 2009, IIMSAM along with the Republic of Honduras and an increasing number of Member States of the United Nations that support the mandate of the organization such as Argentina, United Kingdom, China, India, Russian Federation, Qatar, Italy, Jamaica, and all the Central and South American countries and many more including IIMSAM Official Member and Supporting States, would initiate a Draft-Resolution in the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly to promote the use of Spirulina against severe malnutrition and make it a key-driver to achieve global food security and bridge the health divide." - www.iimsam.org

Traditional Chinese Medicine

At last I can now really talk about Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM. With the current global economic crisis and the discovery of more bad effects of prescription drugs everyday, I feel that it is about time we people in the East go back to the traditional ways of our ancestors to treat diseases which is really mostly TCM but fully understanding its principles, while the rest of the world should try to be enlightened with the principles of TCM, which was a product of 5,000 years of study by the Chinese.

Or maybe I am late to say that because TCM is already practiced in every part of the world. Of course there are still a lot of people who are not aware of TCM and these are the people I’d like to reach this time. Don’t worry because I am just a layman like you and I became interested in TCM because I’ve seen that there is so much logic in its principles. Information Technology deals with logic so it will be easy even for IT professionals like me to understand and appreciate TCM.

TCM views the body as a unified organic whole. It

• believes in balancing the body as a whole rather than treating separate parts
• focuses on prevention rather than crisis management of a disease

TCM is all about balancing and harmony, and balancing refers to YIN and YANG. Disturbing the balance between the YIN and YANG will cause illnesses.

YIN and YANG represents all of opposite principles found in the universe and cannot exist without the other.


Examples of YIN-YANG:

NIGHT - DAY
DARK - LIGHT
COLD - WARM
NEGATIVE - POSITIVE
PASSIVE - ACTIVE
FEMALE - MALE
SOLID - HOLLOW

(The hollow organs are the gall bladder, small intestine, stomach, large intestine and urinary bladder. Solid organs are the liver, heart, spleen, lungs and kidney.

“YIN and YANG” is a very basic logical concept. My next topic about TCM will be the 5 Elements, which deals with more interesting logic and in relation again to YIN and YANG.

Start young!

Inspiring people to be healthy is not an easy task for me, but a lot of help come my way to be able to accomplish that. The topic about team sports for example, reminds me to persuade people to start young in the quest for good health. Engaging in team sports will develop that good habit of physical fitness, aside from having the opportunity to socialize with friends.

A kid who participates in team sports will know the importance of targeting a goal. In volleyball for example, a simple "serve" can meet the goal to make the ball go over the net and inside the court. That simple goal of serving successfully can defeat the opponent.

Have you watched a game where the cheerleaders who perform at the middle of the field are the parents of the players? Well, this is just to give parents an idea how to really inspire their children to strive for their goal of winning the game! The Shop Wiki website can help you with your cheerleading outfits, and you will find more information about any sport in this website.

Starting young in team sports will help give a person the discipline to be fit at all times.

Sharing health information and TCM

Exactly a month ago, my post was about "Learning TCM", and during that time, I've started to be serious about learning the principles of TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine, which I've said I found very amusing. The past month however, was not focused on just TCM because I had to do a lot of researches about some specific chronic diseases. It was a fulfilling task though, because I was able to share significant health information to my relatives and friends, and also through my new blog, "Amusing Tips".

Yesterday, I've attended a seminar which was focused on the principles of TCM and I was reminded it's about time for me to share my learnings. It will not be easy to understand but once we have internalized those TCM principles, the rest will be easy because there is a lot of logic in those principles. I promise to start sharing those principles in my next post, but I will also share in my other blogs, if relevant, other significant or important health information that I will encounter.

In the meantime, to give you an idea on how holistic TCM is, here is an example: Fear affects the kidney. So whenever a person experiences sudden fear, there is a chance that person will accidentally urinate on his or her underwear. Have you experienced that? The ear is the window to the kidney. If the kidney has a problem that will need attention, your ear will have a sound, like ringing of the ear or tinnitus. Amazing, isn't it? That is just one example to show why TCM is both amusing and amazing.