The Amazing Healing Powers of Soup

The Amazing Healing Powers of Soup

By Dr. Maoshing Ni

The healing power of soup: something that both scientists and grandmothers can agree on. From helping you lose weight to warming you up from the inside out to boosting your immunity, soup is a winter staple that you shouldn’t be without. Maybe that is one reason that it is celebrated this month with its very own National Soup Month. Here's a closer look at what you can do to benefit from soup's amazing healing powers.

The healing power of soup
An ancient Chinese proverb states that a good doctor uses food first, then resorts to medicine. A healing soup can be your first step in maintaining your health and preventing illness. The therapeutic value of soup comes from the ease with which your body can assimilate the nutrients from the ingredients, which have been broken down by simmering.

Here are some healing soup tips that will preserve your wellness and longevity:

1. Lose weight with soup
Obesity is on the rise throughout the industrialized world, resulting in a startling increase in the rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. You can count yourself out of the statistics if you eat a bowl of soup at least once a day. Nutritious low-salt soups will nourish you as they flush excess wastes from your body. It has been found that people who eat one serving of soup per day lose more weight than those who eat the same amount of calories, but don’t eat soup. Homemade soup is your best bet, because canned soups tend to be loaded with salt and chemicals. My advice is to use organic vegetables whenever possible. The herbicides and pesticides that can be present in conventional produce can assault the immune system and overload it with toxins.

2. Build your immunity
Your immune system needs a lot of minerals to function properly and the typical Western diet does not always hit the mark. When you slowly simmer foods over low heat, you gently leach out the energetic and therapeutic properties of the foods, preserving the nutritional value of the foods. Keep in mind that boiling can destroy half of the vitamins found in vegetables, so cook soup over a low heat.

Immune-Boosting Soup
Simmer these ingredients for 30 minutes: cabbage, carrots, fresh ginger, onion, oregano, shiitake mushrooms (if dried, they must be soaked first), the seaweed of your choice, and any type of squash in chicken or vegetable stock. Cabbage can increase your body’s ability to fight infection, ginger supports healthy digestion, and seaweed cleanses the body. Shiitake mushrooms contain coumarin, polysaccharides, and sterols, as well as vitamins and minerals that increase your immune function, and the remaining ingredients promote general health and well-being. Eat this soup every other day to build a strong and healthy immune system.

3. Detoxify your body
As a liquid, soup is already helping you flush waste from your body. When you choose detoxifying ingredients, such as the ones featured in the recipe below, you are really treating your body to an internal cleanse. The broth below boasts many benefits: it supports the liver in detoxification, increases circulation, reduces inflammation, and replenishes your body with essential minerals.

Super Detoxifying Broth
Simmer the following for 1–2 hours over a low flame: anise, brussels sprouts, cabbage, Swiss chard, cilantro, collards, dandelion, fennel, garlic, ginger, kale, leeks, shiitake mushrooms, mustard greens, daikon radish, seaweed, turmeric, and watercress. Drink 8 to 12 ounces twice a day. You can keep this broth in your fridge for up to one week; however, it is always best to serve soups when fresh because each day, the therapeutic value decreases.

In addition to using cleansing herbs in soups, you can take cleansing herbs in supplements. For a gentle but powerful cleanse using Chinese herbs, Internal Cleanse increases the ability of the liver to cleanse the body of internal and environmental toxins.

4. Warm up with a hearty soup
You always want to eat for the season. Soups provide something the body craves in cold weather. When you cook foods into a soup, you are adding a lot of what Chinese nutrition would call “warming energy” into the food. Warming foods to feature in your soups include: leeks, onions, turnips, spinach, kale, broccoli, quinoa, yams, squash, garlic, scallions, and parsley. As a spice, turmeric aids with circulation, a great boost against the cold weather.

5. Get well faster
As you mother may have instinctively known, when you are sick, there is no better healing food than soup. The reason for this is that soups and stews don’t require as much energy to digest, freeing your body up to fight the infection.

It would be impossible to talk about soup’s healing abilities without putting the spotlight on homemade chicken noodle soup. Studies have found that chicken noodle soup does seem to relieve the common cold by inhibiting inflammation -- helping to break up congestion and ease the flow of nasal secretions.

While chicken soup may not cure a cold outright, it does help alleviate some of the symptoms and can help as a preventative measure. Many of my patient’s keep the herbal formula Cold & Flu in their medicine cabinets so its there to support recovery when a cold strikes.

In Chinese medicine, you would traditionally be given a tonic soup specifically tailored to your needs, and for that level of personal care, it is a good idea to consult a health practitioner knowledgeable in Chinese nutrition.

I hope you have gotten a taste of the healing power of soup! I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me.

i agree to this article. Orzo, Lentil and Roasted Flax Seed Soup



A tasty soup that will become a family favorite. Serves 10. Serving Size: 250 ml (1 cup).

Ingredients

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour + 20 minutes.

1/4 cup (50 ml) butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1/2 green pepper, finely chopped
5 cups (1.25 L) boiling water
1/3 cup (75 ml) low sodium chicken soup base
2 tsp. (10 ml) granulated garlic
1 bay leaf
2 tsp. (10 ml) Worcestershire sauce
28 oz. (796 ml) can tomatoes with herbs & spices; break up tomatoes
1/3 cup (75 ml) orzo pasta or any small soup pasta
1/3 cup (75 ml) dried lentils, rinsed
1 tsp. (5 ml) granulated sugar
1/3 cup (75 ml) Roasted Flax For Nutrition seeds

Directions

In a large pot, over medium to medium-low heat, melt butter. Add onion, carrot, celery and green pepper. Gently sauté over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add boiling water, soup base, granulated garlic, bay leaf, Worcestershire sauce, tomatoes with juice, orzo and lentils. Stir. Slowly simmer for 1 hour with lid ajar, stirring occasionally until lentils are soft. Add sugar and Roasted Flax For Nutrition seeds. Stir and serve.

wow Deliciously Fresh Tomato Soup



If you are in the enviable position of having a surplus of ripe tomatoes why not have a go at making this delicious soup. If you haven’t grown your own, or if like mine they are still green, locally sourced tomatoes are fairly cheap to buy at this time of year.

This recipe is totally yummy and extremely nutritious!

Ingredients

Knob of butter
1 clove of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 onion
1 medium potato
1 lb fresh tomatoes
dash of tomato puree
1 pint vegetable stock
quantity of milk

What to do

   1. Chop the onion and gently fry in the butter until clear
   2. Add a clove of crushed garlic, mix and fry a little longer
   3. Peel and chop the potato and add
   4. Roughly chop the tomatoes and add
   5. Add in the bay leaf and stock
   6. Simmer gently for 20 minutes
   7. Allow to cool
   8. Blend until smooth
   9. Add milk as desired to obtain preferred thickness
  10. Reheat before serving

Serve with crusty bread or my children’s favourite cheese on toast croutons!

i will start to have a soup diet plan this week like a Carrot Noodles Soup



Tasty and very simple Carrot and noodles soup. You can make this soup within 10 mins, very simple ingredients and easy to make. For those who dont know, tomato ketchup is not tomato sauce, they two are different. So dont use ketchup, use tomato sauce to make this soup.

Ingredients

Onion – 1/2 sliced
Carrot – 1 or 2 cut into slices
Noodles – 1/4 packet
Tomato sauce – 1/2 cup
Chilly powder – 1/4 tsp
Cumin powder – 1/4 tsp
Pepper powder  – 1/8 tsp
Butter – 2 tbsps
Cilantro for garnish

Method

1. Heat 2 tbsps of butter in a pan and saute the sliced onion until soft, add the sliced carrot and fry for few more minutes. Add the vegetable broth or water allow it to cook, then add the noodles. Cover and cook it for two more mins.
2. Add the tomato sauce, Chilly powder, cumin powder, pepper powder and mix it well and cook it on low flame for few more minutes. Add salt and cilantro.
3. Once you see the shiny top switch off the gas and serve hot with any bread.  Makes 2 servings.

Vegetable Soup with Pasta



A filling yet tasty and healthy soup to keep you going.

    *
      Serves:

      6
    *
      Preparation time:

      15 minutes
    *
      Cooking time:

      40 minutes
    *
      Diet type:

      Gluten free, Low salt, Low saturated fat
    *
      Contributor:

      Tesco Magazine

Method

   1. Sauté onion, garlic and red pepper in the olive oil for 5 minutes.
   2. Add all the other vegetables, except peas, and cook for 2 minutes more. Add the vegetable stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
   3. Add pasta shapes and frozen peas 10 minutes before the end of cooking time. Season and serve.

Serving suggestion

To accompany this soup, treat yourself to your favourite freshly baked bread to tear up and dunk.
Cook's tip

Cut vegetables into chunky pieces, then why not try steaming or boiling in the minimum amount of fast-boiling water until tender-crisp to preserve the maximum amount of vitamins.

Veggie Beef Soup



Ingredients:

1 lb Stew Beef
1 Yellow Onion (diced)
2 Med. Brown Potatoes (diced)
1 pkg Celery (chopped)
Salt (to taste)
1 tbs Montreal Steak Seasoning
2 tsps Italian Seasoning
16 oz Frozen Chopped Spinach
32 oz Mixed Veggies
29 oz Tomato Sauce
28 oz Diced Tomatoes (do not drain)
about 2-3 qts water

Brown beef in 1-2 tbs vegetable oil. Half way through add onion, potatoes, Montreal seasoning, Italian seasoning and salt. After meat is browned add everything except tomato sauce & diced tomatoes bring to a boil. Once boiling add tomato sauce and tomatoes, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1 ½ to 2 hrs. Enjoy!!

I really like to make Garlicky Cheese Biscuits to go with it, but that’s a whole other post!!

Indian Tomato Soup



Indian tomato soup is a quick and healthy recipe.



Preparation time : 5 minutes. Cooking time : 25 minutes. Serves 6.
Ingredients
400 grams chopped tomatoes
½ teacup yellow moong dal.
2 teaspoons butter
1 finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon cornflour or plain flour
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar
½ teacup warm milk salt and prepper to taste
For serving
fresh cream
bread croutons

How to proceed
1. Boil the tomatoes with the moong dal in 3 to 4 cups of water till cooked.
2. Blend in a blender and strain.
3. Melt the butter, add the onion and fry for 3 to 4 minutes.
4. Add the strained mixture.
5. Mix the cornflour with a little water and pour into the soup. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring ocassionaly.
6. Add the sugar, milk, salt and pepper.
Serve hot with cream and bread croutons.

This recipe tastes good and is very healthy too.

daghan pod bahaw mahurot ani

when i'm sick, my mom would prepare some soup for me

it reminds me of my mom christine, she would prepare me some fresh tuna soup or a beef broth soup with lots of pechay mixed in it.so yummy good.