Soups

Trevor: Hello everyone this is Trevor Justice with the Vegetarian Health Institute. Tonight’s topic is Savory Soups. And our guest expert is Lenore Baum who is the author of Sublime Soups and Lenore’s Natural Cuisine. How you doing, Lenore?

Lenore: I’m great, how are you Trevor?

Trevor: Pretty good. In fact I’m starting to get hungry reading these soup recipes again.

Lenore: Good.

Trevor: I’m wondering if you want to kind of summarize the key points from the written lesson for people that haven’t read it yet before we go into the new student questions.

Lenore: Okay. I’ll just kind of skim over it to allow time for questions and if there aren’t questions enough, I will go back and do more details. Basically, soups are my passion because it’s really my favorite food. It’s warming and nourishing and wholesome and in these economic times, very expensive. And we eat it for breakfast here in Asheville, North Carolina. And I eat it for breakfast in Phoenix, Arizona and Michigan, it’s just anywhere you live you can eat it for breakfast and have a small bowl for lunch, or a big bowl, or have it for dinner. And it’s a great travel food. You can easily put it in a thermos. And it’s extremely forgiving. Basically any ingredient in the soup recipe that you don’t like, you leave out and it should come out as long as there’s some kind of a little bit of fat in, a little bit of salt, and then the basic ingredient like beans. And if it’s too thin you can thicken it. If it’s too thick you can thin it. It makes great leftovers, and so that’s basically why my passion is soups.

Trevor: Got it.

Lenore: And some of the soup basics are when recipes call for vegetables to be cut up, when it’s going to be a blended soup, it kind of makes it crazy. It says mince vegetables. You don’t have to mince vegetables. Just coarsely chop them. It’s going in the blender anyway, and it makes a really fast preparation that way. So let’s see. One thing that would add complexity and

Page 1 of 31

Soups depth to food is sautéing. It’s not necessary, and if you’re running out of time you can just eliminate that step, but sautéing like onions and garlic before it’s put into the soup really adds a delicious depth to it.

Trevor: So yeah, I have a question about that one Lenore. In our program we try to encourage people to get their fats from whole foods like avocados, nuts, and seeds to minimize oil. So, how important is it from a taste standpoint or – I shouldn’t say important, but how dramatic is the difference in taste when you sauté the vegetables first versus not?

Lenore: First of all, I only use about half a teaspoon of coconut oil. So it’s such a little amount. It caramelizes for instance onions, so it really gives it that sort of umami flavor. It really gives the extra depth. It’s not critical, but I just made some soup today, gingered squash soup. And I didn’t sauté it. I just decided not to do it and see the difference, and there really was a noticeable difference. I mean soup is soup, I love soup any way it made, but if you want something that’s got more flavor, then you sauté.

Trevor: So half a teaspoon, so little. Do you use like an extra small skillet or how do you make it – ?

Lenore: I use these pans that are Diamond. They’re nonstick but they’re embedded with little diamond particles. It takes very little oil. It’s just enough to allow it to make more heat between the vegetables like the onions, and the pan and it browns it.

Trevor: So the typical nonstick pans I don’t use, because I’m always afraid some of the little nonstick stuff will come off in the food. What is this type of pot that you’re describing?

Lenore: There’s Scanpan and Swiss Diamond. They are nonstick, but they’re embedded with very hard material. One of them has diamond particles and the other one has ceramic titanium particles. So it hardens. It’s a slurry that is mixed in with the nonstick so that it’s very, very hard. I had a metallics person, somebody with a degree and PhD in metallurgy, evaluate them for me. And he felt that they were okay. I don’t use any utensils that would scratch it or

Page 2 of 31

Soups anything like that. I use wooden – you know, and they’re very easy to clean up. I know it’s not the ideal. Ideally it would be cast iron, but they’re awfully heavy and hard to take care of. [Crosstalk] Pardon?

Trevor: If someone was using cast iron to sauté, could they get away with half a teaspoon of olive oil?

Lenore: No, no they’d probably have to use two or three times that, but still that’s not that much. And coconut oil’s a good quality oil. It’s got a good high flash point, so it doesn’t degenerate. It doesn’t deteriorate the way like olive oil. For years I used olive oil thinking that was the right oil, but of course it isn’t for heating up, because it will – it just breaks apart. It’s got a low flash point.

Trevor: Are you using flash point to mean the same thing as the smoking point?

Lenore: Yeah, the smoking point, I call it the flash point. Yes, exactly.

Trevor: So I just want to point everyone listening to lesson number, just a sec here, lesson number 23 where Vesanto Melina talks about the best oils for raw versus cooked. And there’s a smoke point table in there. So, if anyone’s curious, I’ll tell you right now what it says. Let’s see here, olive oil has – is this right? This is pretty high. It says that extra virgin, the smoke point is 375° and the one that’s not extra virgin, the smoke point is 420°. That sounds pretty high.

Lenore: What is coconut oil?

Trevor: Yeah, I’m sure it’s higher – interesting, I thought it’d be higher. It says here that refined coconut oil could be heated up to 450 as opposed to 420 or 375 for olives. So it’s little higher. Not as big of a gap as I thought.

Lenore: Not as big as I remembered either. Well, I like coconut oil. And I often use, let’s see what is it, expeller pressed, expeller pressed coconut oil doesn’t have any coconut flavor to

Page 3 of 31

Soups it. So, if I’m not cooking with something that I want, if I don’t want a coconut flavor I’ll use expeller pressed. If I want coconut flavor, then I will use regular coconut oil, virgin.

Trevor: Got it.

Lenore: So, I’ll go back to talking some more about some basics. One of my favorite things is pressure cooking, and I know a lot of people have fear of pressure cooking, because they heard stories from their mothers and grandmothers about pea soup on the ceiling and things like that, but the new generation pressure cooker isn’t like that. There are three safety features on it and it’s very unlikely unless you walk away and have it turned on high for 20 minutes, and then it might sprat onto the side but not up to the ceiling. But pressure cooking in like 12 minutes you can cook a bean soup, which would normally take an hour to simmer on the stove. So not only does it save time, but it really saves resources on the planet, because you’re not using fuel for that long. And it marries the flavors, you know its there under 15 lbs per square inch, and all that pressure is mingling, comingling the flavors. And it’s just a wonderful way to especially make bean soups.

Trevor: Yep, actually I think you know we had a whole lesson on pressure cooking, lesson 43, and Jill Nussinow was our guest expert.

Lenore: Yes. Well I concur.

Trevor: Do you also have videos or anything specifically on pressure cooking?

Lenore: We’re actually in the process of putting some videos together, I don’t at this point, but my husband has been filming a lot of my classes and he’s going to edit them and we’re going to put them on the website and make them available.

Trevor: Great.

Lenore: Yeah.

Page 4 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Well, keep going.

Lenore: Okay. Let’s see. Any soup would be actually more delicious and create a rich velvety texture without adding fat if you blended like three or four cups of it. So you take three or four cups of the soup after it’s cooked, put it in the blender, and then pour it back into the soup pot. And then it becomes like a rich base. This is particularly true with bean soup or even vegetable soups.

Trevor: Now I read about you using an immersion blender, which is sort of like a handheld, is that how you normally do it?

Lenore: Well, no. If I’m blending the entire soup, like a vegetable soup, I will use the immersion blender and put it right in the pot and I won’t have to mess up, dirty a blender. But if I’m just taking a portion of it out, then I would put it in a blender and then pour it back into the pot.

Trevor: Got it.

Lenore: And then the Hand Immersion Blenders are really great, but I don’t feel that they – they don’t make a smooth texture when you’re trying to work with beans, because beans have that skin and I feel a regular blender or high speed blender works better for those. A lot of the soups in my cookbook are pressure cooked and blended, because it means you just put big chunks of things of the vegetables and everything in the pot, pressure cook it or cook it on the stove or even in a crock pot all day. And then put it in the blender and it’s become this wonderful, creamy, satisfying, nutritious, high fiber meal.

Trevor: I have a question. I’ve made soups where it was kind of like a very watery stock with beans and vegetables floating in it. I can see how doing this and blending a portion of the soup would make it a lot more thick. I’m also wondering if it makes it more flavorful, because the beans or vegetables – how should I say this, because the stock itself would have all purified or pureed beans and vegetables in it.

Page 5 of 31

Soups

Lenore: Yeah, that’s another good point. Yeah, absolutely. And the other way to thicken a soup of course is to add some cooked rice or rolled oats and I think put a recipe in there for cream of broccoli or cream of green bean soup. And you can use rolled oats or cooked brown rice, and then blend that with that and that becomes a creamier base without having to add milk, whether it be almond milk or soy milk or cow’s milk. It becomes a nondairy version.

Trevor: Right –

Lenore: And you can also use starchy vegetables like yams, or carrots, or squash, and that will thicken it, especially if you take three or four cups and blend it and put it back in.

Trevor: It’s interesting that root vegetables, which are relatively low in fat can end up giving it such a creamy texture.

Lenore: Yeah, I’m not really sure why, I guess they’re fibers for one thing. I don’t know, but it’s true, it does.

Trevor: It’s good. It’s a way to make it creamy without necessarily adding more fat.

Lenore: Absolutely. A lot of my recipes are that way.

Trevor: Yeah.

Lenore: Well these creamy soups can also be used as a sauce. I used to pour them over grain or noodles for a quick meal. It’s just a different way of using it besides just having it as a soup, a bowl of soup.

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: Presentation, I’ll just say a couple quick more things. Presentation I think is important and if the cook has a couple extra minutes and is willing to cut up a little bit of parsley

Page 6 of 31

Soups or scallion to put on top of the soup it makes a nice contrast, the color green, and it’s raw, with the cooked soup. We eat with our eyes of course so besides our mouth and it’d be nice to have that contrast. And –

Trevor: And with our noses.

Lenore: Pardon? With our noses, yes.

Trevor: If I smell like fresh chopped cilantro on something, it definitely makes it more appetizing.

Lenore: Absolutely. That’s another good garnish. Most soups can be stored for about a week and they can be frozen for months. I freeze them in glass jars, in mason jars, you just have to leave about a 2 inch head space, it’s called or empty space where there’s no soup so that it allows room to expand. Once in a while a jar will break, but usually they don’t.

Trevor: So you leave a couple of inches of space so that soup can expand.

Lenore: Yeah, so it can expand.

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: And I don’t really think that stock is necessary, but I’m not really a gourmet cook, I’m a practical. I like to make tasty, quick things that are nourishing, high nutrient density. So I just don’t take the time to make stocks, but I can use herbamere, once in a while I will use herbamere. I’m not using it as much now, because there’s more salt than I want to use.

Trevor: Could you spell that to people?

Lenore: H E R B A M E R E. And it’s basically fermented, no it’s not fermented, it’s infused salt. In other words they take a bunch of vegetables like celery, leek, water crest, onion,

Page 7 of 31

Soups parsley, and garlic and thyme. And they dehydrate them and put them in with sea salt, and leave it, like I think its three weeks or something. And it infuses the salt and everything, flavors mingle and then they put it in package and it’s by A. Vogel. I think it’s German, but it has a nice flavor. I mean, I would use less. I used to use like a half a teaspoon a quart, but now I would probably use a quarter teaspoon just because there’s more salt in it than I want.

Trevor: Got it.

Lenore: But mostly I use miso, the age fermented soybean. That has a nice complexity. There is salt in it, but there’s a lot of flavor too, a lot of punch.

Trevor: And is the salt in miso always sea salt or no?

Lenore: Oh yeah, pretty much. I mean any good quality, miso.

Trevor: Which brands do you like?

Lenore: This one is not probably well known. Kadashina, and Yojose, these are mostly Japanese. I get them from Natural Import.

Trevor: What about South River?

Lenore: Oh yes, of course, South River. I like their sweet, white miso and their chickpea miso. The barley [Crosstalk]

Trevor: And they actually – they contributed some miso recipes in lesson 30.3, and I think oh yes, Seven Ways to Sneak Miso into Your Daily Meals is lesson 30.1 which also came from them.

Page 8 of 31

Soups

Lenore: Yeah, they’re really good people. I saw their operation. They built their own place with pegs and everything. It’s just a beautiful wooden building that they’ve been making it for years. I must have seen it probably 25 years ago. A lot of –

Trevor: We’ve got ten questions from the students, so why don’t we –

Lenore: Okay, let’s see what people want to know.

Trevor: Except not all these question are relevant to soups, so I’m going to skip over the ones. So students on the line if you’ve asked a question and we’re not answering it, it’s because it’s not relevant to this topic, but please post more questions that are relevant to soups. So the first one –

Lenore: Well if there’s time at the end, I’m willing to answer if I can.

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: Even if it’s not relevant, but that’s up to you.

Trevor: Well, the first one is from Nancy, “Can any soup recipe can be converted to a crock pot one and vice-versa?”

Lenore: That is a good question, and I knew it was going to come up. I have not worked with a crock pot for probably 25 or 30 years, but my best guess is that you can. If you’re working with beans, you absolutely have to soak. I soak the beans anyway. You want to remove the phytic acid, the enzyme from it. Definitely soak the beans overnight before you put it in the crock pot, rinse off the beans, and then put them in the crock pot. Start with very hot or boiling water. It should work all day long, she’ll have to try it and then let me know. She can go to my website and tell me. But I would think so, that’s my best guess. I just – I like to cook on gas, so I just stopped using an electric pot, electricity from the crock pot many years ago. But it’s so handy, I mean why not.

Page 9 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Next one is from Christina and she says, “Is it true that vegetables lose their potency when cooked? And does potentially overcooking veggies outweigh the nutritional benefit of soup?”

Lenore: Interesting question. I think in any way you can get vegetables is a plus, as my mother would say, it’s a plus. And I don’t think you lose – you certainly don’t lose fiber, you don’t lose any fat-soluble vitamins. You’ll lose vitamin C in cooking, because of heat, but other than that, I mean obviously enzymes are lost in that process, but we eat greens three times a day and they’re not raw most of the time. I just eat so many more greens when they’re cooked, but I think it’s better to cook them even though I know there’s a loss of enzymes. But other than that, you have to ask someone like Dr. Clapper.

Trevor: Okay, well here. I’ll ask you three more specific questions related to that. The first one is really just a comment, not a question, “And it’s true with certain vegetables, spinach for example, you can eat a lot more of it when it’s cooked.” I was just working on an article today let me see if I have this number in front of me. In order to get the same amount of protein from spinach that you’ll get from one veggie burger, you’d have to eat either 12 cups of raw spinach or 2.3 cups of cooked spinach. Now I could imagine although it’s kind of a lot, I could imagine eating 2.3 cups of cooked spinach, it’s not unthinkable. But 12 cups of raw spinach, it would take a while to eat. So that’s just one example. Now not every vegetable cooks down as much as spinach, and broccoli –

Lenore: Well also there’s so much for example oxalic acid in raw spinach that cooking it will at least eliminate some of it. On the other hand, you could probably eat more cooked vegetables like spinach and it wouldn’t affect you. Oxalic acid is something that bothers me. It tends to kick up arthritis. So I can eat it cooked much better than raw.

Trevor: Right. Well that’s true. Spinach is one of those vegetables high in oxalic acid which we talk about in lesson 3 on calcium. But I’m also just making a point, that for any vegetable that cooks down and becomes smaller once it’s cooked, you can eat a greater volume of it. And for those nutrients that aren’t harmed in the cooking, you’re getting more of those

Page 10 of 31

Soups nutrients. Now the other thing is as an argument in favor of soups, Dr. Clapper taught us all about acrylamides in lesson 16 I believe. And so acrylamides form when foods, especially starchy foods, are heated above 248°, but as he points out, the boiling point of water I guess in a regular pot is only 212. So you never have to worry about acrylamides with anything – he encourages soups and stews, because of the fact that you never have to worry about acrylamides unlike with baking. However, I asked Jill this question on the pressure cooking call, and I’m going to ask you, because she didn’t think she had the definitive answer. If someone makes soups in a pressure cooker, is the temperature higher than 248? And if it is, do you have any clue if starchy foods might be subject to acrylamides?

Lenore: I don’t have a definitive answer either, but I don’t think acrylamides are an issue in a pressure cooker.

Trevor: Okay. Jill also said that because of the fact that there’s so much moisture around the starchy vegetables, and it’s not like a dry heat as in an oven, that she didn’t think it was an issue.

Lenore: Yeah, and I don’t think it gets much hotter than that. I mean, 212 is boiling right?

Trevor: Right. It does get hotter than that though.

Lenore: Yeah, but I don’t think it gets anywhere near to 275 or 300, but it’s probably, the answer is probably on the internet somewhere.

Trevor: Okay, that’s okay. We’ll find out. And what else did I want to say, oh, so one reason that a lot of people, especially those who are inclined towards more raw foods, one reason that we prefer steaming over boiling is there’s a sense that less of the nutrition is lost into the boiling water. And obviously with soups, the vegetables are in the water. So if certain nutrients are released into the water but then you're drinking the water, is that a net effect of no loss? Or is it –?

Page 11 of 31

Soups

Lenore: Right, absolutely no loss. And you know down south here when so many people would drink the pot liquor, they would call it, they would cook greens, collard greens, and they would drink the liquid that it was cooked in. I think it’s awfully bitter myself, but they really maintained their health that way, the people who did that. Up until the 40s, that was pretty common in the poor south.

Trevor: Of course as you said earlier, vitamin C and other, anything else that’s heat sensitive is going to be lost.

Lenore: As far as I can think anyway, vitamin C is the only thing that’s going to be lost besides enzyme.

Trevor: All right. Next question also from Christina, “Is it true that crock pots have VPA in the liner? And should we not use that?”

Lenore: I don’t think so. VPA, it’s usually in a plastic. And if there’s a lining, I know that they were lining tin cans with it briefly, but it’s usually ceramic. All the crock pots I ever knew about in the old days and my mother had one untill about five years ago, and it looked like straight ceramic to me, glazed. I don’t think so. I mean she could check the company, she could call, but I really doubt that.

Trevor: Okay. And you know Christina, if you go to the website for the manufacturer of any particular crock pot, you can probably just find their email address or a contact form on there and it could be as easy as emailing them the question. All right, next questions from Charmaine. She wants to know and obviously half of this question would only apply to ovo-lactive vegetarians. But she asks, “Do you use any mustard seeds or gee to add a smoky flavor to your soups?”

Lenore: Smoky flavor. I don’t think I’d use gee or mustard seeds for smoky, but maybe you could. I do use mustard seed and occasionally I use gee, I use an olive oil coconut gee. There’s a little bit of a butter in it too I think. For smoky flavor I would use smoked salt.

Page 12 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: There’s also something called liquid smoke, it’s kind of funky. I don’t know. It’s sitting in my pantry, but I haven’t used it in years. I don’t know. When I did use it, it did give a smoky flavor and, but its chemicals, even the natural stuff has got chemicals. But I would use smoked salt.

Trevor: Okay. There’s also, if anyone’s interested in the smoky flavor, lesson 6 Meaty Recipes was authored by Erick Tucker, the chef at Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco which is a well known kind of gourmet vegan restaurant. And he talks in lesson 6 about how to get a meaty flavor or texture to foods and some of the – here, I think I’m looking at it right now, what he recommends for smoky flavors, just a sec here. Here it is. You don’t need a smoker. It’s pretty easy to find smoked salt, smoked paprika, smoked dulse, or smoked tea leaves, and good quality liquid smoke. And he points out all of these might be safer than actually smoking foods, because the ash and tar are filtered out. Okay, let’s go to the next one. This is from Michelle. I’m not familiar with this type of oil, spelled C A R O, caro oil? But she wants to know what you think of it.

Lenore: I’ve never heard of it. I don’t know.

Trevor: Michelle did you mean canola? Were you trying to abbreviate canola? Let us know, because we’re not familiar with caro oil. [Crosstalk] But let’s answer the question for canola in case that’s what she meant.

Lenore: Well, canola was the big fad about ten years ago, fifteen years ago, and it’s lost favor, it’s rape seed oil, R A P E, rape seed, and they grow it in fields where’s there’s a lot of springs supposedly, I don’t know. I don’t remember all the details I gave it up about ten years ago. There’s a lot of information on the internet about it, but I don’t use it, and it’s not really recommended so much.

Trevor: Okay.

Page 13 of 31

Soups

Lenore: Really the oils in favor I feel are sesame and olive and coconut. And flax, I don’t even like flax oil, I’d rather use freshly ground flax if I’m going to use it in a salad dressing. Then it becomes a thickener and it’s fresh but anyway.

Trevor: Yeah, good. I feel like I want to refer students to a couple of the other lessons on this topic. So there’s the one on Best Oils Raw Versus Cooked, that’s lesson 23 by Vesanto Melina. And I remember her saying that she felt when you’re using oils for salad dressings or anything that’s cold, use flax oil obviously because of the high, they’re really excellent ratio of omega3s to 6s. And when you’re cooking she recommended either olive or coconut, depending on how high the temperature’s going to be. There’s something else I wanted to say about the omega3s I think. Oh, canola oil has a surprisingly good ratio of omega3s to 6s, and for anyone that wants to review that, lesson 5 on omega3s, we talk about the importance of not having too much omega6 in your diet. And most oils have way more omega6 than omega3. Flax and hemp and canola are the winners if you’re just looking at it in terms of which ones have the best ratios and the most omega3s.

Lenore: Yeah, but I think it’s good to look at the quality. And I just don’t think the canola oil is good quality oil. We put hemp and flax in a lot of foods, in a lot of dishes. I use it a lot during the day. I think the ratio can be balanced with better quality food like hemp.

Trevor: Are you saying you grind the seeds than rather than using the oil?

Lenore: Yeah I grind the seeds and I make flax crackers, dehydrate flax crackers and eat those.

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: And things like that. And I put it in smoothies and puddings and things like that.

Trevor: Do you use chia seeds? They seem to be catching on another -

Page 14 of 31

Soups

Lenore: Oh yeah, I use quite a bit of chia.

Trevor: Okay, good. I’m similar to you. I actually don’t buy flax oil. I grind a tablespoon of flax seeds every day. I just put it in water with other supplements, although you certainly could just sprinkle it on top of another meal that you’re eating.

Lenore: Yeah or you could put in salad dressing too. It’s not as strong as I thought it was before I started using it, but it thickens salad dressing, its great omega3s and fresh, keep it refrigerated.

Trevor: Okay, good. Next question is also from CK, “Are the misos you have on your website gluten free?” Now is she referring to your website? Do you have misos listed there?

Lenore: No, I don’t sell any. I refer people to Natural Import, maybe she’s looking at that.

Trevor: She’s probably looking at our website then. She’s probably asking about the South River miso.

Lenore: There’s not wheat in miso. It’s typically soybean and a grain. So it would be soybean and barley, would be barley miso. Chickpea miso would be chickpeas, I’m not sure what the other grain is if there is any grain in that one. Where there is wheat, maybe she’s thinking of shoyu, or soy sauce. Soy sauce has wheat in it unless you buy tamari. And tamari is wheat free. They’re very close.

Trevor: Miso has soybeans in it plus a grain like barley or brown rice.

Lenore: Yes, but not wheat. I mean I’ve never, it’s possible, but I’ve never heard. I’ve been cooking this way for 35 years, I’ve never heard of wheat being in miso, but it’s possible. They put leeks in miso. You can get soybeans with leeks. South River makes it. So there’s lots of different of things, but I just don’t think wheat –

Page 15 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Just check the ingredient label. All right, next question’s from Michelle, “What about using rice cookers with a steam feature to make soups?”

Lenore: Well, a rice cooker, I have never used. So I don’t know. I suppose you could. I don’t know what the advantage is, I mean I don’t know. I guess it’s timed or something. To me I just like old fashioned pressure cookers or just stove top or crock pot if you want. But it’s possible. I just don’t know how they work. So I can’t really answer that.

Trevor: Well actually that leads us to her next question. I don’t think I’ve asked you this yet. She wants to know what brand of pressure cooker you prefer.

Lenore: I forget the exact model, because there’s this all different models, but I think it’s a Spanish one, fagor, F A G O R.

Trevor: Yeah, that sounds like the one Jill recommended.

Lenore: Yeah.

Trevor: They make a model where you can, I guess you can either have a larger size or a smaller size. It has like two containers. That’s the brand that she recommends.

Lenore: Yeah. You can get a four quart pressure cooker, or six. I think a six quart is pretty much the optimal size for almost any family of four or for two people, or whatever. I mean I used to have three pressure cookers or four, or five, who knows how many, but now I pretty much stick to the six quart and the eight quart.

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: So I’m making a double batch, because you’re never supposed to fill a pressure cooker more than half full. When you’re cooking with beans, because the skins could get caught in there up in the top, in the nozzle or whatever that is.

Page 16 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Okay. So Cindy has a question, “Have you ever used nutritional yeast for a cheesy flavor?”

Lenore: I haven’t very much in the past – a long time ago, in the early 70s I did. And it certainly works for that. And you can. I think if you’re going to use nutritional yeast then try to go for Red Star. It supposedly has the most B12 in it, and it’s considered high quality.

Trevor: Yep.

Lenore: I’ve never tried it in a soup. I’ve used it in salads and things like, I don’t remember what kinds of salads. This is so long ago, but yeah sure that’s – what’s her name? Jo–

Trevor: Jo Stepaniak.

Lenore: Yeah, she did a whole cookbook on it. And she used nutritional yeast and everything, so that would be a great place to look if she wants to use it and get the cheesy flavor.

Trevor: Right. Also Jo contributed a few recipes to our program. You can find lesson 15.21, it’s her cashew cheese sauce. And let’s see what else, if there’s another one that has B12 in it. Just a sec here, is this it. It’s a zucchini cheddar soup, lesson 13.6 and then there’s – if you go to our vitamin B12 lesson which is lesson 9, I think, let me just take a look. Lesson 9.6 is called Integrating Red Star Nutritional Yeast into your meals. And there’s a recipe in there that Jo provided which is the Nutritional Yeast Gravy. So there we go. Okay next question is from Ann Marie. And she says, “Hi Lenore. I’m sort of a lazy cook and sometimes I get intimidated by soup recipes that call for a broth that has to be all ready. Is there a quick way to make a good broth that doesn’t take much time?”

Lenore: Well, that’s what I talked about a little earlier, using herbamere or vogue. I think its vogue, makes a really nice concentrated instant broth. I’m almost positive it’s the – I can look in my pantry here, V O G U E. But if you’re doing something flavorful like miso, that really gives you that broth, a lot of complexity and flavor in the broth without having to make a broth.

Page 17 of 31

Soups

Vogue, yes it’s called, V O G U E Instant Veggie Base, and it’s been sitting there for a long time, because I just don’t ever use it anymore. I used it a couple of times, but I don’t think it’s necessary, with lots of flavorful vegetables and beans, I don’t know. And then I use spices and herbs that it just has lots of flavor.

Trevor: There was something you referred to in the lesson I think it started with an H –

Lenore: Herbamere.

Trevor: Herbamere, okay how’s that spells?

Lenore: H E R B A M E R E. The only thing I was cautioning about that was that there is salt in it, and you just need to cut back on the salt.

Trevor: Is it high mineral sea salt or just regular salt?

Lenore: I don’t know. It doesn’t taste like high mineral sea salt to me, but I think they do call it sea salt, but it’s just not the quality of like Himalayan or Celtic Sea Salt. Let me look, I can find it here under the H’s. I’ve got alphabetical spices here. Let’s see, where are you? G, H, well now I’m not seeing it.

Trevor: It’s okay.

Lenore: It’s probably on the next shelf. Here it is, here’s the big jar. Okay. I will tell you what it says here. Sea salt, but sea salt is the first ingredient, so which means it’s got the most of that whatever the – obviously the first ingredients in a list are the ones that are the highest in volume. So there’s more sea salt in it than celery, or leek, or Thais. Where the veggie base does not have salt, and it does have brewers yeast though.

Trevor: Okay, how is that different from nutritional yeast? Is that more like the yeast used to use bread rise?

Page 18 of 31

Soups

Lenore: No, I think it’s the kind of yeast that’s used in – I don’t know if it’s interchangeable, I’m just not a big yeast person. So I’m really not an expert on this. I think sometimes they say nutritional yeast and brewers yeast are interchangeable and the naming of it, but I don’t think that’s right, so I don’t know. Somebody will have to look it up. I’m sorry, I just don’t. It’s not my thing.

Trevor: All right, I’ll just say if anyone’s on the call and has a question about that topic, post it to our comments section. And by the way, we reopened a week ago the comments area under each lesson post. So it’s easier to post comments or questions now than it was when we only had forums.

Lenore: Right.

Trevor: Okay, next one is from Susan. “You mentioned using kudzu for thickening, what’s your source? Health food store or do you order online?”

Lenore: Natural Import.

Trevor: Is that online?

Lenore: Well, that’s online yeah. It’s on the east part, it’s here actually in Ashville, North Carolina, but you can get it online, and really any natural food store like whole foods or natural foods co-op should have it.

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: It’s really good for the intestines and stomach too. It’s really medicinal. It’s not just a thickening agent. It’s lovely. I use it in puddings, and thickening all kinds of things.

Page 19 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Great. And we have more information about that in our lesson on sea vegetables. That’s – let’s see real quick, Sea Vegetables, lesson 35. Okay, next question is from Cindy, “Have you used chia seeds to thicken soups?”

Lenore: I have not.

Trevor: All right.

Lenore: But that’s a thought, could certainly try it.

Trevor: I assume like if it were like flax seeds, you’d grind them first. Would you also recommend that for chia?

Lenore: Yeah, there’s a really expensive chia they’re promoting now, especially at Living Light. That’s like $60 a pound which is broken apart, I don’t know. I suppose its ground. It’s supposedly much higher in omega3s, like 12 times higher than regular chia. I don’t know. But anyway, it is broken apart. I would imagine that’s what I would do, is I would put it in a spice blender and crush it up first and then put it in.

Trevor: Right, okay.

Lenore: I wouldn’t certainly put flax, ground flax because of the heat element.

Trevor: Right, the oil in the flax seeds is heat sensitive.

Lenore: Yeah, it’s fragile.

Trevor: If anyone recently won the lottery and want to spend $60 a pound on chia seeds, I just want to give out the website address for Sherry it’s, www.rawfoodchef.com

Lenore: Yeah. She sells it there.

Page 20 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Well I’m sure you can order it online.

Lenore: Yeah.

Trevor: She’s one of our contributors too, and in fact for those who’s asking about cheese or cheesy flavors, she was our guest expert on the call about Vegan Cheese and Cream, and contributed several recipes to that.

Lenore: Yeah, she’s a great chef, wonderful.

Trevor: All right, next question is from Melanie, one more about cheesy. She says, “How can you get a cheesy flavor in soups without nutritional yeast?”

Lenore: I don’t know. I guess I haven’t thought for that flavor. It’s not something that I can answer.

Trevor: Right. Okay, well I feel –

Lenore: Ask me anything about bean soups and I’ll tell you, because that’s really been my forte and most interest, because I want the protein, and fiber, and nutrition, and flavor.

Trevor: Right. Well let me throw out a thought. I’m imagining that the people asking the questions about cheesy flavors are relatively new to being vegan and they still really miss cheese. And so I’ll just kind of say this, what I’ve seen a lot of people go through as they transition from meat to vegetarian, or vegetarian to vegan, is that at first when you switch diets it feels limiting and you’re missing the foods that you’re not eating anymore whether it’s cheese or ice cream or whatever. But after a while, you eventually just get accustomed to different flavors and different foods that become your favorites. And it’s no longer such a big – you no longer really crave those other things. For example I remember when I first became vegan I bought soy cheese as a staple. I mean for someone that’s new and hasn’t done a lot of research about nutrition and still wants a cheesy flavor, they might buy that. So what I want to say is like now I’ll just – I’d rather

Page 21 of 31

Soups have guacamole or hummus, because they’re still fatty. They have the fats that I desire but they’re made from whole foods and there’s no fillers or preservatives or any of those gobbledly guck type of ingredients that you get from processed foods.

Lenore: Yeah. It’s that fat and it’s also the salt in cheese. There’s quite a bit of salt in regular cheese.

Trevor: Right.

Lenore: That people are missing. What I do sometimes and I’m mostly vegan, but I will put a little bit of goat cheese like a drop of – like a half of teaspoon, I’ve got this half teaspoon measure in my head. Half a teaspoon of goat sprinkled on a soup or something or on a salad.

Trevor: On the top.

Lenore: Yeah.

Trevor: And which type of cheese is it?

Lenore: Goat, just regular.

Trevor: Aren’t there different types of goat cheese?

Lenore: Well, just like a soft goat cheese.

Trevor: Okay.

Lenore: Yeah.

Trevor: Okay, and so that’s –

Page 22 of 31

Soups

Lenore: I’d rather have real cheese. I’d rather have a tiny bit of that to satisfy me than soy cheese or some of these other things that have so many chemicals and everything and aren’t satisfying anyway.

Trevor: Right. Yeah, I felt that way. Even when I was a hardcore vegan I would rather take butter than margarine if I was in a restaurant. Okay. So next question is from Raymond, let’s see. It’s a little off topic, let’s wait and see if we – let’s get through the other soup ones and see if we have time for it.

Lenore: Okay.

Trevor: So the next one is a comment. It just says, “Yes there is sea salt in herbamere.”

Lenore: Yeah, well that’s the first ingredient.

Trevor: Well she says sea salt, not just regular salt.

Lenore: Yeah.

Trevor: Next question is, “Since you make lots of bean soups do you asafoetida, which is also imprinted as C I N G.

Lenore: I haven’t. I used it a couple of times, it’s supposed to help prevent gas, flatulence, but I’m not sure if it does. I think some people have better digestive systems than others, and mine is not a great one so. I don’t know anything that works for me. I just have to chew well and eat smaller amounts.

Trevor: Okay. And there’s actually eight tips in the written lesson you wrote.

Lenore: Yeah, there are.

Page 23 of 31

Soups

Trevor: For minimizing the gas that you would get from beans.

Lenore: Yeah. Boiling it helps quite a bit and then throwing off the water, boiling it again, throwing off the water of beans.

Trevor: Right. And that’s lesson 48.3 and yep, there’s eight different remedies for gastric distress. I just want to refer people to that lesson. Next question –

Lenore: And also khombu. Khombu, for people who don’t know, it’s a dried kelp, a dried sea vegetable that’s very high in calcium and trace minerals, and also helps to prevent gastric distress. So I always add that. I always add about six inches of khombu, soaked and cut up when I make bean soup.

Trevor: Okay, great. Thank you. So there’s two types of different seaweed then. Didn’t you mention a different type earlier? Kudzu.

Lenore: No, a kudzu, I was wondering why you’re saying it it’s in the sea vegetable lesson. It’s not a sea vegetable, kudzu is a root. It’s a tuber.

Trevor: Oh, okay. I’m kind of mixing it up.

Lenore: It’s from a vine and it’s a white powder – it has a thickening quality like corn starch or arrowroot, only it’s much more medicinal, and it’s just much better for you and it’s very, very effective. It only takes a teaspoon to solidify a whole cup of liquid.

Trevor: Okay and so –

Lenore: Not solidify, but I should say thicken.

Trevor: So kudzu is not used to help produce the gas from beans.

Page 24 of 31

Soups

Lenore: No, that’s a thickener, that if the soup comes out too thin, a remedy is to, as I described in the lesson you just take like a teaspoon of kudzu and put it in cool water, dissolve it, and then pour it into the soup, and cook it for two to three minutes. It goes from white, like a white liquid to a translucent liquid, and then it just thickens it up.

Trevor: That’s great. And I'm sure it’s healthier than corn starch.

Lenore: Much, much, much.

Trevor: Actually since it sounds like we have some people new to the diet on this call, would you be able to tell them why corn starch isn’t the best choice for a thickener?

Lenore: That’s – I don’t know, I can’t tell you why. It’s just processed, it’s from corn. It’s probably GMO corn, genetically modified. I don’t know. I’ve never used it. I always use arrowroot or kudzu, but I can just say I’d recommend using kudzu or arrowroot.

Trevor: Okay, great. Let’s see what our next question is. Okay we are out of questions except for the one from Raymond. So if anyone else still has questions, we’ve got about ten minutes left. Go ahead and post them now. But I’ll ask Raymond’s question and let’s see how that goes. He says, “You indicated that the oxalic acid in spinach can bring on arthritis. I’ve been eating a green smoothie with raw spinach every day, and lately my right hand is feeling a little stiff. I eat a primarily vegetarian diet and it’s hard to believe that arthritis is setting in. Do you think the oxalic acid could be causing the stiffness?

Lenore: Well Dr. Norman Childers, I think his name is – I can’t remember his last name, but he has been studying arthritis and solanine or oxalic acid connection for many, many years. And his research indicates that 20% of the population is affected by oxalic acid and solanine as solanine is in tomatoes and things like that, and potatoes, white potatoes. For me, I am in that 20% and it does affect me. I’m not a doctor of course, but what I would recommend when people say things like this is to say don’t eat any spinach for like a month. Use some other kind of green, kale or collards or whatever. And see what happens. And see if it goes away. I had been using a

Page 25 of 31

Soups lot of wild plants, like lambsquarter, and purslane, and chickweed, and nettles. I was having about 30 leaves of lambsquarter a day. I was putting them in smoothies and puddings and everything, because they’re so healthy for you, except I didn’t know that they were so high in oxalic acid, and it caused an extreme attack of arthritis in my toes. So I stopped taking it, then I took turmeric which reduced the inflammation and I’m okay. But it can, I mean greens have – they have alkaloids in them and when you eat the same – that’s why they always to rotate it if you can, to rotate greens and not have the same greens in the green smoothies every day, because you’ll end up with the same alkaloid, which can have reactions in the body like that.

Trevor: So what are some of the greens that you like to use in your green smoothies? So Raymond gets an idea of the variety that’s possible.

Lenore: Okay, kale, collards, catsoy, batchoy, and we grow almost all our own foods, so it’s right out there. We just go out and pick it. And there’s some I don’t know, my husband does the most of the growing, so I don’t even know the names of some of these greens. A lot of them are Japanese or Chinese, Joe what are some of the greens? Yeah, but some of the odd ones like catsoy – he’s coming down. [Inaudible 0:54:05] is a little to preppy, so we don’t use that in the smoothies, dandelion, yes we grow a lot – that’s right we grow two different kinds of dandelion. We put nettles, we grow stinging nettles and put that in. Kale, three or four different kinds of kale, we have Siberian kale, and curly kale, and you know what a wonderful one that’s very mild, it’s the dinosaur or lacinato kale. That’s very mild in flavor, and it’s great in smoothies. Even changing the kind of kale will help.

Trevor: I said the dino-kale takes up less space in the fridge than regular curly kale.

Lenore: Yeah, it does.

Trevor: That’s actually one the things – yeah, keep going.

Lenore: No, I think that was it. I think he’s done.

Page 26 of 31

Soups

Trevor: That’s good. You use a much bigger variety than me, but I use kale. That’s my number one in smoothies. I also have used dandelion greens, because I can’t imagine how else I would eat them, since they’re so bitter, but the banana kind of offsets that.

Lenore: And I put stevia, we grow stevia. I mentioned this before in calls, but we put stevia in with these bitter things and it really balances or neutralizes the bitterness. The other thing I just wanted to make this one comment before I forget. A really wonderful thing to do, and I think it was mentioned in one of your other lessons here, is to take collards which tend to be bitter unless they’re boiled. I boil collards. We chop them up fine like chiffonade or mice, not mice but dice small. And throw them in any soup, particularly a lentil soup, or any bean soup, and it’s a way of getting extra greens which are really nutrient dense. Lots of protein, lots of chlorophyll, lots of calcium, so I just want to encourage everyone to just – that’s the last thing you can do. As the soup is cooking, you just boil up some greens or steam them, chop them up and just put them in and that can be a big garnish.

Trevor: Oh as a garnish. I was wondering why you don’t just throw them into the soup raw and let them cook or boil –

Lenore: That’s the thing, with collards I feel that unless they’re – I mean we grow them. And they’re tender and they’re sweet. But when you buy them even organic, if you buy them in a grocery store and they’re two weeks old, they seem to have gotten more bitter. So I wouldn’t like to eat – I don’t want it to affect the taste of my soup, so I will boil it in a pot of water, little bit of water, and then pour out that water, and then take the cooked greens and put them in the soup. And then I get all the nutrients of that without the bitterness.

Trevor: Got it. If you put the raw collards directly in the soup, then you get a bitter taste in the soup.

Lenore: Yes, yes.

Page 27 of 31

Soups

Trevor: And what other greens also have a bitter taste and do you like to boil first before you put them in the soup?

Lenore: Mustard greens, I think those are the only two, collards just don’t work well steamed. I’ve tried it a number of times to see if I’m imagining it, but I’m not. I just think that they’re too bitter. There is one other, I think a rugula sometimes I will, if I’m going to cook it I will boil it first for a minute, just flash, just a quick flash in the pan for about a half of minute, take it out and then sauté it if I’m going to sauté it with some other greens.

Trevor: Okay. We just have a couple of minutes left. We have a good question here that and you referenced this in your written lesson. The question is, “Do you use any fruits with your soups? For example I remember –”

Lenore: Any fruit?

Trevor: Yeah, like oranges in a black bean stew for example.

Lenore: No, no. I think it’s not good food combining. And if you have a strong constitution, if you have a strong digestive system then you can do anything, you can put anything together and it probably won’t affect you, but most of us don’t have such a great, strong digestive tract. Fruit and beans together are not a good combination. They’re really gas causing.

Trevor: Right. And we talked about food combining in lesson 8, so I want to refer everyone to check out the guidelines there. You don’t necessarily have to follow all the guidelines exactly 100% of the time, but I guess it really has to do with how much indigestion you have when you combine different things together. If you have no indigestion and no bloating and no gas when you eat fruit and beans, well then you probably don’t have much incentive to follow through the guidelines. But if you have indigestion and you’re wondering why, the guidelines in that lesson should probably de-mystify what’s happening in your body. All right last question is from Patty. And she says, “Does arrowroot break down when the soup gets heated to a boil?”

Page 28 of 31

Soups

Lenore: I’m sorry, would you ask that again? My husband was giving me a little note here.

Trevor: Sure.

Lenore: Distracting me.

Trevor: “Does arrowroot break down when the soup gets heated to a boil?”

Lenore: I have not used arrowroot in soup. I’ve used that for more like fruit. It’s more like for thickening fruit pies and things. Kudzu is the one, I really would use kudzu. I don’t know if it would, I’ve always used kudzu.

Trevor: So arrowroot is better for a fruit type of dessert.

Lenore: Yeah, like a fruit – if you’re just heating up some fruit and putting some, and you want to thicken it, then I would put it in that.

Trevor: Okay, great. One last question came in and it’s “How do you pick or dry your stevia?”

Lenore: How do I pick it?

Trevor: I guess that means, since you grow your own –

Lenore: Okay. It’s a bush and you cut – after you have used it all summer long, I use it just fresh off the bush, and then as it starts to flower, I cut off the – like a branch, and I’ll tie a string on the bottom of the branch, and hang it. We have a solar house, there’s a warm room where the solar stuff comes in and all. And we just hang it from a bar up there and it just dries in about three days. I crumble it up and then I put it in a jar, and I vacuum seal the jar, and then I put some in a smaller jar and use it all winter long. And then I buy another plant in the spring and start again.

Page 29 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Okay, great. All right, well I really appreciate your time tonight. Why won’t you give everyone your website address and let them know what they can find there.

Lenore: You can either –it’s www.lenoresnatural.com L E N O R E S, natural dot com. And basically my two cookbooks are on sale, they are special internet price, and I always include a little handy cook’s tool when you order it on the internet. DVDs are coming soon, I’ve written a bunch of articles that are posted there, there’s recipes, there’s an archive of a quarterly newsletter and anybody can subscribe to this free quarterly seasonal newsletter where there’s lot of information on health and cooking and the environment. Pardon?

Trevor: The people on your newsletter let’s receive recipes?

Lenore: Sometimes we put recipes yeah, we’re actually doing photos of how to certain recipes. Yeah.

Trevor: Okay, great well thank you very much.

Lenore: We only do it like every three months or four months. So you’re not going to be inundated with lots of emails.

Trevor: Okay, great.

Lenore: Okay.

Trevor: Well I really appreciate your time. Everyone thanks for joining us and we’re going to be – let me just say for the callers, we’re going to do another Q&A the same time next Monday. The topic is Fruit Versus Complex Carbs and then the very next night which is a Tuesday, we’ll be doing one on time saving tips. And I’ll email everyone about that. Have a good night.

Lenore: Okay, Trevor. Thanks. Good night everybody. Cook soup. Bye.

Page 30 of 31

Soups

Trevor: Good night.

[End of transcription 1:02:41]

Page 31 of 31