3 Soups That Can Help Reduce Your Blood Pressure

Nowadays lots of individuals in their Forties and Fifties are being told that they have high blood pressure and that unless they make major lifestyle changes soon, then they will be on blood pressure tablets for the remainder of their lives. The fact is, that once your body gets used to these tablets it is very hard to get off them.

Therefore, if you have been given this word of warning, take it seriously. The doctor’s advice can take different forms, but it usually encompasses: lose weight; give up smoking and drinking; take more exercise and eat less salt.

In the spirit of this latter piece of advice, I have put three low salt soup recipes from three different countries in this article. I hope you like them.

Recipe One: Germany

Two Bean Soup (Zwei Bohnensuppe) (Serves Four)

1 1/4 cups white beans, dry 1 cup cut green beans 1 green onion, diced 1 potato, peeled & diced 2 tbls unbleached flour

Garnish =================== 4 oz ham, cubed 1/4 cup celery,diced 1 onion, yellow, diced 1 tbls unsalted butter (optional) 3/4 cup beef broth, unsalted 1/4 tsp pepper 1 parsley, sprig

The beans can be either fresh or frozen, but do not use canned. Boil the beans until softish; add the potato and continue to boil. Add the flour to thicken when the potato is soft. Stir well. Serve in bowls and then add the garnish. Crispy bread is a great accompaniment.

Recipe Two: Ireland

Sorrel Soup (Serves Eight)

1 lb Sorrel 3 oz unsalted butter (or margarine) 1 large onion, chopped 2 tbsp flour (heaped) 2 1/2 l stock 2 tbsp breadcrumbs 1 pepper 2 egg yolks 150 ml cream

Wash the sorrel well and chop it up. Heat the butter or margarine in a saucepan and merely soften the sorrel and onion in it. Shake the flour on to the vegetables and blend well. Let it cook for about 1 minute. Meanwhile bring the stock to the boil, then add to the pan. Add the breadcrumbs, add pepper to taste, and bring to the boil, then simmer for around 1 hour covered. (It can get liquidized at this stage, if liked). Beat the egg yolks with the cream and add a little of the hot soup to the mixture, stirring well; then add slowly to the soup pot, mixing well over the heat, being careful not to let it boil.

Recipe Three: Russia

Borsch (Serves eight)

1 cup navy beans, dry 2 1/2 lb beef, lean 1/2 lb slab bacon 10 cups cold water 1 bay leaf 8 whole peppercorns 2 cloves garlic 2 tblsp parsley, dried 1 carrot 1 celery stalk 1 red onion, big, chopped 1 tsp salt (optional) 8 beetroots for soup 2 beetroots, small 2 cups green cabbage, shredded 2 leeks, large, sliced 3 potatoes, cut into eighths 1 tin (1 lb 13 oz) tomatoes 1 tbspn tomato paste 3 tbspn red wine vinegar 1 lb kielbasa (optional) 2 tbspn flour 1 tbspn butter, melted 1/2 cup sour cream (optional)

Cover beans with water and allow to soak overnight; cook until tender; drain; set aside. Place beef, bacon and water in large soup pot; bring to the boil. Skim fat from surface. Add bay leaf, peppercorns, garlic, parsley, carrot, celery, onion. Cover and simmer over a low heat for around 1 1/2 hours.

Scrub beetroots for soup and cook in boiling water until tender, about 45 minutes; drain and discard water; cool. Peel and cut each beetroot into eighths. Scrub small beetroots; grate; cover with water to soak.

Remove meat from soup; set aside. Strain soup into another pot and add cooked beetroot, cabbage, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, beef and bacon.

Return to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes. Cut kielbasa into pieces and add with navy beans to soup. Simmer 20 minutes longer. Blend flour and butter together to make a paste. Stir into soup to thicken slightly. Strain raw beets, saving liquid yet discarding beetroots. Add beetroot liquid to soup.

Additional sugar or vinegar can be added for a sweeter or sourer flavour. Cut meat and place in individual soup bowls. Pour hot soup with vegetables on to meat. Garnish every serving with a spoonful of sour cream, if desired.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several of subjects, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our site at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

Get an Atkins Diet Free Plan.

What is the Atkins diet and what will you need to give up in order to obtain the results you’ve seen other people realize? You hate your size twelve, and you desperately want to drop down to the size six that you once were, although you’ll settle for a size eight, if you have to. It doesn’t really matter as long you’re nowhere near your current size twelve!

What you’ll have to start with, is a working knowledge of what the Atkins diet is all about and what it might entail. However, before you get bogged down in detail, you could always just try out an Atkins diet free plan which might help you to get a grip on the situation.

There’s no one place I can say for you to get an Atkins diet free plan of course, but I’ve found that the Internet is a great place for you to find out just about anything and everything you want to learn. Commence by turning on your computer, it’s truly amazing how many pithy looks I get when I state this most obvious fact! In fact, you probably did the same just now!

Anyway, if you just surf the Internet for an Atkins diet free plan, you’ll be amazed at the amount of other free plans that you’ll come up with as well. And if you’re not adamant about going the Atkins diet way, then you could just try out any one of the other free plans. As it implies, it won’t cost you a penny more than the time spent on the Internet.

So, what can you possibly hope to gain from an Atkins diet free plan? To begin with, you can see which types of foods you can eat and which type of foods you can’t eat. If you’re thinking of going with the Atkins diet then in the first phase alone, there are many things that you’ll need to give up in order to stay on your diet.

On that list of food, which you can eat and still stay on your Atkins diet free plan, you’ll find that you can eat cream, cheese and butter so long as you stay within your moderate daily carbohydrate allowance, but out go the fruits, the breads, the pastas and the pizzas. Basically anything that tastes great, you may think.

However, it is not entirely true, as you’ll see when you look at the Atkins diet plan recipes which may or may not come with your Atkins diet free plan. There are quite a few great tasting foods which you can eat and although you might not realize it yet they’ll incorporate many of your favourite foods, just not everything high in carbs.

As far as drinks are concerned, the same principles remain true as in the other parts of the Atkins diet free plan. That is, you must avoid sugared drinks like Coke or Pepsi, Ovaltine and sugared tea or coffee. Moreover, you have to be careful with coffee, because it can be more addictive while on the Atkins diet for some people.

Likewise, caution is required with regard to alcohol. Some types, like lager or sherry contain too many carbs, while others, like Guinness or whisky are all right in moderation. However, you should always refer to your Atkins diet free plan before deciding what you can or can not drink.

Do you need to lose those excess kilos rapidly? Well, take a free look at Atkins Diet Free Plan, by going to our website called The Atkins Diet Plan

Atkins Diet Low Carb Diet Menu

With the advent of the New Age, the days are past when having a Marilyn Monroe shape figure was considered of as the epitome of what a woman should look like. Now we have waif-thin role models on what the perfect woman should look like, and this is the figure we want to have too. Therefore, most of us will try any and every diet possible, but it’s a known fact that a growing number of dieters are concentrating more on what the Atkins low carb diet menu has to offer them that is better than the other diets.

Certainly, there can be any number of diets that are similar to the Atkins Plan and the low carb diet menu plans, but it must be said that the Atkins Diet was the first of these now popular high fat, high protein, low carb diet menu plans. And the Atkins Diet low carb diet menu will offer you the most appetizing array of foodstuffs, from which to choose.

With only a little judicious mixing and matching by you, you can also come up with different low carb diet menu plans that will match anything found in any of the other similar diets. By going on the Atkins Diet, low carb diet menu planning becomes that much simpler for you, and you also have no need to worry endlessly if what you’re preparing will suit your dietary regulations.

The Atkins Diet low carb diet menu can assist solve your problem in like this and it can also help you make a list of foods and high carb diet menu recipes that you must not eat. By doing this you can take your food lists shopping with you, where they can help you to make up your mind which foods should stay off your shopping list. This will become an invaluable aid to you in following your low carb diet menu.

This does not mean that it will be simple to adhere to your low carb diet menu. Quite the contrary in fact, even though you get to eat almost anything you like from the high fat high protein section of your Atkins Diet low carb diet menu, if you love your carbs you’ll feel the loss.

And if you have been sustained for most of your life by these high carb foods, as most of us have, then you’ll have an even more difficult time becoming used to the rigors of the Atkins Diet low carb diet menu plans. The only thing that’ll help you now in sticking to your low carb diet menu and away from your intense carb cravings could be your Atkins Diet low carb diet menu plans and the food lists.

Keep your low carb diet menu plans near to you and your high carb foods away from you. These low carb diet menu plans and food lists might be your nearest friends in the next few weeks as you attempt the induction phase, but don’t worry. With a little perseverance on your part, you’ll emerge with flying colours and a slimmer body using your Atkins low carb diet menu.

Do you need to lose that excess weight quickly? Well, take a free look at Atkins low carb diet menu, by visiting our website called The Atkins Diet Plan

My Experience with the Atkins Diet (part 2).

Some people have to try to make your life miserable, if you let them. It was obvious to everyone that I looked and felt better, but some people just have to try to spoil it. I was told: lots of people have died of kidney or liver failure after being on Atkins I read it in the newspaper; you will have a heart attack, it’s not natural; your cholesterol will climb sky high and you will need your toes amputated or you will have a stroke; it will affect your eyesight. All sorts of rubbish. So, I went to see my GP, who admitted that he did not know anything about the Atkins diet, but he also added that he had heard nothing bad about it either. He sent me for a series of tests at the hospital and the results were all satisfactory. He was happy that I’d lost 18 lbs and so was I. Six weeks later, I went for another cholesterol check-up, because of the high fat levels in the diet and, although my cholesterol level was up very slightly, the doctor said there was no cause for concern at all.

The Atkins diet book warns that you might develop bad breath (halitosis). I don’t know whether I did or not - no-one said anything, but I started brushing my teeth four-five times a day just in case. I guess that’s another benefit of following the Atkins diet: increased oral hygiene. It also warns of constipation. I didn’t get that either, although I didn’t give up black coffee, which has always had a laxative effect on me. But surely you can’t suffer from constipation if you’re allowed to eat well over 1lb of greens a day? I hadn’t been eating that well before the diet! So my two main concerns were nebulous.

A couple of weeks later, I was getting bored not going out so much. I was still happy with the diet, but because I am single and am used to going out and drinking beer. So, I decided to go about this scientifically. One day, after work, I drank three pints of Guinness and felt great - the taste was wonderful. Before the diet, I would have drunk five or six pints. To my surprise and delight, the next morning the ketone stick told me that I was still ‘on the diet’. Over the following weeks, I really enjoyed experimenting to find out what would ‘work’ and what would not. I discovered that even a small amount of cider would ruin the Atkins diet; some beers and some lagers were all right; red and white wine were OK. Consuming alcohol does not knock you off the Atkins diet, but it slows down your rate of progress. Even slow progress is progress, I say. Better than giving up the diet or not going out.

Don’t let people encourage you to ‘just have a little bit’. They don’t understand or don’t want to understand the trouble they’re causing you. One’s body can hold two days worth of carbohydrates: one square of chocolate, one slice of bread, a bowl of cornflakes or one sugar in your coffee will cost you TWO days to clear out of your system. Don’t let people do it to you. This is not a diet that you can stop and start when you like, in fact I think that it probably could be dangerous to keep allowing your ketone and other levels to fluctuate wildly. There are also the high fat levels in the content of the Atkins diet, which is not dangerous if you keep to it, because you body devours fat and cholesterol in the absence of carbohydrates.

That is the story so far, with me having got down to under 16 stone and keeping it there until very recently when I moved to the Far East to live. The food is so different here, but once I get used to the food and have my own house and own kitchen, I will get down to 15 stone, I’m sure I will ” without any real effort.

Anyway, thank you, Mr. Blackwell, wherever you are, you changed my life and my understanding of food and thank you, Mr. Atkins too.