Live Whole Health #310: Healing carrot soup with ginger and turmeric

A restorative soup for spring renewal

Lightly roasting fresh vegetables helps bring out new flavors and supports your immune system. When onions and garlic roast, they start to taste sweet and caramelized. Carrots and parsnips turn a warm golden-brown. For this carrot soup recipe, we add fresh ginger near the end for a zesty taste and to help with digestion.

One serving of this soup gives you about half of the vegetables you need in a day, along with soluble fiber, potassium and carotenoids. Toppings like Greek yogurt, coconut flakes and black sesame seeds help your body absorb carotenoids and other nutrients that need fat to work well. Carotenoids are antioxidants that help protect your cells and can turn into Vitamin A, which supports your immune system, night vision and healthy skin.

Follow along with this Healthy Teaching Kitchen demonstration

A common myth is that cooking destroys the nutrients in food. But when you roast vegetables until they are lightly golden-brown, they form new antioxidants through something called the “Maillard reaction.” Some antioxidants that are already in vegetables, like carotenoids in carrots, also become easier for the body to use after cooking. Roasting softens the vegetables’ cell walls and helps release bright pigments like beta-carotene. When you puree the roasted vegetables into a smooth texture, the cell walls break down even more, which makes the carotenoids even easier for your body to absorb. In one study, pureed cooked carrots gave people about 1.6 times more absorbable beta-carotene than raw carrots.

Ingredients

• 4 carrots, peeled and chopped 
• 1 parsnip, peeled and chopped 
• 1 yellow onion, chopped 
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons olive oil 
• 3 cups low sodium vegetable broth 
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder 
• 1 teaspoon ginger root, grated 
• Juice from 1/2 of a lemon 
• Pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
• Garnish (optional) 
• Fresh Parsley 
• Greek yogurt 
• Black sesame seeds 
• Coconut flakes

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place chopped carrots, parsnip, onion and garlic on a baking sheet. Season with turmeric and cayenne pepper. Drizzle olive oil and toss to evenly coat vegetables with oil and spices. 
3. Transfer baking sheet into preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until tender and roasted. 
4. Transfer roasted vegetables to a blender. Add warm vegetable broth, lemon juice and grated ginger. 
5. Transfer to serving bowl and garnish with fresh parsley, Greek yogurt, black sesame seeds and coconut flakes. 
6. Enjoy!

Whole Health resilience

Root vegetables are tough and able to survive in many conditions. They adapt to change, search for nutrients, grow around rocks and do well even when the environment is hard. This tasty root vegetable soup encourages us to focus on our own “roots,” too. This spring, let your Whole Health be supported by Food and Drink that help restore balance from the inside out.