Red Lentil Soup with “C” Spices

It’s hard to find time to make healthy dinners during the busy holiday season.  Here’s help: a simple, quick vegetarian soup that takes ten minutes of preparation time and twenty minutes to simmer. Coriander, cardamon, cloves, and cinnamon team up with more traditional soup spices like cumin, cayenne pepper, chili pepper and curry to add an exotic flavor. You probably have many of these “C” spices on hand for holiday cookies. With this soup, you’ll pull them out more than once a year!  Customize the spice combination and vary the flavors the next time you make it.  It’s high in protein and fiber, low in fat and calories, and doesn’t really need salt. Enjoy!

1 small onion, chopped (use pre-diced onions to save time)
1/4 cup chopped red pepper, optional
1 tablespoon olive oil or coconut oil
1 cup red split lentils, rinsed well
4 cups water (or broth)
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne and/or chili pepper (more to taste)
1/4 teaspoon cardamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Optional: 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

Saute onion (and red pepper) in oil in a thick-bottomed pot until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, rinse the lentils in a sieve.  Add the rinsed lentils to the translucent onion in the pot alnog with 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil, and add spices. Simmer for 20 minutes.  Adjust spices as desired.

Better Than Broccoli?

By Dr. John Dempster: Broccoli is part of the powerhouse brassica family of vegetables. Broccoli contains important phytochemicals that are released when they’re chopped, chewed, fermented, cooked or digested. The substances are released then break down into sulphorophanes, indole-3-carbinol and D-glucarate, which all have a specific effect on detoxification.

Broccoli sprouts can actually provide more benefit than regular broccoli as they contain 20 times more sulfurophane. Add these to your salads and get creative with them in your meals.

What do Broccoli Sprouts have in common with Beet Root, Sea Vegetables, Dandelions, Flax Seeds, Lemons, Garlic, Artichokes, Tumeric & Apples? All are natural, powerful detoxifiers and simple to add to our daily diets!

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Healing Properties of Broccoli Sprouts: Continue reading »

Great Recipe! Chickpea Soup

Chickpea Vegetable Soup With Parmesan and Rosemary

This healthy recipe from Melissa Clark of the New York Times passes the taste test!  You may want add some hot red pepper also.

Time: 1.5–2 hours (plus overnight soaking if you use dry beans)

Reversing Heart Disease

Bill Clinton explained in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that his recent weight loss was an unintended side effect of the mostly plant-based diet he’s adopted in a bid to reverse his heart disease.

Former President Clinton revealed that the grafted vein from his heart bypass surgery had started clogging up with cholesterol. Concerned, he read several books, including Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., Dr. Dean Ornish’s Programme for Reversing Heart Disease, and The China Study by researchers T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II.

Mr. Clinton was convinced that the scientific research is converging on the notion that a plant-based diet can not only prevent, but actually reverse coronary heart disease.

Continue reading »

Global & Personal Energies

“If you just painted all the black tarpaper roofs on apartment houses in New York City white — if you just did that one thing — it would save a huge amount of electricity, cut greenhouse gasses and put hundreds and hundreds of people to work.” — President Bill Clinton

Green rooftops would be good too, and maybe produce some foods! — Dr. Cathie

About his nearly-vegan diet:

“Since 1986 several hundred people who have tried essentially a plant-based diet — not ingesting any cholesterol from any source — have seen their bodies start to heal themselves; break up the arterial blockage, break up the calcium deposits around the heart. 82% of the people who’ve done this have had that result, so I wanna see if I can be one of them.” — ibid.

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