| More Hair Recipes: Grow Hair With Black Sesame Seeds |
| Karen Marie Shelton |
| Date: 1/30/2000 |
Introduction It is a well known fact that growing long, healthy and beautiful hair requires that a lot of different variables be functioning well. Not only does your body need to be nutritionally balanced, it also needs to have the proper balance of nutrients and supplements. I have always been a big fan of Chinese herbs. I recently discovered an  excellent book that addressed hair and beauty issues from the Chinese view. The book, The Tao of Beauty, written by Helen Lee, provides many of the latest beauty secrets that are thousands of years old. Helen is a Ford fashion model and spent two decades as a student of Chinese herbal practices. Lee practices what she preaches in terms of hair and beauty at The Helen Lee Day Spa in Manhattan. Eat Your Way To Great Hair In her book Helen provides five different Chinese soup recipes for growing great hair. She explains that the Chinese believe that soup is the first step to robust health. The good news is that the soups are very tasty. The bad news is that they must be made fresh. I have personally tried some of the soups in Helen's book and found that I enjoyed the Black Sesame Seed Soup the best. As Helen points out, it is on the sweet side and can be eaten as a snack or even for dessert. Long term consumption of the Chinese Black Sesame Seed Soup helps to beautify the scalp and the hair and also provides benefits to the skin. The recipe is easy to make but I must remind you that the ingredients must be purchased fresh from your nearest Chinese grocer.
Hair Growing Soup Ingredients - 1 cup of uncooked long-grain white rice
- 1 cup of black sesame seeds
- 1 tablespoon of sugar, or to your own tastes
Directions Wash and drain the rice and the sesame seeds in separate containers. Stir-fry the sesames seeds in a dry skillet over low heat for approximately 5 minutes or until the heat releases their fragrance. Be careful to not let them burn. Grind the rice and toasted seeds with 1/4 cup of water in a blender or food processor. Note: I personally prefer to use Spring water with my soup. However, use whatever water that you prefer. Pour the mixture plus an additional 1 3/4 cups of water into a medium-sized saucepan. Cook over medium heat for approximately 10 minutes, stirring often to avoid burning. Add sugar as desired to taste. Other Recipes From Helen's Book Helen's Chapter 6 - Recipes For Healthy Hair actually contains 5 different hair beautifying and growing soups. I did not try the other soups either because I could not find all the ingredients or because they just didn't appeal to me. The other recipes include: - Peanut-Seaweed Soup
- Red Beans With Ribs Soup
- Walnut Chicken with Wolfberries
- Walnut-Lamb Stew
Other Hair Care Recipes I personally love the idea of eating my way to healthy hair. Helen also provides a great scalp massage oil recipe, a dandruff-fighting scalp tonic and a basic recipe for flaxseed styling gel. She also provides a list of foods to avoid (all the good stuff like coffee, caffeine, red meat) and a list of the foods that are great for helping grow beautiful hair.
Summary I have always believed that what I put into my body was just as important as what I put onto my hair in terms of the results that I achieve with my hair and skin. Helen has provided some great new hair care recipes that you can try both externally or internally. As always, proceed at your own risk and always check with your physician before you take any herbs or supplements that may impact any health care programs that you are currently following. If you try any of the recipes in this book I would love to get your feedback. Please email me with any comments about this article or the recipes.
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