The Immune Support Cookbook
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
The Immune Support Cookbook by Mary Hale and Chris Miller is a user-friendly, helpful beginners guide that includes, as the subtitle states, Easy, Delicious Recipes to Support Your Health if Youre HIV Positive or Suffer from CFIDS*, Cancer, or Other Degenerative Diseases. (*Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
This husband-and-wife team created this book as a follow-up to their earlier book, The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Cookbook. As the Introduction by Dr. Murray Susser states, The immune system is the bodys major defense against infection and degenerative diseases like cancer.Immune system weakness makes the need to eat simply and safely more imperative.
I could not agree more. And Mary Hale, who suffers from CFIDS, decided to do something about it. With her amateur chef husband Chris Miller, they have whipped up an array of dishes that promises to satisfy the palate without feeling deprived on your plate.Much of the material they write about in Part One is becoming part of mainstream information, such as avoiding all foods and substances that are considered unhealthy, such as fried foods, sugar, alcohol, etc. and to eliminate all items to which you are allergic. (This may require testing with a practitioner who specializes in allergies.)
On page seven, the authors list the forbidden foods: all sugars (sucrose, glucose, fruit sugar, dextrose, dextrins, etc. as well as artificial sweeteners such as NutraSweet; milk products, yeast-containing foods, alcohol, mushrooms if you are allergic, tea and coffee (Including decaffeinated versions), commercial mustards and mayonnaise, fried foods, wheat & rye, ketchup and their sauces; horseradish, oatmeal, and potatoes.
This is a huge list for someone not prepared to take this step. But because the authors have found this to be their solution, they have created recipes that exclude the forbidden foods and emphasize the allowed foods. These are: poultry, most fish, all vegetables and vegetable juices, selected fruits and freshly-squeezes juices, whole grains and beans, margarine (non-animal and I would add, non-hydrogenated), nuts (Except for peanuts and pistachios, which may contain mold), rice crackers and cakes from whole unprocessed rice, corn chips and tortillas & popcorn, non-gluten pasta made from rice, buckwheat, quinoa, corn & amaranth; and meat, but only two servings per week.
These grouping are followed by a list of substitutions, a coping strategy, equipment, and shopping tips, with brand names for many products that are allowed. This section is very handy to take to the supermarket or health food store so you purchase the ingredients needed to maintain this food plan.
Part Two contains the recipes, which are quite simple to prepare, for the most part. Here is just one example to whet your appetite for simple, but healthful meals to boost your immune system.
Bean Soup
4 cups (chicken) broth (I would substitute veggie broth)
cup sliced carrots
cup sliced onion
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 cups white beans, cooked and drained, or canned white beans
Combine broth, carrots, onion and lemon juice in a saucepan. Simmer, covered, until carrots are just tender. Stir in beans. Heat thoroughly. Serves four.
This handy book is a good way to start a cleaner diet. If you are a vegetarian, as I am, then you just ignore the meat recipes. Since dairy and eggs are part of the forbidden food list, the non-meat recipes would also be good for vegans. And if you have wheat issues, then this cookbook might also be a good one to add to your collection of recipes that you can enjoy without creating a flare-up of your problems with eating wheat. (Actually, in the upper lefthand corner of the cover is a strip that says: No Sugar, No Wheat, No Dairy).
The Immune Support Cookbook is a good beginners book if you have immune issues and even when you are well, since the recipes use basic foods with minimal processing. The good news is that Mary Hales health has improved, and with this book, she hopes your health will also improve!This 190-page helpful book is published by Carol Publishing Group and costs $18.95.
