Apple Ginger and Pumpkin Soup

The nights are drawing in, Halloween is approaching and we are well into soup season.

We are also in the middle of a global pandemic and heading towards a challenging time for our personal health.

What power do we have in this situation?
What can we do to take care of ourselves ?
How can we support the health of our families?

One way we can improve our health and indeed our outcomes should we fall foul of ANY virus is by using the power of food and nutrition to boost our immune response and support our optimal health.

This gorgeous bowl of sunshine is rich in beta-carotene from pumpkin. Beta-carotene is the precursor to vitamin A which helps to keep all of our tissues healthy. This includes the mucous barriers in your eyes, lungs, gut and genitals which help trap bacteria and other infectious agents.

Vitamin A is also involved in the production and function of white blood cells, which help capture and clear bacteria and other pathogens from your bloodstream.
Stephensen CB. Vitamin A, infection, and immune function. Annu Rev Nutr. 2001;21:167-92. doi: 10.1146/annurev.nutr.21.1.167. PMID: 11375434.

This soup is flavoured richly with ginger which contains the powerful medicinal properties of gingerol. This means that ginger may actually fight harmful bacteria and viruses, which could reduce your risk for infections.
Chang JS, Wang KC, Yeh CF, Shieh DE, Chiang LC. Fresh ginger (Zingiber officinale) has anti-viral activity against human respiratory syncytial virus in human respiratory tract cell lines. J Ethnopharmacol. 2013 Jan 9;145(1):146-51. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2012.10.043. Epub 2012 Nov 1. PMID: 23123794.

Alongside the pumpkin, I sliced four large new season apples into this soup. Apples contain pectin, a type of fibre that acts as a prebiotic. Pectin feeds the good bacteria in your gut and the healthier and more diverse your good gut bacteria remain, the stronger the immunity of your body.

Antioxidant-rich apples may also help protect your lungs from oxidative damage.

A large study in more than 68,000 women found that those who ate the most apples had the lowest risk of asthma.
Hyson DA. A comprehensive review of apples and apple components and their relationship to human health. Adv Nutr. 2011;2(5):408-420. doi:10.3945/an.111.000513

Any food that supports lung health is helpful at this time.

The base of this delicious soup is bone broth, often named colloquially as ‘liquid penicillin’.

There are no clinical trials on bone broth but we know that it provides dense nutrition rich in minerals, easily absorbed amino acids and gut supportive proteins. Bone marrow, when used in making bone broth, gives you vitamin A, Vitamin K2, omega 3 fatty acids, omega-6s and minerals like iron, zinc, selenium, boron and manganese. Bone broth is also rich in the amino acid glycine which supports your liver health.

Whenever we are eating bone broth we are deeply supporting the overall health of our bodies.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot support your body and your personal health at this difficult time. You have the personal power to wake-up and move your body daily to promote your health, to get outside into daylight and maintain your vitamin D levels, to write a gratitude journal and re-wire your brain for happiness and to dive into a delicious bowl of this nourishing soup.

Now is the time to empower yourself with knowledge around food and nutrition.


Ingredients

1 medium pumpkin peeled and diced

4 tbsp olive oil

2 carrots roughly chopped

2 onions roughly diced

6 cups chicken bone broth

4 new season Honey Crisp apples sliced

1 tbsp turmeric

2” fresh ginger sliced

1 x14 oz can coconut milk

Instructions

1. Place the olive oil, onion, garlic, ginger turmeric and carrot in the Instapot and sauté until the onion softens and becomes opaque. Stir as you sauté so that the turmeric does not burn.

2. Add all the other ingredients apart from the coconut milk.

3. Close the lid and hit the setting for soup.

4. Allow the Instapot to lose pressure and remove the lid

5. Blend the soup using a hand blender to get a smooth consistency.

6. Add the coconut milk and blend again

7. Pour this liquid sunshine into a bowl and enjoy!

Red Lentil and Lemon Soup

I am a very lazy cook and delight in recipes that are simple to make but still pack a nutritional punch.

This recipe for Red Lentil and Lemon Soup hits all of my recipe pleasure points: It is quick, easy and packed with flavour created by simple but nutritionally dense ingredients.

Lets break it down and take a look at how this simple soup recipe can support our beautiful midlife body:

1. Lentils. Rich in fibre and iron this quick to cook plant protein source helps to support our daily detox (read poop!) with fibre so that excess hormone can be eliminated from the body, helps to keep our iron stores healthy, provides us with energy boosting B vitamins and lentils give us slow burn energy that helps us to feel full and happy!
2. Bone Broth. I keep repeating myself on this one; bone broth is a superfood for the midlife woman.
Mineral dense to support weary adrenal glands and a sluggish thyroid, bone broth provides us with easily absorbed amino acids that support gut health (no more gassy bloat ladies!) collagen for joint health and great looking skin, and again with the minerals that support our bone health as we move into the next chapter. You can read more here
3. I am just going to give some praise to the cumin and chilli that give this recipe such a delicious flavour. These spices are warming to the body and support the midlife woman in maintaining a healthy metabolic rate. Spicy foods warm us from the inside out and ignite our internal furnace or metabolic rate giving the thyroid gland a ‘baby vacation’. And again…flavour!
4. Let’s talk about fast food! This nutrient dense soup is on the table within 20 minutes providing you with a delicious meal in less time than it would take you to order in. AND YOU WILL BE SUPPORTING YOUR HEALTH! Yes! I am shouting. Do yourself a solid ladies and throw the ingredients in your slow cooker!
5. Most of the ingredients for this recipe are found in the store cupboard or the bottom of your crisper. One carrot, an onion, a bag of red lentils, spices and some tomato paste. This recipe is a health promoting food and unlike a Gywneth endorsed juice cleanse, is within the budget and capabilities of everyone.

Life is busy, you don’t have time to spend hours in the kitchen labouring over supper, this recipe gives you a delicious and quick midweek option that delivers nutrition to your body in warming tasty mouthfuls.

…whenever you make bone broth, this recipe should be uppermost in your mind and if you are curious about which other foods work hardest to build health for a midlife woman you can download my FREE E-book, 10 Essential Health promoting Foods for the Midlife Woman.

Ingredients

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 onion diced

2 cloves garlic minced

1 carrot diced

1 tsp ground cumin

1tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 cup red lentils

11/2 quarts chicken bone broth

1/2 lemon juiced

1 cup frozen spinach (optional)

Instructions

1. Gently melt the coconut oil in a pan and add the onion garlic, carrot and salt and spices

2. Sauté the vegetables and spices gently to release their delicious aroma

3. Add the tomato paste and simmer for 1 minute to cook the paste out and improve the flavour

4. Add the lentils, chicken bone broth and lemon juice and simmer the soup for 20 minutes or until the lentils are softened.

5. Blend the soup with a hand blender to form a smooth texture.

6. Add a cup of frozen spinach to increase the iron content of the soup or more lemon juice if you like a sour soup
   Enjoy!

If you like warming spices and meals that pack a punch with flavour, click here to get my recipe for anti-inflammatory Turmeric and Vegetable Thai Curry.

The Benefits of Bone Broth (+ Recipe)

I generally shy away from the word ‘superfood’ as we live in a world with an abundance of healthy promoting real foods from arugula to zucchini, BUT for women feeling exhausted in their middle years, bone broth comes pretty close to the holy grail of nutritional content.

THE BENEFITS OF BONE BROTH

Contains Easily Absorbable Amino Acids
This help heal the epithelial cells of the gut lining alleviating feelings of gassiness and bloating that can become more common as we age and our digestive tract ages with us. Healthy digestion ensures absorption of nutrition from all the other energizing foods you include into you daily menu.

Mineral Dense
Meaning support for your adrenal glands. If you have been suffering from stress, exhaustion or anxiety then bone broth is for you. Not to mention your diet will appreciate the bump in calcium, magnesium and phosphorous content.

Packed with Glucosamine and Chondroitin
These are the building blocks for our tissues. Bone broth helps support strong bones, joints, hair and nails as we age.

Rich in Collagen
An important connective tissue which helps prevent osteoarthritis and general wear and tear on joints and bones (definitely something for my midlife athletes to consider). Collagen is also the perfect ingredient for smooth, young looking skin. After 40, the body naturally makes less collagen which is why, we start to notice those laugh lines and wrinkles. Collagen also helps to form lean muscle mass and promotes burning fat.

Detoxifying
During perimenopause, it is the liver that carries the burden of breaking down the excess hormones that accumulate in our bodies. Rich in amino acids, glycine and proline, bone broth supports your liver in building detoxifying glutathione so that she can do her detox job more effectively.

Anti-Anxiety
As a rich source of magnesium, bone broth can help you to relax and feel less anxious which will lead to better sleep. The amino acid glycine found in bone broth also supports the body to combat the stress-inducing effects of the heart-rate-accelerating hormone norepinephrine.

Bone broth is one of the foods that makes the list in my FREE guide The Ten Essential Foods For The Midlife Woman. You can get your copy here.

Bone broth is readily available in supermarkets today but it is easy to make this midlife superfood at home. I make mine in a slow cooker so that I can spend five minutes on preparation and forget about it until I find time to pour the contents of the slow cooker through a colander and discard the bones. This can be up to 48 hours later.

So what do you need to make this delicious and highly nutritious midlife elixir for yourself?

Bones from 1 roasted chicken – After you have enjoyed your roasted chicken or turkey dinner, pile all of the bones into a slow cooker for bone broth.

• 1-2 carrots

• 2-3 stalks celery

• 3-4 cloves garlic

• 1 onion halved, skin on or off

• 3-4 bay leaves

• 10-15 peppercorns

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar.
  
  Add all of the ingredients into the slow cooker with the chicken carcass. Know that the apple cider vinegar will pull the minerals out of the bones to increase the nutrition of your broth. Also know that your broth will not miss an odd carrot or the celery stalks. It is not about perfection here but consistency…just get your broth started with what you have in the kitchen.
  
  Fill the slow cooker up with filtered water to cover the bones and cover and switch on low. Leave the broth to do its’ thing for 48 hours. Even in the summer I often have my slow cooker out on the deck making bone broth for a delicious limey summer chicken tortilla soup or gazpacho!
  
  After 36 – 48 hours, let the contents cool and pass through a colander into a large container in which you can store your delicious bone broth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.