Another magical property of cacao is the way it acts as a platform for other foods. It has a synergistic effect on the ingredients that you mix it with that increases their effect exponentially. For that reason, I often put a little cacao in with my other superfoods. You don’t need a lot, just half a teaspoon of powder or a teaspoon of nibs, but it gives them a lift, an extra edge. Instead of just taking maca straight, mix a little chocolate in and the effects will be maca to the power of maca, maca squared. It’s like cacao raises the vibration of whatever it comes into contact with, it shines a spotlight on it and allows it be fully who it is, it brings out the very best qualities of a food. Naturally, this works in reverse as well; a tablespoon of maca or a teaspoon of suma in your chocolate rounds out the cacao experience, brings an extra depth to the cacao magic, enhances the alchemy.
Many religions teach that the road to enlightenment is through a balance of the opposing forces within us. Life as we know it is about duality, and what propels us on is the searching for a resolution within that dynamic, a striving to find the unity, bliss and oneness behind it all. It is a perpetual dance between yin and yang, the dark and the light, heaven and earth. The more we learn to combine those energies, to allow them to co-exist within us, the closer we get to reaching nirvana. Cacao is the food of enlightenment because it is a sunfood (yang) and it is also the food of the goddess (yin). It brings together the two polarities within us. How does it do this? Culturally, we are taught to think of foods as either good for us and boring, or bad for us and fun; “you can’t have your cake and eat it.” When I was a child, eaters were divided into two clear-cut categories: the sanctimonious, weird and dull people who ate brown rice and lentils, or the life-affirming brigade who embraced everything and drank, smoked and ate dead animals. Gradually, over the decades, those stereotypes started to dissolve as the do-gooders realized they had to acknowledge their dark side, they couldn’t abstain forever unless they really did want to be miserable; and the omnivores started to get sick in ever-increasing numbers. Cacao dissolves all those stereotypes completely. Here is the richest, darkest, most delicious, decadent, luxurious, divine-tasting food ever, and it also happens to be one of the number one dietary sources of minerals and anti-oxidants on the planet. One slice of one of my chocolate cakes has more nutrition in it than what most people would consider a healthy meal, something like stirfry and noodles. When eaten on a regular basis, cacao really does blow your mind, because it blasts all your preconceptions of what is good and bad out of the window. It allows you to live beyond duality, to dance in the one. You can discover your darkness and live in your light all at the same time. It is the mother and the father energy all rolled into one; it nurtures you and comforts you, then it kicks you out the door and tells you to get the hell on with it.
What else? Yes, there’s more, there’s always more. Because cacao is the food of abundance. It helps us to experience the universe as infinite and eternal; it opens us up to the sense that we can keep flowing, keep living, keep loving. Life stops being a series of deaths and rebirths, and turns into a continual ecstatic “Yes!”
In the UK, 2006 was the year of the goji berry.
It became the latest fad trend, mentioned in the same breath as a list of skinny A-list celebrities, flying off the shelves of Fresh & Wild, the subject of BBC News articles. So is there anything behind the hype? Are goji berries just overpriced raisins? The Chinese have been eating gojis for over 2,000 years, and are mildly amused at our sudden “discovery” of what is to them an everyday food. The Chinese consume gojis in many forms: they add them to rice and meat when cooking, they make them into wine, and they are a popular tea. In the West, they are more commonly consumed as a snack, either on their own or in bars and trail mixes, or in the form of juice (although most products marketed as goji juice actually have a very low goji content). Like tomatoes, peppers and potatoes, they are a member of the nightshade family. I often substitute them for dried tomatoes in savory recipes as they have a similar intense, vivid flavor. They can easily be found in Chinese herbalists as well as health food shops, although the quality is variable. Generally, the more bright orange in color gojis are the more likely they are to have been sprayed with high levels of pesticides—the deeper red, the better.
The berries grow on shrubs, and those that grow in the Chinese Ningxia region are said to be very high quality. Here they grow along the floodplains of the Yellow River, renowned for its mineral-rich silt. This is likely to be why goji berries are said to contain monatomic trace elements and be high in ormus energy (see p. 67): they are grown in ancient, mineral-rich soil. So great is the popularity of gojis, and their contribution to the economy, that in Ningxia they hold an annual goji berry festival. The berries must be harvested carefully, and cannot be touched because that will cause them to oxidize and turn black. They are picked by hand, by shaking them off the bushes and onto mats where they are sun-dried or taken to factories for dehydrating.
Admittedly, there is some hype around goji berries in the West. In their dried form, they do not contain 500 times the vitamin C of oranges—fresh off the bush, maybe, but as anyone knows, vitamin C is very sensitive to heat and light and easily destroyed. Although they contain antioxidants that are known to prevent aging, it is unlikely that there are Chinese people who lived to be over 200 years old by eating them. Eating goji berries alone will not make you lose weight, although as part of a healthy diet they will fulfill your nutritional requirements and help you tune into your body’s natural appetite. But like all the superfoods in this book, they have a strong nutritional profile that assists the body in many different ways. And they also have that magical energetic quality, a “je ne sais quoi” which makes them uniquely irresistible. The Chinese say the only side effect of eating goji berries is laughing too much! I believe their popularity is largely down to the “have your cake and eat it” factor. Like cacao, gojis are fun. They taste like yummy little sweets, and you want to eat them, there is no element of chore or duty involved. But at the same time you are feeding your body one of the most nutrient-dense fruits on the planet, and giving yourself high doses of many vitamins, minerals and amino acids that you might be lacking.
In TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), goji berries are a yin food. They assist the liver and kidneys, enhance the immune system, and improve eyesight. Like ginseng, they are a tonic fruit, and nourish the heart and the internal organs. They are a valuable protein source, containing 18 of the 22 amino acids, including all eight essential amino acids, which makes them a great food for vegans, vegetarians, and developing children. They contain 22 minerals and trace minerals, thanks to the quality of the soil they are grown in. They are one of the best plant sources of iron and selenium, as well as containing significant amounts of calcium, potassium, and zinc. They are rich in vitamins, particularly the B group of vitamins, and exceptionally high in beta-carotene—more than carrots or apricots. It is the presence of carotenoids that gives them their reputation for improving eyesight. They are widely recognized for the amounts of polysaccharides they contain, which boost the immune system and reduce the risk of cancer. It is this combination of carotenoids