Vegetables: Part 1.

Ground vegetables. That is, vegetables that grow ON the ground, not vegetables that are ground and pulverized to make "veggie sticks" that are "good for you".

This is an excerpt from Aveline Kushi's "Macrobiotic Cooking":

"Ground vegetables can be divided into 3 major categories: round vegetables, stem and climbing vegetables, an tropical vegetables.

ROUND VEGETABLES: the family of round vegetables includes onions, cabbage, fall and winter squashes, cauliflower, and broccoli. These plants grow very near the ground, and their taste is usually sweeter that root vegetables, which grow beneath the ground, or green and white leafy vegetables, which grow above the ground. Medicinally, round vegetables are beneficial to the stomach, spleen and pancreas."

Also beneficial to the stomach/spleen/pancreas is Millet, a grain that is traditionally eaten across the northern regions of China, Korea and Japan.

I am sure that, if I were to travel to Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, Moldava, Russia, Brazil... in each country they would tell me a specific regional or family recipe to soothe stomach ailments. Which one to use? I have discovered that for me, what works is always to stick with the foods that I truly love. I am not talking about dessert foods, which of course are great but are for dessert only, really... I am talking about real foods here. In this case, I stick with traditional Brazilian. But the knowledge of other traditions never hurts and, sometimes, can come in quite handy.