Oily fish (omega-3)

“First: movement, rest, plant-rich food. Sacha inchi gives plant omega-3 as food.”

“Plukenetia volubilis. Also mani del monte. Seed and oil, rich in plant omega-3 (alpha-linolenic acid), sold as food. Safety: nausea common in the first week of taking the oil. Liver and kidney tests unchanged in trials. Raw-seed safety not verified, so Elijah talks about it only as sold for food.”

“Not fish and pork. Pork rose later: by 1979 about 7.9 kg per person a year, roughly 50% above the Japanese average (approximate source). "Pork boiled for hours and skimmed" is unverified.”

“The plate: mostly sweet potato and vegetables, soy, seaweed, a little grain, very little fish or meat, almost no sugar, dairy, fruit or pickles. About half the calories per gram of a typical American diet, so people felt full on fewer calories (Willcox and Willcox 2014).”

“The Spanish day, as oma lived it (lived knowledge from the family's memory, not a study): the mercado in the morning for vegetables, fish and fruit. A light desayuno. The neighbours ate their main meal, the comida, in the early afternoon, and a late, light cena. Oma kept her Dutch habit of a small lunch, and took over the siesta and the paseo wholly. The sobremesa, the hour of talk after the food. The paseo at dusk, the whole town walking.”

“Limón (lemon). In the honey, the water, on the fish, and for a cold.”

“Sheng jiang 生姜, fresh ginger (Zingiber officinale). Pungent, slightly warm. Lung, spleen, stomach. Releases the exterior and scatters cold, warms the middle and stops vomiting, warms the lung for cough, tempers the harshness of ban xia and of fish and crab. Dried ginger, gan jiang 干姜, is hot and warms the middle more deeply. At home: slices boiled with brown sugar after a chill. With jujube it harmonises many formulas of the Shang Han Lun. Caution: large supplement amounts not with blood thinners.”

“What goes in. Pork most of all, then chicken, squab, crucian carp and duck. The plants used most: tomato, radish, red dates, mung bean, goji (the most valuable), Chinese yam, lotus, fox nut (芡实, qiàn shí), Job's tears and dang shen. Chicken, pork, squab, duck or fish are paired with dang shen, goji, red dates, Chinese yam, lotus seed or fox nut. Middle-aged women boil dang gui, Rehmannia, jujube and radish "to nourish yin and tonify blood".”

“Fish. Fish is cold, so it comes with herbed rice and garlic, both hot. Never with yoghurt, the household says, two cold things together. After a cold fish meal a warm dessert such as khagineh, a sweet egg dish, can follow.”

“The kitchen. A smaller plate, slowly eaten. A warm companion after a cold meal, as Persian cooks follow a fish meal with a warm dessert. A glass of tea, cooled a little.”

“The household. Kudampuli soaked and dropped into the fish curry, tamarind pulp into rasam and sambar. Sour, in Charaka's table, kindles digestion and in excess heats.”

“The household. A pinch in almost everything, the dal, the sambar, the fish, the thoran. In many Indian homes a cup of warm milk with turmeric in the evening, sometimes with a little pepper or ginger, sweetened after it has cooled a little. The Ayush list of 2020 named it.”

“Ukha. The clear fish soup of the lake: fish, onion, potato, a bay leaf, pepper, dill. On Baikal made with omul or other lake fish, always cooked through.”

“The guest in the fish. Baikal omul carries a fish tapeworm, and Russian studies have found it in most of the fish they checked. People catch it by eating the fish raw, lightly salted or undercooked. One line: smoked hot, fried, grilled or in ukha, it is food. Raw or lightly salted, no.”

“Garad (Acacia nilotica pods). In Sudan the pods are used for high blood pressure, diabetes and cough, and as a gargle for sore tonsils. Two lovely stories from the same pods: they are added to ponds to kill the snails that carry bilharzia without harming the fish, and they are used to tan leather a pinkish-white. "A pod that tans leather, kills snails and spares the fish. My grandmother would call that a good worker." No clinical trials of the pods for diabetes or blood pressure exist. With medicines for either, the GP or pharmacist first.”

“Test: hs-CRP, ESR, omega-3 index, food sensitivity panel (IgG), autoimmune markers”

“Source: wild-caught fish oil or algae oil (vegan). Triglyceride form > ethyl ester form for absorption.”