Healthy Soup Recipes

How Could Soups Help Someone With Bipolar Disorder?

Since the body makes all its own chemicals, hormones, metabolic intermediates and tissues, all that is needed is to supply the fundamental elements. Then the body will take care of itself.

One area that all people who have bipolar disease have in common is that they all don't eat enough vegetables. Yet, vegetables are incredibly dense in nutrients and nutrients affect the brain's production of neurotransmitters. I'd love to round up a group of people with bipolar disorder and feed them meals each day for two years. It takes two years for each cell in the body to be renewed.

One of the primary foods I'd feed them is vegetable soup at least once daily over the fall and winter months. Some of those soups would have meat and protein foods in them, as I have found that many with mental disorders aren't getting enough protein in their diet. Soup is easy to make, and it can incorporate just about every vegetable known to man. By increasing the diversity of foods in the diet, you give the body all types of phytonutrients that are physiologically active. You also provide a spectrum of vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, carotenoids, polyphenols, chlorophyll, and a host of medicinal constituents. By constantly providing these, the body's cells can begin to wake up with the result of you feeling better when you have bipolar disorder.

How to Get Started

To make soups, here's a general guideline:

• Use fresh ingredients.
• Use non-genetically modified ingredients.
• Use as many vegetables as possible but only one protein (beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, wild meats, fish, duck, goose, pork).
• Sear the meat for a few minutes at the beginning of the soup-making process.
• Then saute your vegetables.
• Aim for at least 5 vegetables in a soup. This is easy to do because often times, the onion and garlic don't take up much space in the soup, especially when sauteed. You could add carrots, celery and broccoli or spinach and still have a pretty thin soup.
• Add a bone if you want additional minerals to be added in the soup.
• Add flavorings.
• Cook on a low heat, covered for an hour or until done.

Here's an interesting study on soup that was published in the Journal of Nutrition:

Sixty healthy men and women who were over the age of 40 first consumed a lycopene-free diet for a week. This was for the purpose of bringing their levels of lycopene down to zero before starting the study. Their levels fell to 0.17 micromol/L lycopene. Next they received Campbell's tomato soup that had an equivalency of either 25 or 35 mg lycopene daily. Sometimes they substituted V8 juice that had the same amount of lycopene in it that matched the lycopene group they were in. They ate this extra soup or tomato juice for 15 days.

Their levels soared to 0.569 micromol/L lycopene in the 25 mg lycopene group and to 0.784 micromol/L in the 35 mg lycopene group. The researchers also noted that they were protected from oxidative stress and free radicals.That's one of the things that everyone with bipolar disorder needs – protection from oxidative stress and free radicals.

Start making soup right now. And have the best winter of your life.

Soup Recipes for Someone with Bipolar Disorder

If you've already read our article, How Could Soups Help Someone with Bipolar Disorder?, you'll recall that there were guidelines that are quite easy to follow to make a nutrient-dense vegetable soup.

Basically, if you used very fresh, non-GMO ingredients, added a protein and included at least five vegetables in the soup, you would be creating a very nourishing soup.

You might be looking for some recipes and here are a few:

Beef Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 large beef bone, about 4 inches long by 1inch thick
• 2-1/2 pounds beef, diced or sliced into cubes that are bite-sized
• 1 red sweet onion, diced
• 1 bunch green onions
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 pound carrots, shredded
• 2 leaves kale, sliced
• 1 bunch parsley, sliced
• 3 ribs celery, diced
• 2 bell peppers, cored and diced
• 1 pound buckwheat noodles (sometimes called soba noodles)
• 3 quarts water
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• In a medium saute pan, saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until done. Add to large soup pot.
• Then add the beef bone. In a separate large saute pan, sear the beef cubes long enough so the outside is brown but the inside still remains raw. This will take about 5 minutes. Add the beef to the soup pot.
• Next add the vegetables and the water. Simmer on low for about 45 minutes, covered.
• Meanwhile, in a 2 quart pot, bring salted water to a boil and add buckwheat noodles. Cook until done, rinse and drain.
• Add noodles to the soup and cook for 5 additional minutes.

The purpose of using soba noodles instead of regular noodles is to prevent additional stress on the body from GMO wheat or other grains. Some research on those with bipolar disorders has shown a possible sensitivity to the GMO grains. If you look at the grand scheme of things, it's never a good idea to eat GMO foods, whether they are causing sensitivity or allergies or not. These foods will cause degeneration of the immune system in time, according to experts on GMO foods such as Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception.

Chicken Tomato Soup

Ingredients:

• 3 cups diced or cubed raw chicken
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 5 pounds tomatoes, diced
• 1⁄2 white onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 quarts water

Directions:

• Sear the cubed chicken in a saute pan with one tablespoon olive oil. Then add to your large soup pot.
• Next saute the onions and garlic in the remaining one tablespoon olive oil. Add to soup pot.
• Finally, add the tomatoes, salt and pepper, and water to the soup pot.
• Simmer on low for 45 minutes, covered.

Chicken Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

• 3 cups diced or cubed raw chicken
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Two 16-oz packages white mushrooms, sliced
• 1 white onion, diced
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup water
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Saute mushrooms and onions in olive oil until cooked thoroughly.
• Add sauteed combination to large soup pot along with chicken and chicken broth. Mix.
• Add water and cook on low heat, covered for 45 minutes.
• Next add milk and cook on low heat for another 10 minutes. Salt and pepper right before serving.
• Soup should be loaded with vegetables. If your loved one with bipolar disorder doesn't like vegetables, blend half the soup in blender to liquify it, and thus reduce the vegetable volume.

Soup's on!