It was a full moon last night in Japan, and we could see it clearly without a cloud in the sky.

I was happy to see it, and did Shinon Kansha on the moon.

What is Shinon Kansha? Please watch this video.

I was especially happy to see the moon, since I completed my 48-hour fast just before seeing the moon.

Two posts ago, I shared with you a video on how to make Koso Genmai, fermented brown rice.

Have you tried making it?

Now, you might be wondering how you can eat Koso Genmai.

What do you mean by how to eat it? Isn’t that the same as regular brown rice or white rice?

Basically, yes, but there are certain things you want to pay attention to get the best benefit, such as how many bowls you should eat.

So, I made a new video on how to eat Koso Genmai.

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Have you ever heard of Koso Genmai?

It means fermented brown rice in Japanese, but the literal translation is enzyme brown rice.

Koso means enzyme.

While brown rice has been the staple food in the Japanese natural food movement, and it was stressed in Shokuyoukai, the first wave of the natural food movement and taken over to the macrobiotic diet, Kose Genmai is a new trend among Shizenha people.

For detail about Shokuyoukai, please watch this video.

Koso Genmai is popular because it increases the nutrients tremendously by fermenting brown rice.

It is said to increase dietary fiber to 127%, protein to 115%, vitamin B2 to 125%, vitamin B1 to 134%, iron to 190%, and calcium to 178%. It is the ultimate superfood, having the benefits of whole food and fermented food.

According to the study by Dr. Justine Sonnenburg and his team at Stanford University, fermented foods boost microbiome diversity. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-new…

Fiber is the other thing that boosts your gut health, and whole food contains full of fiber.

Can you imagine what Koso Genmai can do to your gut?

So. I made a video on how to make it.

I already have a post here on it but the video version may be easier for some of you.

How to Make Fermented Brown Rice

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It snowed a lot this morning.

I just came back from shoveling snow. That was my morning exercise for today.

I uploaded a new video on making miso soup using Niboshi Dashi.

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I have been talking about Natto a lot, but Miso is another fermented food big in Japan. In some ways, miso is more widely eaten since most people have miso soup while many people in western Japan don’t eat Natto.

So, this time I made a video on how to make miso soup, not just a regular one, but the vegan version.

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We don’t have a thanksgiving festival like North America, but we have thanksgiving day on November 3rd and it is a national holiday. We don’t do anything special like having a thanksgiving dinner or family get-together, it is just a public holiday and it is just one day.

Nevertheless, I like to celebrate it as it is always good to have an occasion to celebrate something for your mentality. Thanksgiving day is a perfect occasion to do Ima Iwai, celebrating what you have right here right now. In our case, we could also celebrate the harvest of sweet potatoes and pumpkins in the garden.

Jugoya: Full Moon Viewing and Ima Iwai

So, I made a shepherd’s pie using just sweet potatoes.

I also made a pumpkin pie.

This time, I covered the top with a pie, too.

At 10 pm, a World Cup soccer match Japan vs. Germany started.

Nobody thought we had a chance to win against Germany and it was too bad to be in the group with Germany and Spain, two favorites, in the first place.

However, once the game started, Japan wasn’t playing badly at all. They created a big chance within the first 10 minutes. It was off-side, unfortunately. Although we gave one score to Germany, it was a PK score and it wasn’t like our defense structure was destroyed.

In the second half, we equalized it and later scored a goal again. Both of them were good goals, constructing a good offense structure.

It was the best thanksgiving ever.

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On Saturday, I harvested white sweet potatoes. I grew several different kinds of sweet potatoes this year, and this time I harvested the ones called Annoimo, which has a slightly orange color inside, and regular white sweet potatoes. White sweet potatoes are the most common type of sweet potatoes in the main island of Japan.

Then, I made a pie using only purple sweet potatoes this time. The color is a lot more purple than the one with the pumpkin,

this one.

This is a pie using only a pumpkin.

The purple sweet potato pie tasted good, especially when it is cooled down. When it was still warm, taken right out of the oven, it didn’t taste as good as the pumpkin pie, but when I ate it later it tasted much better. It tasted like Beniimo Tart from Okinawa, a tart made from red sweet potatoes.

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I added purple sweet potatoes to my pumpkin pie and the color changed.

The taste was good, too, although my son said he preferred a regular pumpkin pie.

I have plenty of sweet potatoes now anyway. The next time I will make a pie just from the sweet potatoes.

I have been eating purple sweet potatoes every day now. It makes me feel like Okinawans. The purple sweet potatoes we have in mainland Japan are different from the red sweet potatoes in Okinawa but the health benefits are almost the same since they were developed in Kagoshima based on the Okinawan red sweet potatoes. Kagoshima is in southern Kyushu and its old name is Satsuma, and we call sweet potatoes Satsuma imo in Japan since many of the sweet potatoes were first grown in Satsuma.

According to Dr. Shoji Kondo, the author of Long-Lived Villages and Short-Lived Villages in Japan, there were many long-lived villages in Kyushu and Shikoku, and Satsuma imo was the staple food in many of them. So, I could say that eating purple sweet potatoes makes me feel like Kagoshimans.

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I made fried sweet potatoes from the purple sweet potatoes I harvested.

I didn’t deep fry them, I just lightly stir-fried them with olive oil.

Then, I made a pumpkin pie from the pumpkin I harvested.

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I uploaded a new video.

This is one of my favorite Natto recipes.

It is simple and easy to make.

All you need to do is just mix Natto and Kimuchi. Kimuchi already has a taste and you don’t need to put anything else. So, when you don’t have much time to cook, it is a perfect dish.

When you try to make a Fiber-Rich Natto Salad, or Steamed Minced Vege Natto, it takes a little time since you need to cut several different vegetables. I mean not that much, yet if you can’t even afford that much time, then, kimuchi Natto is your dish.

Yet, Kimuchi Natto is as powerful in terms of its health benefits.

Both Kimuchi and Natto were chosen to be the top 10 healthiest foods by 300 doctors in Japan.

Both Kimuchi and Natto are rich in spermidine, autophagy activating polyamine.

They are also probiotics and can enhance a healthy gut microbiota.

So, Kimuchi Natto is good both for autophagy and the gut microbiome.

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I uploaded a new video.

If you don’t want to eat a fiber-rich Natto salad all the time, you can try this recipe.

This steamed recipe enables you to use vegetables that are difficult to eat raw. Although there are many benefits of eating raw vegetables, some superfood vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, ginger, and shitake taste better when they are cooked.

Anyway, if you want to eat Natto every day, which I highly recommend, you want to have a wide variety of ways to prepare it, don’t you?

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