Broccoli Basil Cream Soup

By Shelley Alexander

Broccoli Basil Cream Soup is a creamy soup that uses walnuts in place of cream to create a delectable soup designed to cleanse, nourish, and rebuild your body. This easy recipe comes together quickly and combines a variety of healing foods that are fantastic for detoxing. Broccoli, zucchini, white onion, garlic, lemon, walnuts, basil, and vegetable broth come together for a rich and luscious soup that is deeply comforting and cleansing.

Broccoli

Broccoli is a superstar cruciferous vegetable that is packed with nutrients that enhance detoxification and healing. Broccoli has specific phytochemicals which support every phase of the detox process. Broccoli is rich in antioxidants including lutein, zeaxanthin, and beta-carotene that protect us from free radicals, toxins, and degenerative diseases like cancer. Broccoli also contains important flavonoids like kaempferol which fight chronic inflammation. Other important nutrients in broccoli include vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin E, manganese, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids (ALA), sulforaphane, and fibre which all work together to detox, cleanse, and rebuild our body and keep it strong and healthy. If you really want to up the detox power of this soup, top with nutrient-dense broccoli sprouts which are even richer in sulforaphane than broccoli florets.

Garlic

Garlic is an amazing vegetable that is a member of the Allium family that includes onions, shallots, and leeks. Garlic is a must have in many of my recipes because I love its pungent flavour and fabulous health benefits. Crushing, mincing, or grating garlic before eating it activates many of its key phytochemicals. Garlic’s high amount of sulfur and the compound allicin are two of the reasons why garlic has so many important health benefits. Garlic is a natural antibiotic, with anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties that make it a strong immune system booster.

Zucchini

Zucchini is a squash with a mild flavour that blends well with other vegetables. Zucchini contains good amounts of carotenoids including alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin which offers excellent protection against oxidative stress caused by environmental toxins. Zucchini also contains high amounts of vitamin A, B vitamins, vitamin C, zinc, magnesium and fibre. To get the full benefits of the antioxidants contained in zucchini squash, buy organic so you can eat the skin, seeds, and flesh.

Basil

Basil is one of my absolute favourite herbs to use in recipes! It has a wonderful herbaceous flavour that adds delicious flavour to any recipe you add it to. Basil has many health benefits including being a fantastic anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial food due to the presence of flavonoids especially estragole and eugenol.
Basil contains high amounts of beta-carotene, pro-vitamin A, iron, vitamin C, vitamin K, calcium, potassium, and magnesium which are key nutrients for maintaining vibrant health.

What’s your favourite soup blend? Please contribute to the conversation by leaving a comment below.
If you enjoyed this post, please check out my new cookbook that’s packed with 154 tasty healing foods recipes and over 50 pages of holistic lifestyle tips for more energy and better immunity! Deliciously Holistic is for sale on Amazon right now!
By Shelley Alexander
 

 

Broccoli Basil Cream Soup

Vegan, Paleo, Vegetarian, Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free

Makes 2-4 servings
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or virgin coconut oil
½ cup diced white onion
1 cup diced organic zucchini squash (leave skin on)
Unrefined sea salt-to taste
4 cups steamed organic broccoli florets
4 cups organic vegetable broth or stock
2 cloves grated garlic
Fresh ground black pepper-to taste
⅓ cup raw walnuts (soak for 3 hours in filtered water, rinsed well, and drained)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
6-8 fresh basil leaves
½ cup broccoli sprouts-optional but are potent detoxifiers


1. Place olive oil or coconut oil in a medium-size pot with a lid and heat over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add diced onions and cubed zucchini and sprinkle with sea salt to taste. Cook zucchini and onions until tender, around 7-8 minutes.

2. Placed cooked vegetables into a high speed blender with steamed broccoli, ½ cup vegetable broth, grated garlic, black pepper to taste, and drained walnuts. Blend on high until smooth and creamy.

3. Pour vegetable-walnut mixture into the pot you cooked the zucchini in and add remaining vegetable broth and sea salt to taste. Stir to blend together and cover pot with lid.

4. Cook Broccoli Basil Cream Soup over low heat until hot but not boiling. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed and pour into serving bowl. Sprinkle hot soup with fresh basil leaves, lemon juice, and broccoli sprouts if you decide to use them.

5. Place leftover soup into a heatproof container with a lid and cool slightly before placing in the refrigerator. Reheat remaining soup over low heat for dinner meal.
http://aharmonyhealing.com/broccoli-basil-cream-soup/

From Detox To Elimination Diets, Skipping Sugar May Be The Best Bet

Allison Aubrey


Oh, sugar! If this time of year has you rethinking your diet, there is one surefire change you can make to improve health: Cut back on sugar.
Farrukh/Flickr

When it comes to detox diets, we totally get the appeal.

Who's not drawn to the idea of flushing all the toxins out of our bodies — a sort of spring cleaning of our insides?

And yes, several years back, I even remember trying — if only for a day — the trendy cayenne-pepper liquid cleanse (as seen in this Mindy Kaling clip from The Office) as part of a cleansing/detox diet.

But it turns out, as we've reported, the whole idea that you need to go on a special, draconian diet to detox your body really has no scientific backing.

We spoke to Dr. Ranit Mishori, a faculty member in family medicine at Georgetown University Medical School who has reviewed the literature on colon cleanses. She told us that lots of her patients are asking about detox and cleansing diets, especially at this time of year. Her advice: Steer clear.

The way she explains it, our bodies have an excellent built-in system for getting rid of toxins. Our kidneys and livers, for instance, both play an important role in helping to filter out potentially harmful compounds.

The 7-Day Color Diet: An attempt to get people to eat more fruits and vegetables, this diet requires followers to eat foods of just a single color each day. It ends with a day in which you "eat the rainbow," so to speak. Here's Gonot's cheeky take on orange day.

"The human body has evolved over many years, and it has a very sophisticated [filtering] system through the liver, through the kidneys," Mishori told us.

Experts say specialized diets won't help rid the body of toxins any more than what the liver and kidneys already do every day.

Can A Diet Clean Out Toxins In The Body?
"The liver has all kinds of different enzymes that break down the chemicals considered to be harmful, potentially, and then it excretes [them]. It does it very, very efficiently," she says. "It does it 24 hours a day. And there are no supplements or super foods that can boost the liver and kidneys to do it better than they already do."

Of course, this doesn't mean that healthful eating isn't important. But the point is, you don't need to live on liquids and cayenne — or any other crazy fad diets out there. Most of us would be better off making more straightforward changes to our diets that are known to be beneficial.

So what kind of simple, good-for-you changes should you consider? Mishori offered her top three tips: "Cutting on sugar is always a good idea. Cutting on processed foods is always a good idea. Being better hydrated is always a good idea," she told us.

Diets don't need to be all-or-nothing. When it comes to sugar, the idea is to reduce consumption and be more mindful.

Currently, as we've reported, the typical American consumes about 22 teaspoons a day of sugar, which is about three times more than what's recommended. And the evidence is piling up that this is doing all kinds of damage to our bodies.

For instance, a recent paper in BMJ Open Heart described how consuming too much sugar can raise the risk of high blood pressure.

And, as we've reported, a study in JAMA Internal Medicine concluded that Americans who consumed the most sugar — about a quarter of their daily calories — were twice as likely to die from heart disease as those who limited their sugar intake to 7 percent of their total calories. Or, as I previously broke it down:

"To translate that into a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, the big sugar eaters were consuming 500 calories a day from sugar — that's 31 teaspoons. Those who tamed their sweet tooth the most, by contrast, were taking in about 160 calories a day from sugar — or about 10 teaspoons per day.
"The American Heart Association advises that women consume no more than 6 teaspoons of added sugar daily. This is about 100 calories. And men, no more than 9 teaspoons, or about 150 calories from sugar. (This does not include foods such as fruits and vegetables that naturally contain sugar.)"
So the bottom line is, if you want to make one change this year, cutting back on added sugar is probably a good choice.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/01/19/377780329/from-detox-to-elimination-diets-skipping-sugar-may-be-the-best-bet

Robert Lustig: the man who believes sugar is poison

The maverick scientist has long argued that sugar is as harmful as cocaine or tobacco – and that the food industry has been adding too much of it to our meals for too long. A convert hears more about his theory

Zoe Williams

We don’t have to ban sugar. But the food ­industry cannot be given carte blanche,' says Robert Lustig. Photograph: Nine Ok/Getty Images

If you have any interest at all in diet, obesity, public health, diabetes, epidemiology, your own health or that of other people, you will probably be aware that sugar, not fat, is now considered the devil's food. Dr Robert Lustig's book, Fat Chance: The Hidden Truth About Sugar, Obesity and Disease, for all that it sounds like a Dan Brown novel, is the difference between vaguely knowing something is probably true, and being told it as a fact. Lustig has spent the past 16 years treating childhood obesity. His meta-analysis of the cutting-edge research on large-cohort studies of what sugar does to populations across the world, alongside his own clinical observations, has him credited with starting the war on sugar. When it reaches the enemy status of tobacco, it will be because of Lustig.

"Politicians have to come in and reset the playing field, as they have with any substance that is toxic and abused, ubiquitous and with negative consequence for society," he says. "Alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine. We don't have to ban any of them. We don't have to ban sugar. But the food industry cannot be given carte blanche. They're allowed to make money, but they're not allowed to make money by making people sick."

Lustig argues that sugar creates an appetite for itself by a determinable hormonal mechanism – a cycle, he says, that you could no more break with willpower than you could stop feeling thirsty through sheer strength of character. He argues that the hormone related to stress, cortisol, is partly to blame. "When cortisol floods the bloodstream, it raises blood pressure; increases the blood glucose level, which can precipitate diabetes. Human research shows that cortisol specifically increases caloric intake of 'comfort foods'." High cortisol levels during sleep, for instance, interfere with restfulness, and increase the hunger hormone ghrelin the next day. This differs from person to person, but I was jolted by recognition of the outrageous deliciousness of doughnuts when I haven't slept well.

"The problem in obesity is not excess weight," Lustig says, in the central London hotel that he has made his anti-metabolic illness HQ. "The problem with obesity is that the brain is not seeing the excess weight." The brain can't see it because appetite is determined by a binary system. You're either in anorexigenesis – "I'm not hungry and I can burn energy" – or you're in orexigenesis – "I'm hungry and I want to store energy." The flip switch is your leptin level (the hormone that regulates your body fat) but too much insulin in your system blocks the leptin signal.

It helps here if you have ever been pregnant or remember much of puberty and that savage hunger; the way it can trick you out of your best intentions, the lure of ridiculous foods: six-month-old Christmas cake, sweets from a bin. If you're leptin resistant – that is, if your insulin is too high as a result of your sugar intake – you'll feel like that all the time.

Robert Lustig: 'I'm not a fitness guru. I'm 45lb overweight.'

Telling people to simply lose weight, he tells me, "is physiologically impossible and it's clinically dangerous. It's a goal that's not achievable." He explains further in the book: "Biochemistry drives behaviour. You see a patient who drinks 10 gallons of water a day and urinates 10 gallons of water a day. What is wrong with him? Could he have a behavioural disorder and be a psychogenic water drinker? Could be. Much more likely he has diabetes." To extend that, you could tell people with diabetes not to drink water, and 3% of them might succeed – the outliers. But that wouldn't help the other 97% just as losing the weight doesn't, long-term, solve the metabolic syndrome – the addiction to sugar – of which obesity is symptomatic.

Many studies have suggested that diets tend to work for two months, some for as long as six. "That's what the data show. And then everybody's weight comes roaring back." During his own time working night shifts, Lustig gained 3st, which he never lost and now uses exuberantly to make two points. The first is that weight is extremely hard to lose, and the second – more important, I think – is that he's no diet and fitness guru himself. He doesn't want everybody to be perfect: he's just a guy who doesn't want to surrender civilisation to diseases caused by industry. "I'm not a fitness guru," he says, puckishly. "I'm 45lb overweight!"

"Sugar causes diseases: unrelated to their calories and unrelated to the attendant weight gain. It's an independent primary-risk factor. Now, there will be food-industry people who deny it until the day they die, because their livelihood depends on it." And here we have the reason why he sees this is a crusade and not a diet book, the reason that Lustig is in London and not Washington. This is an industry problem; the obesity epidemic began in 1980. Back then, nobody knew about leptin. And nobody knew about insulin resistance until 1984.

"What they knew was, when they took the fat out they had to put the sugar in, and when they did that, people bought more. And when they added more, people bought more, and so they kept on doing it. And that's how we got up to current levels of consumption." Approximately 80% of the 600,000 packaged foods you can buy in the US have added calorific sweeteners (this includes bread, burgers, things you wouldn't add sugar to if you were making them from scratch). Daily fructose consumption has doubled in the past 30 years in the US, a pattern also observable (though not identical) here, in Canada, Malaysia, India, right across the developed and developing world. World sugar consumption has tripled in the past 50 years, while the population has only doubled; it makes sense of the obesity pandemic.

"It would have happened decades earlier; the reason it didn't was that sugar wasn't cheap. The thing that made it cheap was high-fructose corn syrup. They didn't necessarily know the physiology of it, but they knew the economics of it." Adding sugar to everyday food has become as much about the industry prolonging the shelf life as it has about palatability; if you're shopping from corner shops, you're likely to be eating unnecessary sugar in pretty well everything. It is difficult to remain healthy in these conditions. "You here in Britain are light years ahead of us in terms of understanding the problem. We don't get it in the US, we have this libertarian streak. You don't have that. You're going to solve it first. So it's in my best interests to help you, because that will help me solve it back there."

The problem has mushroomed all over the world in 30 years and is driven by the profits of the food and diet industries combined. We're not looking at a global pandemic of individual greed and fecklessness: it would be impossible for the citizens of the world to coordinate their human weaknesses with that level of accuracy. Once you stop seeing it as a problem of personal responsibility it's easier to accept how profound and serious the war on sugar is. Life doesn't have to become wholemeal and joyless, but traffic-light systems and five-a-day messaging are under-ambitious.

"The problem isn't a knowledge deficit," an obesity counsellor once told me. "There isn't a fat person on Earth who doesn't know vegetables are good for you." Lustig agrees. "I, personally, don't have a lot of hope that those things will turn things around. Education has not solved any substance of abuse. This is a substance of abuse. So you need two things, you need personal intervention and you need societal intervention. Rehab and laws, rehab and laws. Education would come in with rehab. But we need laws."

The Obamas hate him, he says, because they don't want to fight the industry. "They've got a lot of enemies. I'm not mad at them. I actually kind of like them." On paper, Lustig is absolutely livid. "In America we have this thing, it's called the Declaration of Independence. We are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't say a damned f***ing thing about the pursuit of pleasure." But he has seen how it worked with tobacco. It took a long time, he says, but industries can't poison people en masse for ever.

"We have to do something about it, or there will be no healthcare. In fact, there will be no society. Are you ready for that? That's what's gonna happen. It's just not OK. There will be no money left for anything else."

His predictions for world health are apocalyptically pessimistic. Yet in his bearing, he has the deep-rooted optimism of a person who knows the fight is worthwhile, and believes that, in the end, he'll win it.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/24/robert-lustig-sugar-poison

Our Year of No Sugar: One Family’s Grand Adventure

By Eve O. Schaub, Special to Everyday Health

Once upon a time, I was healthy; at least I thought I was.

Sure, I lacked enough energy to get me through the day, but with all the commercials on TV touting energy drinks for America’s tired masses, I always assumed I wasn’t the only one suffering. And sure, everyone in my family dreaded the coming cold and flu season, but again, I thought come January everyone develops some degree of germophobia.

At least, that’s what I thought until I heard some disturbing new information about the effects of sugar. According to several experts, sugar is the thing that is making so many Americans fat and sick. The more I thought about it the more this made sense to me — a lot of sense. One in seven Americans has metabolic syndrome. One in three Americans is obese. The rate of diabetes is skyrocketing and cardiovascular disease is America’s number one killer.

According to this theory, all of these maladies and more can be traced back to one large toxic presence in our diet… sugar.

A Bright Idea

I took all of this newfound knowledge and formulated an idea. I wanted to see how hard it would be to have our family — me, my husband, and our two children (ages 6 and 11) — spend an entire year eating foods that contained no added sugar. We’d cut out anything with an added sweetener, be it table sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, agave or fruit juice. We also excluded anything made with fake sugar or sugar alcohols. Unless the sweetness was attached to its original source (e.g., a piece of fruit), we didn’t eat it.

Once we started looking we found sugar in the most amazing places: tortillas, sausages, chicken broth, salad dressing, cold cuts, crackers, mayonnaise, bacon, bread, and even baby food. Why add all of this sugar? To make these items more palatable, add shelf life, and make packaged food production ever cheaper.

Call me crazy, but avoiding added sugar for a year struck me as a grand adventure. I was curious as to what would happen. I wanted to know how hard it would be, what interesting things could happen, how my cooking and shopping would change. After continuing my research, I was convinced removing sugar would make us all healthier. What I didn’t expect was how not eating sugar would make me feel better in a very real and tangible way.

A Sugar-Free Year Later

It was subtle, but noticeable; the longer I went on eating without added sugar, the better and more energetic I felt. If I doubted the connection, something happened next which would prove it to me: my husband’s birthday.

During our year of no sugar, one of the rules was that, as a family, we could have one actual sugar-containing dessert per month; if it was your birthday, you got to choose the dessert. By the time September rolled around we noticed our palates starting to change, and slowly, we began enjoying our monthly “treat” less and less.

But when we ate the decadent multi-layered banana cream pie my husband had requested for his birthday celebration, I knew something new was happening. Not only did I not enjoy my slice of pie, I couldn't even finish it. It tasted sickly sweet to my now sensitive palate. It actually made my teeth hurt. My head began to pound and my heart began to race; I felt awful.

It took a good hour lying on the couch holding my head before I began to recover. “Geez,” I thought, “has sugar always made me feel bad, but because it was everywhere, I just never noticed it before?”

After our year of no sugar ended, I went back and counted the absences my kids had in school and compared them to those of previous years. The difference was dramatic. My older daughter, Greta, went from missing 15 days the year before to missing only two.

Now that our year of no sugar is over, we’ll occasionally indulge, but the way we eat it is very different. We appreciate sugar in drastically smaller amounts, avoid it in everyday foods (that it shouldn’t be in in the first place), and save dessert for truly special occasions. My body seems to be thanking me for it. I don’t worry about running out of energy. And when flu season comes around I somehow no longer feel the urge to go and hide with my children under the bed. But if we  do come down with something, our bodies are better equipped to fight it. We get sick less and get well faster. Much to my surprise, after our no-sugar life, we all feel healthier and stronger. And that is nothing to sneeze at.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/my-health-story/year-of-no-sugar-one-family-grand-adventure/

The Eight Nutrition Trends That Drive This Dietitian Crazy

The Eight Nutrition Trends That Drive This Dietitian Crazy

By Abby Langer

As you can imagine, I hear and speak about nutrition day in and day out. It's a great job and I love it, but some trends just drive me nuts, and here they are:

People are getting too free -- as is, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, you name it.

There are always those people who have legitimate food intolerances and allergies who actually need a diet that is 'free' of something. Everyone else, it's not the wheat that's making you bloated, it's all those crackers you used to eat that aren't allowed on your gluten free diet. Cut the junk, lose the weight. It's pretty simple.

The concentration on one particular "superfood." 

Kale, I'm talking about you. I'm a dietitian and even I'm sick of kale. Listen, no one food is going to save your life or make you healthier -- it's what you eat overall that really counts. I'm glad that people are willing to branch out and try new foods such as kale, freekeh, goji berries and the like, but let's be clear: you don't need kale in your cookies.

Cleanses.

Your body doesn't function like a sewer pipe -- you can't just flush it out, and it doesn't contain pounds of crap that is going to make you sick. The role of your kidneys and your liver is to filter toxins out, and if those things are working fine (and they must be if you're feeling well), you're good.

Juicing.

Let me explain this one. Green juices can be very healthy -- it's always good to chew your greens and I prefer that you do, but green juices do contain a lot of good stuff. It's the juices or smoothies that have eight servings of fruit and tons of sugar that I take issue with. Two to three servings of fruit a day is sufficient for most people. Juice is not fruit, it's sugar water. Eat the whole fruit.

Going overboard, because more must be better.

Whether it's eating spoonfuls of coconut oil because you heard it's healthy (yes, some people do that), or taking handfuls of supplements, some people don't know when to stop. Unfortunately for them, sometimes more isn't better. Moderation is a hard concept, I suppose, but when has it ever been a good idea to eat oil by the spoonful?

Unhealthy for the sake of unhealthy.

Hopefully we're on the back end of this trend now, but restaurants serving dishes like duck fat fries with lardons and gravy topped with a pound of cheese, or putting pork belly in everything, it's not cool, it's unhealthy, and I still can't figure out why people boast about eating that stuff. Please stop.

Healthwashing.

Organic cookies are still cookies. Period.

Vilifying one food in particular.

The world's health woes are not just because of sugar, just like they were not just because of fat when we thought fat was terrible. People are sick mostly because they eat a lot of junk with all sorts of processed chemicals in it, and far less whole foods than they should. We have always known that sugar isn't something we need a lot of. Eat less out of a box, and you don't have to worry.

And one trend I love, the "new age" of nutrition.

People are more interested in nutrition than ever before, and are concerned in a different way about what they're putting in their body. Nutrition isn't only about trendy diets or losing weight anymore -- the culture of nutrition is changing to involve new foods going mainstream (quinoa, for example), a push for families to 

cook together, and far more awareness about where food is actually coming from.

This is one trend that I hope continues!

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/abby-langer/nutrition-trends_b_5353692