Sacred Heart Soup detox

I have tried fasting in the past, but I tend to eat too much coming off a fasting or eat too much in the evening and it doesn't really help the "detox" part of fasting. I heard about this soup from a friend whose family had great success. I am anti-diet fads, but detoxing is a great way to flush out the impurities of eating even the least bit of processed food.

This detox does take away my favorite ingredients and that is cheese, but cheese is an over-processed and fat-heavy reason I need to detox. For the most part, the detox is vegetarian and since I don't eat steak anyway I have adjusted the detox for non-meat eaters.

I have also included ingredients that I like, but you can view the entire list of acceptable ingredients at the website Sacred Heart Soup. After the first day's attempt, I needed to cut back on salt. This soup is surprisingly tasty.

Sacred Heart Soup

2 cans Hunt's roasted tomato soup (no seasoning)

1 can whole cut green beans, reduced sodium or salt-free

3 green onions, sliced

2-3 cups vegetable or beef broth (fat free and/or low sodium)

Nestle chicken noodle soup mix, extra noodles

4 stalks celery, chopped

4 carrot sticks, sliced

3 cups chopped kale or Japanese cabbage

1 tbsp soy sauce

black pepper

2 tbsp fresh Italian parsley, chopped

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Spray soup pot with a little PAM. Saute green onions, celery and carrots. Cover with two cups broth. Beef broth offers more flavor to this soup, but I like it with vegetable broth as well. Add soup mix, cover pot and let simmer until vegetables are tender - 10 minutes. Add two cans tomatoes, with juice. Drain and rinse green beans - they tend to be canned with more salt. Add to soup. Add Worcestershire and soy sauce and black pepper and stir. Taste test for saltiness.

Add more broth if needed. Stir in kale or cabbage and parsley. TMI section: if you have never detoxed, it is not a pleasant week. You will detox from every place in your body, including your pores. I don't like cabbage anyway and I fear the consequences of using it in a detox soup. Kale is more nutritious and few side effects. Kale is very cheap and available this time of year.

This will make about six bowls of soup. I eat one for lunch and two at night, which takes out the soup in a day for two people. You can incorporate other foods during the week, but the schedule is strict. I have not been completely on target with the schedule, but this is what I do.

Day One: soup and fruit salad

Fruit Salad: tropical fruits are the mos nutritious and will provide the most beneficial calories

• fresh cut pineapple
• naval oranges
• kiwi
• mango
• strawberries

Day Two: soup and vegetable salad and baked potato

Salad:

• bibb lettuce
• shredded carrot
• sliced cucumber
• sliced radishes
• chopped tomato
• one tsp olive oil and vinegar

Baked potato

• 2 russet potatoes
• 1/4 cup reduced-fat Greek yogurt
• 1 tsp dry ranch
• 1 head broccoli

Microwave potatoes for six minutes to soften. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. Mix ranch and yogurt and refrigerate. Meanwhile boil broccoli for 3-5 minutes or until bright green. Once potatoes are cool, cut and remove stuffing. Mix potato with yogurt ranch. I KNOW I am cheating by adding ranch, but I am not adding any cheese and yogurt is high in protein. Use a potato masher to mix. Stir in broccoli. Bake again for 10 minutes.

Day Three: soup and salad

Day Four: soup and bananas (at least three) and skim milk

For some reason I am not good about eating bananas raw. For a "dessert" I will slice two bananas and heat them in a skillet for a few minutes until soft but not gooey. Pour into a bowl and had a pinch of coarse salt. They are goooooood.

Day Five: This is the tough day because you are supposed to eat at least three steaks. I do not like steak. If you don't eat steak, then disregard this addition. If you do eat meat, here is what I suggest: beef tips from a reputable butcher. I don't recommend ground beef unless you ground your own because you don't know is going into it. I buy organic beef from a local farmer. I add the beef tips to my soup recipe on day five as well as an additional can of tomatoes. Double the amount of tomatoes on your salad also.

Eat fruit to fight off dessert cravings. Cherries are also a great way to detox this week.

Day Six: soup, salad and beef

Day Seven: add wild rice to soup mix or add cooked vegetables to brown or wild rice.

I lost four pounds, which isn't bad, even for Biggest Loser standards. It's not a noticeable difference for other people, but it taught me a good lesson - I don't need nearly as much food as I think I do. Other people I know have done this diet with great success. You can lose 10-17 pounds in one week depending on how strict you are to the schedule and how much you have to lose in the first place.

Shop of the perimeter of the grocery store. Travel down the aisles only for canned vegetables, juice and spices. The fewer processed foods you consume, the easier your body can handle them. I gulp down my food and don't pay attention to when I get full. I have since been more conscious of when I am full and stop eating immediately. It is just as wasteful to eat food your body doesn't need than it is to throw out food you don't eat.

Good luck and please post success stories if you have them. You will get tired of the soup by day five but if you can make it to day seven you will feel a great sense of accomplishment.

Hummus Wrap

The good thing about summer is that it invites light meals to avoid packing on warm fat. This results in a lot of lunch salads and cold sandwiches, but you can easily get burnt out of those quickly. Rachel, my roommate foodie before I got married, was impeccable about making homemade hummus every week to make wraps with for lunches on campus. I had her sit down with me and go over her "recipes" before she moved out. I say "recipes" in quotations because Rachel is a open-the-cabinet-and-make-something kind of cook. She literally had to make the hummus in front of me to know what measurements to give me. So she got to do all the experimenting and I get to enjoy fool-proof hummus - as well shall you.

Hummus ala Rachel

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 small bunch parsley

1 tbsp. flax seed (or flax seed meal)

juice of one lemon

Cayenne pepper

cumin powder

2-3 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1 tbsp peanut butter

add ins: one jarred roasted red pepper and/or feta cheese

Boil chickpeas for about 3 minutes or when skins start to come off - drain and move to blender. Reserve 1 cup water. Add 2 tbsp oil, lemon juice and flax seeds and blend. Flax seeds need to be "damaged" to release their beneficial fats, so blend the seeds or buy flax meal. If chickpeas get "chalky" add another tbsp oil or reserved water. Add red pepper, cumin, garlic, parsley and peanut butter. I know you are supposed to use tahini paste in hummus, but Rachel tried the tahini and it really didn't taste as good. You get more of an earthy taste with the peanut butter. Use natural peanut butter if you can, or TJ's reduced-fat peanut butter. You can also use almond butter for healthier fat. Blend your add-ins if using.

The best variety Rachel ever made was to add a jarred, feta cheese stuffed red pepper. I accidently bought some at the sore and didn't intend to use them so Rachel added them to her weekly hummus and it was amazing. You don't have to use feta-stuffed peppers, or you can just add feta cheese - it comes in Mediterranean-seasoned also. Fermented cheese are the least processed cheese because the "process" is natural. Cheeses like goat cheese, feta, cottage cheese are all probiotic cheeses that come with great benefits, especially for women.

Store-bought hummus contains a lot of unnecessary oil. I like that Rachel uses a modest amount of oil and substitutes water. You can also add more peanut butter for a smoother consistency. Rachel is also great about hiding flax seed in her meals and shakes. Flax seed is a good cholesterol-building fat. Rachel suffered from awful cholesterol regardless of her all-natural diet, and she had great tips for increasing good cholesterol to maintain a healthy balance.

Mediterranean Wrap

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 tbsp olive oil

4 Roma (or similar sized) tomatoes, chopped

1 English cucumber, chopped

parsley, chopped

shallot, chopped

coarse salt and pepper

feta cheese, crumbled

homemade hummus

tortilla wraps or Naan bread

This wrap is great for the summer because it uses so many in-season vegetables. I am not a huge fan of cucumbers, but for some reason the CSA cucumbers are more appealing - or maybe my tastes have just changed. I like to make this the day before I eat it to let the tomatoes and cucumber "pickle" in the marinade.

Combine lemon juice, oil and salt/pepper. Set aside. Combine tomatoes, cucumber, shallot and parsley. I know I've said I hate the taste of raw onion, but shallots give off the aroma of red onion without having an overwhelming aftertaste. And let's face it, if you are eating Greek for lunch, your breath is not going to be saved from anything. Drain any excess juices if possible. Slowly add oil mixture to vegetables. Do not oversaturate the vegetables. Let sit overnight preferably.

To make your wrap, spread hummus on a tortilla wrap or Naan. Top with marinated vegetables - use a fork to limit juices from transferring to the wrap. Top with feta crumbles. Wrap and enjoy.

Which vegetables do you love?

Nutrition Action is a journal I subscribed to for a while. My favorite aspects are the journal was to take similar products on the market and compare them according to nutritional value v calories and fat content. It saves so much time at the grocery trying to read calories per serving and ingredient lists. You get accustomed to know what brands are better for what products.

Another edition I loved was a comparison of vegetables and how they scored in their content of calories, vitamin K, lutein, vitamin C, potassium and fiber. Because of this list, there are vegetables I have learned to embrace because of their intense health benefits. I have also enjoyed the fact that if I don’t particularly like a vegetable and it’s low on the list, I don’t force myself to try use it. I do think the more variety, the better you are able to get the vitamins and nutrients you need without a vitamin supplement.

Top choices:
Kale is far and away the biggest powerhouse vegetable you can find. My sister marks it as a food garnish, but there are so many great sides you can make with kale. NA score: 1389. Most leafy greens are top choices, including baby spinach at 672 point for 2 cups raw.

Interesting notes: canned pumpkin (raw, not the seasoned pie variety) is more wholesome than fresh (117) and is the first non-green top scorer on the chart at 570 points. Also, South Beach and Atkins got it wrong - sweet potatoes (485) pack in more vitamins and are nine times healthier than white potatoes (53). Don’t let the name “sweet” keep you away from these wonderful roots.

Not just for seasoning:
I found a surprisingly high number of herbs on this list as well. A quarter cup of raw parsley packs out enough vitamins that beat out green leaf lettuce and ½ cup cooked broccoli. Cilantro, just 2.5 tbsp, still brings enough vitamin K to your meal to compete with zucchini and lima beans.

Learned to love:

For a good while, I convinced myself that supplementing parsnip for carrot was an acceptable exchange . . . not so much. Carrots give me much-needed fiber and vitamin K and tower vitamin richness over parsnips by 350 points. The non-pepper bell pepper has also had to sneak its way into my menu because of scores like 340 for red and 193 for green. I was quick to replace bell peppers in recipes with the spicier pablano or green chili pepper, which was only scoring 53 in vitamin richness.

Learned to live without:
No need to fret over not getting enough sprouts. These seedlings only scored an 18 for half a cup. I’ve also gotten over my distaste for eggplant (19), cucumber (29), beets (32), radishes (34) and corn (47). No need to worry, I will still present recipes with these fine vegetables.

What are your favorite vegetables? Did your favorite make the cut? What are you told you need to eat more of but can’t stand? Maybe it’s not worth fighting. Let me know your thoughts.