Conji - Breakfast of Oriental Champions

Conji (or conjee) is the 'chicken soup' of the Orient. It is fed to people who are so sick that they haven't the strength to digest ordinary food. It is also a staple breakfast food. And in the martial arts schools, it is the high energy breakfast that keeps the students kicking high and punching hard.

This marvel of the Eastern world is very simple to make. First, prepare a basic grain mix: One pound of short grain brown rice and a heaping tablespoon or more of adzuki beans or red kidney beans. Second, get out your crockpot and put in three-quarters cup of water and one quarter cup of rice/bean mix and a quarter teaspoon of finely chopped ginger root. Turn your crockpot on its lowest setting - about 125 to 160 degrees F. Let it cook overnight. Or: put the mix in a glass or stainless steel thermos at bedtime and pour boiling water over it and close the thermos. In the morning, add honey to taste and it is ready to eat.

It is important not to boil the grains as boiling kills a lot of the good nutrients in conji.

There are many variants on conji. This first variant has to do with a caution for people who get oral herpes (cold sores) or red in the face or who sunburn or run fevers easily. These are indicators of a of heat dis-ease in the body and adding more than a little ginger or any cinnamon or any cardamom is putting unnecessary heat in the body. (Ed: see the article on Hot And Cold Foods.) These people will find walnuts, which help contain the fire in the kidneys, a good addition to the conji.

The rice and ginger feed the Metal element of the body and help the lungs take in the oxygen prana and the Po Chi to create "git up and go". A little cinnamon helps the Fire element keep the body warm. The beans help the Water element cope with the energy rush. The honey gets the Earth element (stomach and spleen) busy doing the digestion process.

People who are really sick and even those who are basically well will have a better day with conji for breakfast. Were it up to me I would put conji on every hospital menu. For those people with parasites in their gut, conji strengthens the large intestine to throw the varmints out. Conji also lightly flushes the lymphatic system.

More variations. English or black walnuts fresh from the shell strengthen the water element and makes men's cum thick and lumpy and fertile (this takes at least one month).

If you haven't cleaned your colon of accumulated crap, add a teaspoon of psyllium seeds or husks to the stew for a little intestinal scrub down.

If you tend to feel blue or feel sorry for yourself (depression) put a dash of Angostura Bitters or gentian bitters in the bowl before stirring in the honey. There's a smile all day in a shake of Angostura. Sometimes I add a few hops before cooking for the same reason.

If the day is hot, a few drops of health food store vanilla will cool you off and make you feel happy too.

This breakfast is so nutritious that a body can get tired of it. Or to put it another way with the same meaning: you might become over-fed and not want any more but want something different to feed the body different nutrition not conji. (Yes, the body can be over-fed on too much of a good food. This happens rarely if you eat out of an ordinary supermarket because the food there is very low on nutrition.)

For those people who have colitis problems will find short grain brown rice conji very helpful; and if their spleen meridian is working properly, they will really like this breakfast.

Here are some of the variations I use to round out my grain intake among the five elements and provide variety to the flavor of conji. These are all replacements for the short grain brown rice. Keep the other ingredients just the same.

Oats and barley have a Scotch flavor. The Scots probably ate this as porridge long before they ever heard of China.

Equal parts of barley or spring wheat (wood element), millet (earth and fire elements), oats (metal) and rye (earth element) make a more earthly mix with more of a balance among the five elements, especially if I put a little corn meal or popcorn (fire element). Adding a little buckwheat on a cold day adds a little water element the breakfast.

Millet alone is very good for a variation especially in hot weather or during the months of Aquarius, Taurus, Leo and Scorpio when the seasons are changing. Spring wheat and rye are a great combination too. With a little caraway seed and organic lemon peel, its like rye toast with jelly on it. These two grains do not explode like rice and millet do, so I sometimes run them through my Corona grain mill and break them up a little and help them cook softer. Otherwise they take a lot of chewing.

Adding buckwheat in the winter creates body heat for those who work outside and want to enjoy the cold weather. It is also particularly good for those with arthritis (the kind with cold joints) and those with excess water weight.

If you sprout the grains for a couple of days, cook them at a lower temperature, say about 120-140 degrees F. Dr. Christopher, an eminent herbalist, and the Aquarian Age Gospel are big on this method. Dr. Christopher says that the grains will still grow if planted.

Don't forget to chew the grains well. Chewing mixes in the saliva and enhances digestion. If you bolt it down quickly, you will miss most of the nutrition because saliva is necessary for digestion. You might even direct a kind thought towards the people who helped you fill your belly. Be good to your food: for in the next 24 hours it will become part of you.

I want to thank Bob Flaws of the Blue Poppy Chi Kung Association of Boulder Colorado for introducing me to this food. It was a fine gift.

ADDENDUM: After twenty years of practicing Chinese Medicine, I have learned that Short Grain Brown Rice conji is an extraordinary detoxifying herb/food When a client needs detoxifying, three days of eating nothing but short grain brown rice conji (as described in the second paragraph) will start detox quickly. This now begins the treatment for candida, cancer, AIDS, drug addiction and the Gulf War Syndrome.