Working Alchemy: The Miracle of Miso
by
See related sidebar: Traditional Hand-crafted Miso
Miso
belongs to the highest class of medicines, those which prevent disease and
strengthen the body through continued usage.
— Dr. Shinichiro Akizuki,
Director,
As the collective consciousness in
the
Clearly, we face daunting challenges to our quality of life and indeed, to life
itself. Today's threat calls for a miracle of transformative scope. We look up
to the government and to pharmaceutical companies for a fix, knowing full well
that their bag of tricks is limited to petrochemical drugs and antibiotics.
We're in need of some alchemy capable of transmuting sickness into health, fear
into wisdom, hysteria into harmony.
In our search for such an alchemical remedy, I'd like to shine a light inward
toward our own biological terrain, and downward to the nurturing black earth.
Seeing ourselves as co-creators of our terrain—that is, of our daily biological
condition—and then understanding that terrain as the single most significant
factor in whether we succumb or not, empowers us mightily.
Pondering which daily food grounds me most deeply and most thoroughly enlivens
my terrain, I know the answer immediately. An earthy, aged, fermented food
dating back at least 2500 years to ancient
Food for the Ages
Scientists now believe humanity's first cultivated plants were not grains and
vegetables, but rather the microorganisms that cause food to ferment. They
discovered—undoubtedly by accident at first—that adding the right amount of
salt to food—cultivated friendly bacteria and enzymes not only prevented
spoiling and deadly toxins, but also transformed the food's molecular
structure, making it more healthful, digestible and delicious.
Fermentation, they realized, acted like an external digestive system that
preserved the food and qualitatively transformed it. Compare sulfurous cabbage
with sparkling sauerkraut, mild milk with tangy yogurt, bland soybeans with the
deep, earthy flavor of miso.
Miso fermentation is alchemy working its miracle with
microscopic bacteria, yeasts, molds and enzymes on our daily food: grains,
beans and salt. It is very similar to the miracle that transpires within our
intestines where, with the help of friendly intestinal flora, we transmute food
into blood via the hair—like villi on our intestinal
walls. And it is like the miracle that springs up from the earth where, thanks
to myriad microorganisms and the warming sun, germinating seeds burst into
green shoots.
Our life blood begins in our small intestine (called the cauldron by the
Chinese), where we cook/transmute food into blood. The intestines are, in fact,
our ancient brain; they actually make neurotransmitters just as our brain's neocortex does. Virtually all cases of learning
disabilities and attention deficit challenges involve intestinal imbalances and
inappropriate food choices. Miso's alchemical gift
nourishes this ancient brain and cauldron of our life.
Alchemy (from the Arabic, meaning black earth) draws the parallel
between the miracles of gardening, fermenting and digestion/assimilation, our
own internal fermentation. Alchemy suggests that fermentation is actually a
further cultivation of a food beyond what it draws from the garden soil.
Miso epitomizes the brilliant diversity possible with
that fermentation. Japanese mythology extols miso as
a gift from the gods for health, happiness and longevity.
As a food, miso can be thought of as an all-purpose
and delicious seasoning for flavoring soups and vegetable dishes, or for making
salad dressings, sauces and spreads. It is used in many of the same ways that
we in the West would use salt. It is a condiment in the sense that only a few
spoonfuls are used per person on a daily basis due to its high salt content
(4-12% by weight). At the same time, miso is such a
concentrated source of high-quality protein and other nutrients that only a
small amount enhances and dresses up grain, bean and vegetable dishes.
As the high level medicine that Dr. Akizuki refers
to, miso creates a truly resilient terrain in those
who consume small amounts of it daily in soups, sauces, condiments and salad
dressings. There has been no specific work done with miso
and anthrax that I know of, and my thrust here is to offer way-of-life foods
that strengthen the body and mind rather than heroic remedies that fit into the this-for-that pharmaceutical approach. That said, one researcher introduced some miso
into a petri dish containing a culture of the disease
bacteria Streptococcus. The good bacteria in the miso
overcame and completely destroyed the Streptococcus!
Cultures throughout the world developed fermented foods that enhanced the foods
they consumed. Most of these fermented foods and drinks rely on the action of
lacto-bacilli. Miso making originated among
grain-eating farmers and gardeners, people whose lives and livelihood were
rooted in the earth and whose diet centered around
grains, beans and vegetables. Among nomadic people whose lifestyle did not
permit staying in one place for years at a time, yogurt became a digestive aid.
And among animal-herding, meat-eating cultures, people cultured grapes into
wine. Wine helps break down the toxins in animal foods, whether it is used to
marinade the meat or is drunk with the meat. Ancient people, more in tune with
Nature and with their own nature, were sensitive to the energetics
of the foods they ate. They were aware of the warming or cooling, drying or
dampening, acid or alkaline qualities they experienced as they ate particular
foods. They knew how to influence a food's energetic qualities by cooking with
fire and through fermentation (cooking without fire).
Like modern food scientists, these ancient people recognized the great value of
the soybean as a complement to grains. However, unlike modern food scientists,
the ancients recognized how extremely difficult to digest, and how over-cooling
raw and unfermented soybeans were to the body. Ingeniously, they devised—in
concert with natural micro-organisms in their environment—an intricate
fermentation process that transformed the problematic soybean into a rich,
hearty, alchemical substance of high order.
An aged, fermented soybean paste with living enzymes and friendly bacteria, miso is made by mixing cooked legumes (usually soybeans,
though chickpeas, black soybeans, aduki beans, even
peanuts make delectable misos) with sea salt and a
cultured grain called koji (usually rice or
barley). This fermenting mixture is then aged in wooden vats, sometimes for as
long as three years.
Like a fine wine, each miso has its own unique color,
flavor and aroma. Miso colors range from rich
chocolate browns to loamy blacks, from russets to deep ambers, clarets and
cinnamon reds, from warm yellows to light tans. Flavors range from hearty and
savory to sweet and delicate.
In selecting a miso, you would usually choose darker,
longer-fermented misos for colder seasons; lighter,
shorter-fermented ones for warmer seasons and climates; and red, moderately
fermented ones year round. To balance your internal condition, you look also at
the internal climate of your terrain. To strengthen a weak, deficient,
over-acid cold condition, you would go to a dark, longer-fermented variety. And
to balance an over-heating, excessive condition, a lighter, sweeter, less salty
miso is preferred.
An excellent source of digestive enzymes, friendly bacteria, essential amino
acids, vitamins (including vitamin B-12), easily assimilated protein (twice as
much as meat or fish and 11 times more than milk) and minerals, miso is low in calories and fat. It breaks down and
discharges cholesterol, neutralizes the effects of smoking and environmental
pollution, alkalinizes the blood and prevents radiation sickness. Miso has been used to treat certain types of heart disease
and cancer. It helps with bed wetting, tobacco poisoning, hangovers, burns and
wounds. A fine food for traveling (dry it by roasting over a low flame in
skillet), miso gives warmth and life and the wisdom
of age to those who consume it daily.
Studies in Japan's Tohoku University have isolated chemicals from miso that cancel out the effects of some carcinogens. We
are all inevitably exposed to carcinogens in our foods and our environment. We
are also exposed to non-ionizing radiation (ELFs and EMFs) given off by power lines, transformers, electrical
stations, computers, hair dryers, microwave ovens and air conditioners.
Miso and Radiation Sickness
Thanks to nuclear accidents and leakage worldwide, we may be exposed to
ionizing radiation as well. In the decades since the first atomic bombings,
scientists have confirmed that miso (as well as sea vegetables) help protect the body from
radiation by binding and discharging radioactive elements. Two weeks after the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, all miso and seaweed
disappeared from European store shelves.
At the time of the world's first plutonium atomic bombing, on August 9, 1945,
two hospitals were literally in the shadow of the blast, about one mile from
the epicenter in Nagasaki. American scientists declared the area totally
uninhabitable for 75 years. At University Hospital 3000 patients suffered
greatly from leukemia and disfiguring radiation burns. This hospital served its
patients a modern fare of sugar, white rice, and refined white flour products.
Another hospital was St. Francis Hospital, under the direction of Shinichiro Akizuki, M.D. Although this hospital was located even
closer to the blast's epicenter than the first, none of the workers or patients
suffered from radiation sickness. Dr. Akizuki had
been feeding his patients and workers brown rice, miso
soup, vegetables and seaweed every day. The Roman Catholic Church—and the
residents of Nagasaki—called this a modern day miracle. Meanwhile, Dr. Akizuki and his co-workers disregarded the American warning
and continued going around the city of Nagasaki in straw sandals visiting the
sick in their homes.
Since the 1950s, Soviet weapons factories had been dumping wastes into Karachar Lake in Chelyabinsk, an
industrial city 900 miles east of Moscow. Many local residents began to suffer
from radiation symptoms and cancer. In 1985, Lidia Yamchuk and Hanif Sharimardanov, medical doctors in Chelyabinsk,
changed their approach with patients suffering from leukemia, lymphoma and
other disorders associated with exposure to nuclear radiation. They began
incorporating miso soup into their diet. They wrote:
"Miso is helping some of our patients with
terminal cancer to survive. Their blood improved as soon as they began to use miso daily."
Over a 25-year period, the Japanese Cancer Institute tested and tracked 260,000
subjects, dividing them into three groups. Group one ate miso
soup daily, group two consumed miso two or three
times a week, while group three ate no miso at all.
The results were stark: those who had not eaten any miso
showed a 50% higher incidence of cancer than those who had eaten miso.
Twelve years ago, Dr. Evelyn Waselus, a California
surgeon suffering from breast cancer, underwent a double radical mastectomy.
Reading how Dr. Akizuki had used miso
as an external plaster to treat people with radiation burns, she applied a miso plaster on her own wounded breasts, and for the first
time in months was relieved of the gnawing, burning pain she, like so many
cancer patients, had been experiencing.
Later Dr. Waselus opened Universal Life Center in
Weed, California, where she works with cancer and AIDS patients. Many of these
people cannot maintain sufficient body weight because they have lost their
natural powers of digestion and assimilation. Dr. Waselus
premixes their food with three-year old barley miso, then allows it to sit for several hours. The miso predigests the food so patients can more easily
assimilate nutrients needed to maintain body weight. Dr. Waselus
prescribes miso soup, again with three-year barley miso, to her outpatients undergoing chemotherapy and/or
radiation treatments at local hospitals. For such people, restoration of the
beneficial microorganisms of the intestines is crucial. Her patients do not
generally lose their hair, as usually happens with chemotherapy, Dr. Waselus reports. (There is a direct correlation between the
intestinal villi and the hair on our heads.) For
patients receiving radiation treatment, Dr. Waselus
administers an external plaster of miso mixed with
aloe vera extract on the area being irradiated, with
excellent results.
Spiritual fulfillment and biological resilience in these troubled times comes,
I believe, by looking inward and downward. What we find there is something as
humble as miso, a simple, whole food alchemically
transformed by the power of microorganisms, giving us the inner resources and
intestinal force to transmute even the most terrible threats to our own health,
happiness and longevity, as well as that of the earth.
For more information about miso, please call
A longtime student of yin/yang and the energetics of food, Anna Bond offers Way of Life consultations from her home in the Green Mountains of Vermont. She also works with herbs (Chinese, Western and Amazon), essential oils, and chi kung. Anna welcomes kindred spirited folks to her place where she teaches wild food foraging, biological gardening, and deep ecology. With her synthesizing, far-ranging insights and experiences, Anna excels in going straight to the heart of things, distilling complicated matters and enlightening murky ones.