Nutrient-Rich Cabbage-Ginger Soup To Help Fight Flu and Colds
Note: I don’t believe that Warfarin and other chemical blood thinners are good for anyone, and I believe that the natural sources are the way to go.
However, if you ARE taking warfarin, or any other blood thinner, then you should steer clear of this recipe. Cabbage and ginger are both natural blood thinners, and so if you include them in your diet, together with a synthetic blood-thinner such as warfarin, the result might be too much blood-thinner.
Natural Food-Based Blood Thinners: You might ask yourself, ‘Well. Perhaps I should switch to the natural remedy and use food-based blood-thinners instead? Up to you and your doctor to answer that question.
This recipe creates a very tasty and warming soup – Ideal for those winter months, or even spring time, when the weather fluctuations tend to bring on those unexpected bouts of cold and flu.
It uses fresh ginger and a dash of red cayenne pepper to spice it up, drive out those flu germs, and make it interesting. The soup mixture is blended at the end of the cooking, with a little extra cold water, and just half a raw onion added to the blender. This gives the soup a real fresh zest which gives extra potency to the antioxidant, anti-vital properties of the cabbage and ginger combined. You re-heat the blended soup, which slightly cooks that raw onion, but you do not boil the soup.
Cabbage is a great antioxidant and anti-inflammatory food. It is very high in calcium, and contains folate, vitamin C, iron, beta-carotene, and B vitamins. Cabbage is one of the foods which helps prevent cancer, especially of the lungs, the colon, and the breasts. It is good to include cabbage in your diet several times a week.
Ginger in this recipe provides more germ-killinig and cancer-destroying agents. These specific compounds found in ginger are called gingerols and terpenes. They are antioxidants which are helpful in preventing and treating cancer of the colon, ovaries and rectum, as well as having a general anti-viral effect on the health.
The carrot provides more carotene-Vitamin A, an important constituent for health and, particularly, for eye-sight.
Onion provides zinc for healing, chromium which helps regulate blood sugar levels, diallyl sulphide which helps protect against viral diseases and cancer, and other important antioxidant compounds such as quercetin.
ToMake Gluten Free Gingered Cabbage Soup:
Roughly chop up half a medium-sized cabbage. Put into a large saucepan which has a lid.
Now peel a large knob of ginger. Chop it up finely. There should be at least a tablespoon of chopped ginger – use more if you would like.
Add the ginger to the cabbage.
Add one chopped onion.
Add one chopped washed potato with its skin still left on.
Add one roughly chopped carrot.
Add one litre of water, put the lid on, and bring to the boil.
Once the vegetables are cooked, add another half litre of cold water to cool the vegetables.
Put some of the vegetables and some of the liquid into the blender. Blend until smooth, just about a minute. Pour the blended vegetables into a bowl. Then gradually blend the rest of the vegetables and liquid in the pot.
Return all the vegetables to the saucepan. Reserve about 2 cups of soup to use in the blender.
Next – Chop up half a medium sized onion and add to the blender with the blended soup. Put in a half teaspoon of red paprika, one teaspoon of sea salt, and blend up with the raw onion.
Add the blended raw onion mixture to the soup in the pot. Reheat the soup to hot, but not boiling.
Serve with grated cheese on top of the soup. Alternatively, add a dollop of sour cream, or some basil-flavoured hummus.
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