Food Activation – Erika Tangari’s SOL (Secret of Life)
This information in this article is not intended to replace the diagnosis, treatment and services of a physician. Any recommendations and indications are at the reader’s discretion. For severe or life-threatening conditions, always seek immediate medical attention.
What is food activation? What does it mean?
You could also term it eating ‘live’ food or food which is alive. That is a concept which, when eating animals is one long known in many cultures but considered abhorrent in Western societies.
Food activation is moving the things you eat from a dormant state to one in which they are prepared or preparing to move into the next phase of their life cycle.
Meat is dead, there’s no two ways about it.
Most start with a plant based diet, but in actual fact live food used to and can/could still include milk, cheese, eggs, yoghurt as well as more modern day familiar live foods like kombucha and kefir. Bear in mind that if you buy either of these in the supermarket – including the health food shop – they are no longer alive because they have been pasteurised, same for cheese, milk and most yoghurt is no longer live. It is easy to see in kombucha. If a kombucha drink is live after about four days a ‘mother’ will start to form on the surface. (There are never any mothers in supermarket kombucha…)
The less you cook your food the better. So eating food that is alive has gotta be the best. Certainly this is argued by proponents of more than once section and version of healthy eating.
So basically activating your food is eating food that is as alive as possible.
There are many arguments as to why this is the best thing to do.
Lots of people will tell you that legumes and beans are bad for you because they ferment in your insides and give you gas. I can’ t think of anyone anywhere who will tell you that eating sprouted beans is in any way bad for your digestion unless you have one of a number of conditions which make the digestion of fibre an issue.
Activating your food is setting the little energy spark that turns a bean into a sprout or a seed into a plant and either suspending the process just after the spark or eating the spark of energy and taking that ‘life’ within.
It’s not a difficult process at all. It consists of soaking seed, grain, bean or legume in water for an appropriate amount of time. You can also try aiming to eat unpasteurised foods whenever you can find them.
Those of us lucky enough to live in a city, country or area where the water is absent of chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals can feel perfectly happy just using tap water, some people in areas like London or in places where the water is heavily fluoridated or chlorinated will want to use some kind of a filter for the water that they activate with
Various, mainly non scientific, studies show living foods have healing powers that may, and many claim have and do alleviate conditions such as low energy, allergies, digestive disorders, weak immune system, damaged intestinal system, high cholesterol, candida, obesity, etc. Live food and a raw food diet is said prevent the body’s healthy cells from turning into malignant cancerous cells.
Raw foods are supposedly easy (or easier) to digest and when you do so they are said to provide the maximum amount of energy with minimum bodily effort.
The sprouting process brings out live enzymes and other nutrients in germinated seeds, legumes, and grains which in turn makes them easy to digest.
Enzymes are complex organic substances that originate from living cells. They initiate chemical changes in surrounding organic substances and so help to transform and digest them. Unfortunately, virtually none of these delicate entities can survive temperatures greater than 46° C , most enzymes start to degrade at about 40°, so they are destroyed by the heat of cooking, pasteurisation and any commercial processing.
The enzymes in live foods act like catalytic converters for general digestion, they aid the body in properly absorbing nutrients but also in eliminating non-live foods we consume. Most live foods are also high in fibre. So eating live foods is said to help your system make better use of virtually every healthy thing you eat
Sprouts (as in sprouted seeds, beans and nuts) are living foods full of pure vitamins and minerals, rich in chlorophyll and a great source of plant protein. Vitamins and minerals need enzymes, to accomplish their nutritive missions.
Enzymes are living biochemical factors that activate and carry out all the biological processes in the body such as digestion, nerve impulses, detoxification processes, functioning of RNA/DNA, repair and healing of the body, and the functioning of the mind. There are natural enzymes in raw food, these minimize the use of enzymes created and secreted by the body for digestion.
The body’s enzymes can then be converted and used for the process of detoxification, repair, and overall healing. The preservation of our enzymes by eating live foods seems to play an important role in slowing the aging process. Enzyme reserve seems to be connected to life force, health, and longevity. As we age there seems to be a significant drop in enzyme reserve.
Researchers found that Inuit peoples eating (their natural diet of) about two pounds of raw blubber a day had no heart disease or atherosclerosis. When the same community (under pressure from Western influences) began eating the same amount of blubber cooked , they developed high rates of both of these Western killers.
Live foods have the highest amount of bioactive food nutrients, phytonutrients, bioelectrical energy, biologically active water, electrons, and most energized and organized SOEF’s (subtle organizing energy fields).
Dr. Bircher-Brenner started the first modern live food clinic in 1897. He felt that eating raw foods was a way of restoring the diseased body and the mind’s ability to heal itself. Other healers have used living foods with their clients. Dr. Max Gerson claimed to have cured cancer cases in Mexico, including having healed Dr. Albert Schweitzer of diabetes and his wife of TB. This is unproven but his raw diet has definitely adversely affected some people. He claimed with the use of live foods a 90% cure rate, 17% of which had been considered incurable.
Personally I do not think a raw food diet is a healthy option for anyone living in a damp, northern, four season climate. I do believe it is important to eat an amount of raw food every day (if possible) and that the body works best with as wide a mixture as possible with an
emphasis on local, seasonal, less dense, lighter and plant based foods. Which isn’t to say that that is how I eat most of the time!
In my recipes section I have a food activated gomasio recipe
Gomasio
An activated food recipe – Erika Tangari’s Secret of Life (SOL) method
Gomasio is a salt reduction condiment originally from Japan, usually made from sesame seeds (goma) and salt (shio)
This recipe uses pumpkin seeds – sesame seeds are the original – but you could use sunflower or any other seeds
Put the pumpkin seeds to soak in water for around 40 minutes, This turns the dormant core of the seeds to a waking state which releases enzymes in the seeds. This will set the seeds into preparation for sprouting, which is why it is.
Mix the seeds (I use my hands because Erika Tangari did when she taught us) with (it melts in the dampness)
natural salt,
turmeric (and any other seasoning that floats your boat) and coat them,. Spread out in a thin layer on an oven sheet and slow cook at around 40 centigrade for around 1 hour or in the dehumidifier for 12-14 hours.
Jar them and keep them in the fridge whole.
To use: take as many as you think you will need grind them finely and serve next to or sprinkled over food just before serving
This is my actual recipe
pumpkin seeds
The only other thing you actually need is
sea salt – the Japanese make the mixture with a 4:1 or 6:1 seed to salt ratio
however, I ground the salt with
turmeric – (which Erika, my teacher also used)
I heat the turmeric in a dry frying pan first (cos I was taught to always do that!1)
freshly ground black pepper
powdered/ground seaweed e.g. kelp/nori/Irish moss/wakame/hijiki etc.
You may add other spices or herbs to your taste
I asked Erika (Tangari) where the name Sol (Secret of Life) came from?
In a previous article I wrote about my almost mystical experience eating plant based food that she had prepared. This reaction is fairly common
“People ask me constantly; ‘What are your techniques, (how) can I also make food that makes one feel alive and so present?
The method is born from a mixture of a scientific approach to food (literally in terms of nutrition), from our feelings, our emotional and spiritual connections to what we eat and of course the stories that our grandmothers told us (as they coaxed us to eat the food we refused from our mothers). The stories, the history, the journeys, the tastes and how they change, the emotions and experiences of food are the secret of life.
My grandmother for example taught me to activate brown beans before eating them, so that they are their most nutritious, the best way to absorb protein in your diet and the least aggravating for your body. This is information, passed through the oral traditions that we are so often told exist no more. These traditions, these are the ones that we absorb through most usually, our grandmothers (cooking) are the secret of life.
A human being has many levels/layers, the brain/mind, the heart, the physical body, the emotions and the spirit. The Secret Of Life is the space in which they all exist, balancing themselves with each other.
There are moments when I am teaching that the Secret of Life is physical, purely chemical, nutritional science, at other moments it’s more subtle and we are exchanging nebulous ideas concepts and information: food memory and or soul memory or the teaching can be practical. As in where the food comes from, how it is grown and transported.
Sol has a multi layered meaning. Secret of Life yes, but also the name of the sun, central life giver of our SOLar system. It also the 5th or dominant note of the Western (often with different spelling) doh-ray–me–far–sol musical scale. That 5th note is a natural human toning, occurring all over the world naturally and spontaneously from childhood. The name of that note is used in the name of teaching musical theory – SOLfege. This is deliberate.
In the same way that music is integral to humanity and has many layers and functions so is it also with the philosophy, preparation, teaching and enjoyment of preparing and eating (Secret of Life) activated food.
Heli St Luce
