Dr. Miriam Lee is one of the greatest and most reknowned acupuncturists working and teaching in Northern California. She is rightly revered as the mother of acupuncture in California because of her heroic, pioneering efforts in effecting the first legislation in the US legalizing the practice of acupuncture in California. To accomplish this, she was willing to go through the process of legal harassment and even being briefly incarcerated for practicing acupuncture at a time when it was illegal. Eventually during the governorship of Jerry Brown, acupuncture was made legal in 1976 in California. Since that time it is legal in all of the 50 states but it all started with California and Dr. Miriam Lee.

She began as a nurse-midwife in China and set up a busy practice in Palo alto-San Jose area in Northern California. She literally was the acupuncture teacher of probably 70% of practitioners working in Northern California. She was famous for using a special set of points based on the work of one of her teachers, Dr. Tang known as the “Tang Points.” These are published in a book by Blue Poppy Press. She remained inventive and innovative throughout her career. During the height of her practice she would see up to 10 patients an hour and worked 80 hours a day. I am proud to honor her as my teacher and present some of her food and herb treatments in my published work.

Miriam received this from a mother in China who made it for her daughter who had cancer (not sure what type). The daughter’s cancer went away. Notice the variety of genistein-rich beans and other anticancer foods and immune potentiating herbs that it contains. It is best to use all the ingredients but it is still very beneficial if one or two are for various reasons unobtainable. It can be used as a base adding various vegetables, mushrooms to enhance its health benefits. I consider this an essential food for all cancer patients and routinely encourage them to have two or three bowls daily.

Miriam Lee’s Bean Soup Treatment for Cancer

Contents and Measurements:

Brown rice	10 tblsp	Black beans	1 tbls.
Pinto Beans	1 tblsp	Corn or cornmeal	1 tblsp
Azuki Beans	1 tblsp	Barley	1 tblsp
Pine Nuts	1 tblsp	Millet	1 tblsp
Mung Beans	1 tblsp	Buckwheat	1 tblsp
Split peas	1 tblsp	Oats	1 tblsp
Soya beans	1 tblsp	Peanuts (nip removed)	1 tblsp

Chinese Herbs:

Add 12 grams of each of the following: Qian-shi (Euryale seed), Mai Men Dong (Ophiopogon root), Bai Guo (Ginkgo seed) with the skin removed, Bai He (Tiger lily bulb), Lian Zi (Lotus seed), Shan yao (Dioscorea batatas), Fu Ling (poria cocos).

Preparation: Simmer the entire contents in 18 cups of water. As soon as it comes to boil, reduce heat and simmer for another 2 hours. (Do not use too high a flame as this will destroy the nutrients.) Consume over a period of 3 days. Keep unused portion in the freezer. Continue this food therapy for many months.

 

The next recipe is one of the best tonic broths for people with multiple deficiencies. It is one of the best treatments for weak and anemic conditions. I usually recommend cooking 9 grams of astragalus root, 3 to 4 grams of dang quai, 9 grams of codonopsis root and 9 red jujube dates with the broth to enhance its effects.

Miriam Lee’s Bone Marrow Broth

For general weakness, lowered immune system and anemia

Boil 2 pounds organic pork spare ribs in water with 2’‘3 TBS. rice vinegar for several hours. At the beginning of boiling, skim off the gray foam. Add about 6 two inch pieces of fresh ginger to neutralize the meat toxins.

After 2 hours let broth cool down and then skim the fat off the top. Add more water. Then begin boiling again with 2 pounds of soy bean sprouts (the long ones from Chinese market) for 2 more hours.

Remove bones and fat when cool. Freeze in small containers. Add herbs if desired.

This can be used as soup stock. Drink 2 bowls a day.

 

Mung Bean Soup for Hypertension 

Miriam would routinely sell patients with hypertension a pound of green mung beans. These are a famous heat-clearing, detoxifying and acid neutralizing food in both China and India.

Miriam would recommend that a patient pour a cup of boiling water over two or three tablespoons of mung beans in the morning.

Cover a let steep for 20 to 30 minutes. Drink the broth and save the beans.

Repeat this process mid day and evening using the beans that are saved from each preparation. In the evening, one should also eat the beans.