Umeboshi – King of alkaline foods! Perfect post holiday food

Have you heard about Umeboshi?

Umeboshi is sun-dried salted ume fruits with red shiso leaves (pelilla), which are one of the most popular pickles in Japan. We put rice and umeboshi together in our bento ( lunch box) or put it in our onigiri, the rice ball. Ume plant has been Part of Japanese culture for centuries. Umeboshi was first brought to Japan around 1500 years ago as a medicine It was used as healthy tonic, food perservative, antibacterial aids and as an energy enhancer for Samurai warriors!

Typical Japanese bentobox with umeboshi we call this ” hinomaru bento” because rice and umeboshi combination looks like Japanese flag! Umeboshi for lunch is perfect because of its antibacterial property, it prevents the food to go off in hot weather and also it gives you energy! 

Having healthy diet during holiday is one of the most challenging thing for most of us, right? Even though I didn’t have a single bar of chocolate during this Easter but I still got a couple of pimples which happens when I eat nasty foods … (eg, instant noodle!) I did have some sugarly foods, and some not so healthy foods.. but nothing like junk with lots of oxidated oil, MSG or chemicals…so I was actually very surprised how my skin reacted Only thing I can think of is.. I ate out a lot… every single days of Easter break. ( I really wanted to have a break from cooking for change! ) so just realised how important to cook at home!!!

Now it is time to detox my body and I am sure some of you feel the same!

So I would like to talk about one of Japanese superfoods that are fantastic for that… UMEBOSHI!

UMEBOSHI is known as ” KING OF ALKALINE FOOD”

WHY UMEBOSHI IS PERFECT FOR POST HOLIDAY SEASON?

We tend to eat lots of Acidic food during holiday season.

What’s acidic food?  ( technically, the foods make our blood acidic )

The foods we love! these addictive yummies below contributes to various types of disease even obesity. Umeboshi can help to neutralize the ph of the blood!

POWERFUL ALKALISER

Umeboshi is often referred to as the ” King of alkaline foods”. Despite the sour taste, umeboshi has a strong alkalising effect on the blood. For example, when you eat about 100g (3.5oz) acidic foods, you should eat about 900g(32 oz) of alkaline food, however, you need to eat 5 to 10g (1.7 -3.5oz) umeboshi to neutralize the acidity!

AMAGING DETOXIFIER There are lots of proverbs related to umeboshi. One of them is ” Umeboshi will cut off three poisons” The three poisons are food, blood and water. This is because of the detoxification effects of the picric acid in umeboshi. The picric acids in Umeboshi Improve and stimulates liver function which helps the liver clean out toxins from our body. The alkalising effects of the umeboshi also detoxify our body by assisting the kidneys to remove waste products. When we consume too many acidic foods, it burdens the kidneys. So the king of alkaline food, umeboshi alkalise the body to assist the kidneys in waste removal

Are you ready for having umeboshi now?

I hope so too! Quite often fake umeboshi or umeboshi with MSG and sugar are sold in Asian supermarket so go to health food stores and buy umeboshi made from only sea salt, ume and shiso!!!! you can check more detail in my Japanese superfoods cook book  as well! or best way is come and join one of my healthy Japanese cooking class in Sydney! you can get to use umeboshi and umeboshi products at Japanese basic cooking workshop, Food as medicine cooking workshop or Japanese superfoods sushi making workshop!