Why Grandma’s Soup Was The Best

By Travis Wade

Holy the benefits of soup! Grandma is the best! She makes the best soups doesn’t she? The benefits of soup are endless and so are the flavours!

How Grandma Made Soup

Allow me to fill you in on how grandma made the best soup. First she started with a base from boiling the bones of an animal that grandpa shot. Back in the day, nothing got wasted. They used the entire animal tip to tail. That’s why the broth was so good and nutritious. The hardest to digest and least nutritious part of the animal is the muscle. I know, it tastes the best which is why we all eat it like kings.

On a side note, all of the studies showing that red meat is bad for you are studies using meat that has hormones, antibiotics, and fed genetically modified grains. This meat is bad for you. Grass fed or wild meat is extremely beneficial to your health. Enjoy your Walmart steak (sarcastic). Some places around Edmonton that sell grass fed meat are listed in this article.

The Asians got it right again. Not only do they work harder, study harder, and have faster reflexes, they eat meat better too. They eat all the nutritious parts we cringe at. I’m not going to try to talk you into eating testicles or tongue, but throw all those weird organs and parts into the soup base. Grandma did…

Boil your base for at least 12 hours. Grandma would boil it for at least that long and usually closer to 24 hours. Sometimes for days actually. That’s where the song came from, “Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, 9 days old”. As long as you’re boiling it, it will keep. No bacteria will grow in those temperatures.

Anyway, boil your carcasses for about 24 hours. You’ll need to invest in a giant soup pot because you don’t want to be doing this every day. You’ll need a couple of them and a giant stainless steel colander that fits around the rim of the second giant soup pot. Strain the carcasses from the broth and throw out all those bones and organs. Don’t feed the bones to your dog. They will be brittle and get stuck in the dog’s’ throat.

Let the broth cool off. The fat rises to the top and after it sits in the fridge it hardens. Break off the fat and keep it for cooking with. Now you have a gelatin full of collagen, L-glutamine, proline, glycine, zinc and all kinds of nutrients that makes your body strong.

It doesn’t take much to make it taste good. Salt, pepper, onion, and garlic make it taste delicious. Grandma would put all the most nutritious strengthening foods in it like turmeric (if grandma was part Asian), cayenne pepper, basil, oregano, garlic, cabbage, onion, tomato, celery, squash, carrots… the list is very long here.

The Benefits

One benefit I need to mention grandma had in mind with her soup is that it strengthens the gut lining. Your connective tissue is made up of mostly collagen. Where are you getting collagen in your diet? Your gut lining is made up of collagen as well and unfortunately, today’s SAD or Standard American Diet is really good at breaking down the gut lining. Inasmuch, the SAD doesn’t have much to build the gut back up.

Hippocrates said that all chronic diseases start in the gut and many doctors believe he was right. Every autoimmune disease is caused by a broken down gut lining. Many things break down the gut lining, but the good news is bone broth builds it back up.

Leaky Gut Syndrome

Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride is a Russian neuroscientist that created the GAPS diet and has seen thousands of patients get better with a soup diet and psychology. She teaches her methods to other practitioners and they also have seen thousands of patients get better with her methods.

I know a lot of skeptics say why isn’t everybody doing it if it works. For one it’s hard to monetize, but Dr. Josh Axe has done that now. He has created his bone broth protein powder and you can buy it online for around $45. Dave Asprey, the Bulletproof guy, also sells collagen powder.

The other thing is it takes approximately 18 years for scientist discoveries to become mainstream. The issue I’m writing about right now is called leaky gut syndrome and it affects us all to some degree unless you are doing something about it. A drug is in the works to help with the problem. Once the pharmaceutical companies can monetize this issue you will be hearing all about it in the mainstream, but for now a lot of conventional doctors are denying it even exists.

Don’t take the drug because it doesn’t fix what is causing the problem. Do what doctor Josh Axe recommends and eat the one pot diet. He says the crock pot is the key to a healthy gut. He talked about how the gut is a lot like your skin and when you get an abrasion and you keep irritating that abrasion it’ll take a long time to heal. The same is with your gut when you eat hard to digest foods. If you eat crock pot or one pot foods your food is soft and easy to digest giving your gut the chance to heal. Dr. Axe recommends at least 3 cups of broth per day to heal the gut lining.

Dr. Natasha Campbell Mcbride says “Soup for breakfast, soup for lunch, soup for dinner and soup in between. Soup, soup, soup, soup!” 2 weeks to 2 months of nothing but soup to strengthen the gut lining. She’s a Russian grandma.

Maintaining a healthy gut is so highly underrated. As an EMT half the medical patients I saw had gut issues. Half of those patients left the hospital undiagnosed. In all autoimmune diseases you will find leaky gut syndrome. Do all chronic diseases start in the gut?

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton

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A Tribute To Gordon Downie

By Travis Wade

My good man Gordon Downie just passed through town for the last time. I’m very sad I never got the chance to see him. I’m terribly heartbroken the Tragically Hip lead singer doesn’t have long to live. He is a Canadian icon and has a knack for Canadian references in his songs that sound so natural and unforced. No one can do it the way Gordon Downie can do it. FYI Trois Pistoles is a cute little town near the coast in Quebec that I passed through on my way to Gaspé.

I’ll never forget my first van and how the CD player was broken and I couldn’t get Gordon Downie’s poetry album out of the CD player. There was the time they were playing a word of mouth gig at the Trailway Pub in Vancouver as they often did. 75 people in a small pub and the Tragically Hip. I ran all the way there and after standing in line for about 10 minutes they announced they were sold out.

I found myself on the roof looking at ways to break into the Trailway when I came to my senses and decided, maybe not get arrested that day. Another time I raced to Rexall from a job near Lloydminster to see if I could get a ticket at the box office, but the band already started playing and the box office was closed. This time I didn’t have to break in, but I snuck in and sat down and enjoyed the show. I have seen the Tragically Hip more times than any other band at 7 times.

The Brain

Although I am very sad Gordon Downie is going to pass and there is nothing I can do about it I want to pass on information to all of you that prevents cancer and brain degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

As an EMT, dementia and Alzheimer’s was seen in almost every patient living in an assisted living establishment. It’s so common it has become accepted as something that is inevitable with age. This couldn’t be more false.

The truth is brain degenerative diseases can be avoided with proper nutrition and exercise. That’s where I come in. I listen to Health Talks in my spare time everyday and I listen to hundreds of doctors talk about all kinds of diseases like cancer, thyroid problems, Alzheimer’s, etc. It doesn’t matter what the problem is, I hear the same things for all of them. So here is how to be healthy.

Avoid GMO’s. Stay away from white foods – sugar, flour, grains, dairy, potatoes – all foods with low nutrient value and high carb/glycemic index load. Lower your toxic load as much as possible, avoid food sensitivities, heal your gut with bone broth, find out what’s in your microbiome, correct dysbiosis (imbalance of good and bad bacteria of the gut), detox from heavy metals and other issues you might have; common ones are SIBO – small intestine bacteria overgrowth, and Candida which is a yeast overgrowth.

If there is something major to overcome, medication might be necessary, however, proper diet and exercise will give your body the optimal environment to recover and prevent relapse.

There are always specific things to help with specific issues, but today I will focus on brain problems and cancer in tribute to Gord Downie.

Cancer

The specifics for cancer beyond the above mentioned methods is a raw foods diet. There are books written on this and studies show pharmaceutical intervention in the treatment for cancer is futile. Juicing vegetables is the basis of the raw foods diet. Without sugar to feed the cancer growth and all the antioxidants in plant foods, an environment impossible for cancer to grow is created and in so many cases it reverses cancer growth.

Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric and the research keeps showing the positive effects of this powerful antioxidant. It helps with cancer and brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. If you supplement then a quality fish oil that isn’t rancid may help. If your cheap omega 3s taste like a rotten fish, you might want to upgrade. Of course eating the actual fish is going to have the best effect.

A quality multivitamin is always recommended and Sayer Ji from Green Med Info has brand names he recommends. If you want a recommendation just give me a text. Vitamin D is the biggest nutrient deficiency in North America and I’m sure our American friends get more than we do.

You’re not going to get a better source for vitamin D than the sun. The sun also detoxifies. You can never get enough sun and especially where we live. Take off your shirt and take off your sunglasses; you absorb most of your light through your eyes and I’ve heard one speaker say up to 90% of your light is absorbed with your eyes.

Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s is now being coined type 3 diabetes because Alzheimer’s is actually insulin resistance of the brain. This just means insulin can’t take sugar into the cells of the brain and brain cells die. The best solution doctors are recommending is coconut oil. MCT’s are great for weight loss for various reasons, but also great for the brain. Coconut oil has been seen to help reverse Alzheimer’s.

Dave Asprey, the founder of Bulletproof Coffee refines coconut oil to isolate the C8 in the coconut oil. C8 in particular does a liver pass and you will be in full ketosis in about a half hour. It’s instant ketones in the blood and doesn’t need insulin to feed the brain.

One more supplement I need to mention is according to research an apple a day reduces chances of Alzheimer’s by 37%. The sugar from a fruit affects the body much different than sugar extracted from fruit. High fructose corn syrup didn’t exist 60 years ago. Stay away from anything processed.