Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Here is a delicious and healthy recipe for Sweet Potato Soup that is incredibly easy to make. I had the idea to throw this together when I began to get tired of eating boiled and baked sweet potatoes. At the time I first made this, I was also starting to get pain in my eyes again, which first started to happen around the time I was 14, due to the blood vessels in my eyes being obstructed from misshapen cells. Since then I've had treatments on my eyes and they usually don't bother me anymore, but I haven't had any treatments in a while, over a year I think, hence the pain. Sweet potatoes and carrots are a great source of Vitamin A, so they make up the basis of this soup. It comes out pretty tasty, I hope you'll enjoy it! Also, please forgive me, because when I make up recipes, I never use a measuring cup or anything like that, so I'm going off of imprecise measurements for some of these things, but I'm guessing as best as I can. Hope you enjoy and benefit from this recipe!

Sweet Potato & Carrot Soup

Ingredients:
4  Sweet Potatoes*
5 medium sized Carrots
1 very large Onion
Salt (about 1 1/2 tablespoons)**
Water (about 8 cups, possibly more/less, depending on the consistency you want your soup. I actually measured for you guys! :)***

1. Bring the water to a boil. While the water boils, peel the carrots, sweet potatoes, and onion. Cut the onion in half or in quarters. Add the carrots, onion, sweet potatoes, and salt to the water.
2. Allow the vegetables to boil, bringing the fire down to a simmer and covering the pot with a lid while the vegetables cook. Test the vegetables with a fork to see how soft they become in the water. Once a fork can go straight through the sweet potatoes and carrots, turn off the fire and allow the vegetables to cool. Do NOT throw out that veggie water, it's got tons of vitamins in it from the vegetables and you don't want those vitamins going away!
3. Blend the vegetables using the water that they were boiled in. I usually put in one sweet potato to my Nutribullet at a time, along with the boiled water. Once everything has been blended, you're good to go! Serve yourself a nice warm bowl, or have it chilled, whatever makes you happy. Enjoy the soup and the fact that you're having yourself a healthy thiocyanate and Vitamin A filled meal! Bon appetit!

The last time I made this recipe, which was last Sunday, I added an extra onion and brown sugar, and it was even more delicious than the other times I've made it. But the recipe tastes just fine this way too. Experiment and see what works for you! I'd love any comments from anyone who tries or wants to try this out! :)

Also, I wanted to add that I've been taking a Vitamin A pill daily to help with the eye pain, and making sure to drink more water, which have both helped, thank God :)

* I tried making it with only 3 large sweet potatoes and it came out too thin, sorry for the changes!
** I'm still not sure how much salt I used when it tasted best, but just put less salt if you think it'll be too salty. You can always add more later if you so choose :)
*** About 8 cups of water should do the trick, I made it last night and measured the water and it came out to 8 cups.

Feelings on Having Sickle Cell Anemia

Having Sickle Cell Anemia can be pretty scary. The disease is entirely unpredictable. One never knows when a pain crisis will strike and just how severe it may be. My health has drastically improved in the past year and a half, since I changed my diet and began focusing on eating more fruits and vegetables, and consuming a lot of foods that are high in Thiocyanate, such as plantains, cabbage, yuca, etc. More recently, as of August, I added Moringa to my diet, which I researched online and found that it helps with reducing sickling. Combined, all of the things I do have greatly helped to improve my quality of life. 

However, another complication that I can't do anything about is the cold weather, which increases the pain. I'm currently at a point where I rarely have to take painkillers, which is a miracle, in and of itself. One thing that I always have to keep in mind is that my routine is not a cure, nor is it a one time thing. If I don't stick to my routine, if I don't stay dedicated to being healthy, I start to once more feel the effects of the disease. My new motto is, "No health, no life." My health is something that I know always put first, and it's something that I think about constantly. I'm always thinking about what foods I'm putting into my body and how they will affect me. Keep in mind, I also have peptic ulcers as a result of using NSAIDs, and those are another thing that affect my health. 

SCA comes with many emotional ups and downs as well. A chronically painful disease is one that takes a lot out of the carrier, regardless of whether they show it or not. One of the greatest benefits of my new and improved diet is that I suffer 95% less pain that I used to. The sick thing is, when my health started to get better, at first I actually missed the pain. That's how used to it I was. My tolerance for pain has decreased since my health has gotten better, but my tolerance for painkillers has decreased as well, so it takes less to help me feel better.

I still have my bad days, when I have moderate pains, and I start to feel really down about everything. It's more the fear of what my disease possibly could make me suffer and the memories of what I have been through that bring me down, than the actual effects of the pain. But overall, with my new routine, my health has never been better. My hope is that my story can bring hope and help to those who have SCA, and my new mission is to begin helping out with SCA awareness, which I will be doing by helping out with Sickle Cell Warriors.

Barley & Lentil Soup, Anyone?

Yesterday, I decided to make a barley & lentil soup so I could eat my lentils a different way. My former favorite way to eat lentils was to use this Curried Lentils recipe, which is incredibly simple and tasty. You don't actually need all the ingredients on the list either. For instance, I never used chicken broth. Instead, I used plain water and threw a Maggi Cube in the pot along with everything else and let it all simmer. Maggi cubes are a good substitute for chicken broth if you don't have any. The barley & lentil soup I made was super simple and mostly improv. I'm going to write down the recipe here in case anyone else wants to try it. The two foods in the soup that are Thiocyanate rich are the lentils and carrots. I didn't use exact measurements for the water, so if you want a thicker soup, add less water, and if you want a thinner soup, add more.

Barley & Lentil Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

1 Cup of Barley
1 Cup of Lentils
7-10 stalks of Celery
6-8 large Carrots
3 stalks of Scallions
1 Teaspoon Minced Garlice
1/2 Maggi cube (optional)

7 Cups of Water

Salt & Pepper to taste

Servings: Many!

Directions: 

Rinse barley and lentils. Chop celery, carrots, and scallions. Add everything together, the barley, lentils, celery, carrots, scallions, minced garlic, and Maggi cube together in a pot. Add about 7 cups of water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring the mixture to a boil, then turn down the fire and let the soup simmer for about an hour, or till all ingredients are tender. 

That's it! Hope you enjoy making it! Bon appetit!

Cabbage Juice!

In my research about what is good for healing ulcers, I read about red cabbage and how it can help the stomach in the healing process. Today, I finally bought a red cabbage and pureed it and drank a cup, and have a good sized container to last me the next week and a half. I'll be drinking at least one cup a day on an empty stomach and will continue for at least a month, maybe two. Cabbage is also a Thiocyanate rich food, so I may just continue drinking cabbage puree as part of my daily routine until I get tired of it. Yet another easy way for me to stay healthy (as well as help my ulcers heal)! :D

Discontinued Use of Liquid Chlorophyll

One thing that I haven't considered as a factor in my health for a while is Liquid Chlorophyll. I discontinued my use of it a few days before I returned to the USA, not because I wasn't pleased with it, but because moving was interrupting my daily patterns. I would say it's been about 5-6 weeks since I last took any. What I will do is first commence this new treatment with Mastic Gum for my ulcers, and once that is through, I will once more purchase LC to begin using daily. I also need to work on making sure my diet is well rounded, with enough essential building blocks such as Calcium, Iron, Folate, etc. to keep my whole body in good health instead of feeling like one part of my body (usually legs, arms, or ribs) is weaker or hurts on certain days and not others. What I want to remind everyone is that though what I am doing is not a cure, it  is a new way of eating and treating my body that has worked incredibly for me, and that's why I'm sharing it with you, that way someone in your life may also have positive results and begin to feel better in their bodies.

Back Once More... and Doing Well!

Hi, Everyone,

I haven't posted in a while, but in the time that I haven't posted, my health has been pretty stable. There were a few changes when I returned to the USA, I feel that at times my body is a bit weaker, but I am keeping up with all my vegetables, and definitely sticking with my Thiocyanate rich fruits and vegetables. My favorites are bananas, carrots, plantains (especially sweet ones!), chickpeas, and lentils. My non-Thiocyanate laden favorite veggies are beets, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, black beans, green peas, and celery. Plenty of ways to combine and cook them and plenty more fruits and veggies in the stores to choose from! 

As to my pain levels, they increase and decrease here and there and I manage it with 1 or 2 Tylenols (500mg) on an as needed basis.  While I was away, I didn't have Tylenol after the first 2 months, so that gave my body a chance to decrease its dependence. In the past, I tended to OD on painkillers (taking more than the recommended daily dosage on a regular basis) as I didn't know how else to deal with the pain, but now I find that 1 or 2 painkillers is all I need to deal with some pain, which is usually low level or a little more than mild. Yet even the amount of painkillers I take now is no comparison to what it was before I started this diet. (I will add here that I don't ONLY eat Thiocyanate rich foods, but I try to make them the main part of my diet.) I take much fewer painkillers these days, and sometimes am able to ignore some of the (mild) pain I have, choosing to rest and increase my water intake as opposed to taking more painkillers to manage it.

The thing that is really kicking my health's butt right now is my peptic ulcers!!! They are really making my life difficult, and the doctor prescribed me Omeprazole to deal with it, but that only made me feel worse. I made the decision to discontinue taking them after 3-4 days and am once more trying the natural route. Yesterday, I discovered a product called Mastic Gum, and from the reviews I read, many people have been happy with it and say that it has helped them with their ulcers. I'll be looking to purchase it today and will let my readers know if it worked for me or not. 

My view on health is that it is not just what goes on in your body, but what's going on outside of your body and how you respond to it that acts on health as a whole. Yes, I have a disease that can be devastatingly painful. But the decisions I am making now have turned that around and have made a big difference in my life. What goes into my body determines what my body will do, what I put into my body are the building blocks for my health. What I do with my body determines how I will feel. I try to walk more to keep up with my health, I try to make sure I get a good amount of water everyday, I'm making more of an effort to avoid sweets (my weakness!), pasta, white bread, and white rice. Everything plays a factor, even if it's small, and I'm going to continue to do what I can to not let this thing beat me!

Keeping Inflammation Down

A huge problem with Sickle Cell and a cause of a lot of pain is the inflammation. From what I've learned, when a crisis begins, after the cells get stuck in the veins, an inflammatory response is triggered, which worsens the pain, and which can stick around long after the actual clot is gone. In the daily diet, their are things that can be done to help reduce overall inflammation in the body. To help reduce inflammation, I first looked up things that cause it. Sugar is a primary culprit, so I try to reduce sugar in my daily diet. I try to stay conscious of how much I'm having and try to keep it to a reasonable amount. Another thing I do is avoid white rice and refined flours and pasta. I don't eat a lot of bread, eat practically no rice (such a turnaround since rice was a staple when I was growing up!), eat very little (white) bread and pasta. When I do eat the above mentioned, I do later feel a difference in my body as if there is more inflammation going on. (I also break out! -__-') These are just the things that I do based on what I've learned about my own body and the way it works (and doesn't work.) Hopefully the observations I've made can be helpful to you!