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Cook Healing Soups to Boost Immunity and Rest Your Digestion Write a review!

Soups and sandwiches

Soups are warm, soft, supportive, hydrating, and generally easy to digest. That's why grandma cooks soup for her grandchildren when they are sick. Soups are made with love, and are a symbol of grandma's nurturing touch. Whenever life seems difficult, or your body is run down by stress, emotions, or ailments, soups are the fall-back food. Soups are home base. Soups are restorative for stress and sickness. If your digestion is compromised, soups are essential. Soups are part of a simple, wholesome "poor man's diet," enjoyed by billions of people on earth every day.

Soups are the opposite of sandwiches. Sandwiches are dry, quick, convenient food. They usually have bad food combinations, are served cold, and are difficult to digest. Soups are also convenient in their own way. They are very easy to cook. Although soups can simmer on the stove top for hours, the time investment in a soup is often the time to chop a carrot. Chopping a carrot takes even less time than buying processed food at a restaurant or grocery store.

Immunity & Resting the Digestive Tract

Grandma's chicken soup doesn't have any high-tech chemicals, compounds, or derivatives that prevent the common cold. So how does it work? The answer is that chicken soup pulls less blood to the GI tract while providing balanced nutrition. More blood in circulation means more blood is available to fight disease. Digestion is a metabolic monster that saps a whopping 60 percent of our daily energy.

Releasing the power of that 60 percent is the key to Grandma's magic and boosting immunity. Resting when you are sick means resting your muscles (on the couch) and resting your digestive tract with simple, nourishing, easy-to-digest food choices.

Why Grandma likes chicken soup

Between nations or organisms, war is costly. Fighting bacterial invasion for long periods of time eventually depletes strength. Ojas is the Ayurvedic word for fuel. Meat closely resembles our bodily tissues and is the best way to replace depleted ojas. Chicken is preferred for sick patients because it is easier to digest than red meat.

If you're a vegetarian, choose kitchari. Kitchari is a Ayurveda's vegetarian version of chicken soup and has been used by convalescing patients successfully for thousands of years. Kitchari's ingredients are medicine - carrots and rice digest in a snap, black pepper stimulates circulation. Circulation is great for immunity because our immune system is in the blood. Broth keeps the body hydrated and is readily assimilated.

Served warm, chicken soup opens the sweat channels and improves circulation. Chicken fat is oily. It keeps the digestive tract lubricated. Carrots contain lots of fiber. Together, chicken fat and carrot assist in elimination of the bowels.

Click here for our version of chicken soup.

About Making Soups

• Soups should be served tepid, around 101.5 degrees, the temperature of the stomach. Start your soup while cooking breakfast in the morning. In my kitchen, by 8:30 a.m. all three meals are cooked and I'm free for the rest of the day.
• Generally, I cook a pot of rice alongside the soup. Click here to learn how to cook rice
• If your digestion is compromised, avoid cream soups, soups with wheat-based noodles in them, tomato based soups, and soups with chili peppers.

Cooking (for 6 servings)

• 2 tbsp oil
• 3/4tsp salt in a large pot
• Choose one to three vegetables, one to two cups of each vegetable.
• Add optional ingredients below.
• Add water to 2 times the height of vegetables
• Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Cover. Simmer until veggies are soft.

Mistakes when making soup

If your soup doesn't taste good, it's usually one the following reasons:

• Not enough salt, oil, or cooking time
• Too many ingredients in the pot

Optional ingredients

You may add one option from each line without ruining the soup:

• 1 protein: beans, fish, chicken or red meat
• Sweetener: raisins, dates
• Black or cayenne pepper
• Lemon or vinegar to make it sour
• One to three spices (such as cumin, cinnamon, oregano, thyme, etc)
• Onions
• Garlic
• Turmeric
• Ginger
• Garnish with nuts or fresh herbs to taste.

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* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The information and products on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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