Blendtec Soup
Robyn,
I finally broke down and bought a Blendtec at Costco the other day. I love it! They were making soup. I made some today and liked it but I’m wondering if I’m killing the live enzymes. I start with a small amount of cool water and run it through the soup cycle twice. It takes three minutes. What do you think? Am I drinking a warm, slightly seasoned green smoothie or am I killing off the important stuff?
I wouldn’t think so as long as the soup isn’t being heated above 118 degrees….I don’t know what else besides heat kills enzymes.
You’ll know for SURE if you’re killing enzymes if you have a thermometer. Stick it in the mixture and don’t blend it to higher than 116 degrees, the point at which enzymes die. That’s warm but not hot.
So if you want “raw” soup, you’re going to eat it lukewarm. I have some of these recipes in my new Lunch collection now in the store.
I love making soup in my blendtec! I go ahead and start with quite hot water (tap..can still touch it … haven’t used a thermometer in awhile), and then usually only need one soup setting to blend until done … unless I need to add this or that to get the taste right and then I do end up blending more, but generally not another entire soup setting. If it gets cold between servings I will run it through another setting. I find it plenty warm to eat fresh from a soup setting, but my husband thinks it’s not really warm enough. Honestly I think it’s still such an easy and generally healthy way to eat soup (with FRESH ingredients) that I don’t stress too much about getting it a degree or two above 116.
Mmmm soup …
I wouldn’t heat it up past 115F and really i try to keep my temps no more than 105F. So i would probably test the length of time it takes to get the soup up around 100F to 105F and then use those times instead of getting it steaming hot.
Did anyone else see the interview with Dr. Cousens that was part of the Rawkathon program earlier this year? He said that new information on enzymes indicates that they are more heat resistant than was previously understood. In fact, one enzyme (I believe it was amylase) does not even become fully active until 140 degrees.
He was not advocating changing what we consider ‘raw’, but was cautioning us to remember that there’s still a lot to learn about the function of enzymes in live foods and in our bodies. He said that we know they play a role, but it’s irresponsible to say that we understand exactly what they are doing or how–and it is important to understand that (A) living foods contain digestive enzymes and (B) people on living food diets show a greater amount of enzyme activity. But how exactly A leads to B is not fully understood.
Unfortunately, the interviews are now available by subscription only, and I have yet to find any other info on the studies he was referring to.
It does, however, help me to worry less about the exact temp that my food is prepared at. If I prepare raw soup, but it gets a little hot, it is still more nutritious than a soup that was prepared by sauteeing the onions, garlic and spices until brown and then boiling all the veggies for 40 minutes. It may even still have some life energy in it.
Interesting. I read Dr. Edward Howell’s survey of all the research on food enzymes over about 100 years (ending, though, quite a while ago, maybe 20 yrs.?), I am left with more questions than answers. The evidence that they die at lower temps is compelling, but what happens in the gut adds new dimensions, and I have seen some evidence that they do survive and become reactivated further into the digestive tract than one would think based on exposure to acids, temps, etc.