Golden Soul Healing Chicken Super Soup

Golden Soul Healing Chicken Super Soup

Bone Broth

Ingredients

Chicken carcass (I used 1 free range chicken carcass, bones from organic chicken pieces and ½ duck carcass)

1 Organic Onion (topped and tailed but skin left on)

2 Organic carrots

1 bunch of fresh herbs (I used thyme, parsley, chives and coriander)

2 Ltrs water (enough to cover the bones plus about an inch)

Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 2-3 hours.  The bones should be falling to pieces and the broth a nice golden colour.

Leave to cool slightly and drain broth through a colander into a large saucepan.

Make the Soup

Ingredients

Cooked, cold diced meat from 1 chicken leg or breast

1 medium sweet potato, diced.

1 small ½ inch cube ginger chopped finely

1 garlic clove minced and set aside

1 dessert spoon of coconut oil

½ can Organic Coconut Milk

1 teaspoon turmeric

A good pinch of black pepper

Salt to taste (Herbamere or Sea Salt)

Method

You should have around 1 ½ litres of bone broth.  Put all the ingredients apart from the garlic and the coconut milk into the broth and bring back to the boil.  Simmer until sweet potato is soft.

Add coconut milk and crushed garlic and stir in.  Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Pour back into saucepan, season to taste and serve.

Nutrition at a glance

Bone broth contains valuable minerals in a form your body can easily absorb and use, including calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, glucosamine and other trace minerals and in the words of Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride, author of the book ‘Gut and Psychology Syndrome GAPS’, bone broth ‘heals and seals’ your gut.

Sweet Potatoes contain carotenes and vitamin C making them an excellent antioxidant food. They also contain b vitamins.

Fresh Root Ginger is excellent for relieving symptoms of gastrointestinal stress and is also known for its anti nausea and anti-inflammatory properties.

Garlic is well known for its medicinal properties. Chopping or crushing the raw garlic and leaving it for a few minutes stimulates the enzymatic reaction that produces allicin, the compound to which most of the health benefits are attributed. Due to allicin it has antimicrobial and antibacterial activity and has shown to be effective against infections such as colds, flu and stomach viruses.  Due to its sulphur content it aids liver detoxification and has also demonstrated blood pressure lowering properties in many studies.

Coconut oil contains medium chain fatty acids that are absorbed immediately into your cells for energy.  It is anti-microbial and helps to kill pathogenic bacteria in the gut and feed the good guys. It is neuroprotective and boasts a host of other health benefits.  In this soup it is also helping the turmeric to be more easily absorbed by the body. Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, antiseptic and antibiotic and it also increases the release of digestive enzymes that break down fats and carbohydrates. By adding black pepper to turmeric containing foods you are greatly increasing its bioavailability.

This soup helps to heal your gut. Why is this important?  The state of our gut plays a vital role in our overall wellness. More than 2000 years ago Hippocrates said ‘all disease begins in the gut’.  It is known now that 70% of the cells that make up our immune system are found in the wall of the intestines and up to 80% of our nervous system.  The enteric nervous system, as it is known, is referred to as our ‘second brain’ and sends information to our brain via the vagus nerve.  Around 30 neurotransmitters, including our happy hormone serotonin, are produced here by the good bacteria resident in our intestines using vitamins and minerals absorbed from our food.  Our current western diet which is low in fibre and nutrients, and full of refined carbohydrates and sugar, promotes the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria. They in turn produce toxins and stop the good guys breaking down and absorbing nutrients from our food and, if not kept in check, will damage the gut wall. This can lead to a condition called ‘leaky gut syndrome’.  Our immune system then has to deal with ‘foreign’ substances that pass through our gut wall that should not have made it into our bloodstream, causing low grade chronic inflammation and initiating food intolerances with symptoms such as hay-fever, eczema, pain and stiffness, concentration issues and a foggy head to name but a few!  If the good bacteria are not restored and the gut healed, these symptoms will persist, further compromising our immunity and seriously affecting overall health in the long term.  As you can see, it’s a very good idea to be kind to your gut.