How to Deal With the Cabbage Soup Diet

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This is the gist of the Cabbage Soup Diet plan. Although the diet may look and sound simple (as it is designed to be simple), following it to the letter is very difficult. The diet requires commitment and dedication and people without these two will experience a lapse in the diet often eating and feeling guilty about it afterwards.

Day One - Eat all of the fruit you want (except bananas). You can also have as much of the cabbage soup as you want. Drink water, fruit juices and unsweetened teas.

Day Two - Eat any type of vegetable you want (except corn, peas or beans), raw or cooked. Eat more of the leafy vegetables and have your fill of your cabbage soup. You can have a baked potato in the evening. Do not eat fruit today.

Day Three - Eat all the fruit and vegetables you want but no baked potato at the end of the day.

Day Four - Today, you are allowed as many as eight bananas, all the skimmed milk you want and your cabbage soup. No baked potato today either.

Day Five - You can have ten to twenty ounces of beef and six tomatoes. Drink at least eight glasses of water which will wash the uric acid from your body. Also, as an alternative to beef, you can have skinless chicken, preferably broiled or baked or fish. Remember to eat your cabbage soup at least once a day.

Day Six - Today, you can have as much beef (or chicken or fish) and cabbage soup at least once a day.

Day Seven - The cabbage soup can be eaten only once today along with brown rice, unsweetened fruit juices and vegetables. You can stuff yourself with these foods to your heart's content.

The diet is a very strict one so if you plan to lose the weight, be realistic about it and expect it to be difficult. You can also expect to shed almost ten pounds if you adhere to it. To help you deal with the diet, here are a few tips straight from Cabbage Soup Dieters:

1. Be prepared to have your kitchen and probably your whole house stinking of cabbage. You will be eating cabbage soup the whole seven days so you will have to make lots of it. Some people who have been on this diet say it tastes like Campbell Vegetable Soup which isn't pretty bad.

2. Be prepared for the gas. One disadvantage of cabbage as food is its tendency to make the dieter pass gas. Flatulence is a common side effect. It may be a little overwhelming to have the smell of cabbage and gas in the same place for seven days but you can always turn on the air ventilator.

3. Be prepared for the constant trips to the bathroom. Some fruits and vegetables have the effect of improving bowel movement and in this case, bowel movement is more than improved. Also, the water content of the fruits as well as the water you will be consuming (to relieve the feeling of hunger) will have you going to the bathroom dozens of times a day. This can however, have the added bonus of making you feel better and lighter with the toxins leaving your body faster.

Top 5 Alkaline Vegetables & Their Benefits

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Fruits and vegetables are the answer to a healthy and balanced body, which functions optimally thus leading to a longer life span. Alkaline vegetables are the call of time. About 80% of our food intake should be alkaline vegetables and alkaline fruits and no more than 20% of the entire food intake should be acidic.

Alkaline vegetables help maintain the ph balance of the body at 7.3. They can easily be included to form part of the diet and should be substituted for most of the acid food. The greener the vegetable the more alkaline it is said to be. So when looking for alkaline vegetables, choosing from the greens might be a good idea.

Broccoli is a good alkaline vegetable and can be consumed in plenty by simply boiling it a bit and adding some sea iodine salt and lemon for flavor. With a small amount of butter even children can be tempted to eat this alkaline vegetable

Artichokes are also a good form of alkaline vegetables. There are plenty of ways to include artichokes in your daily diet plan. Just adding them to any other vegetable can increase the flavor of that meal. Simply boiling them and adding them to a bowl full of salad leaves can do wonders for the body also. Alkaline vegetables add to the health of the body and the taste of the dish.

Bamboo shoots also fall in the alkaline vegetables category. Though most people don't have a stomach for the smell of bamboo shoots they can still consume it by following a few basic rules. Keep the bamboo shoots dipped in some lemon syrup for about 30 min. Peel and cut a few potatoes and add a large tomatoes and a glass of water and the bamboo shoots to the vessel. All these are alkaline vegetables. Boil all the ingredients for half an hour add spices according to taste and simmer for another twenty minutes you will have a lovely soupy dish to be eaten with rice or just consumed as it is. The oriental races consume bamboo shoots and one can see that they have a longer life span and healthier bodies due to this alkaline vegetable.

Leek is also an alkaline vegetable and most French women claim that it is their secret for not gaining weight. Leek soup is easy to make and delicious to have. If a bit of garlic is added to the leek soup we have two alkaline vegetables at the same time. Garlic is very good for cleansing the body of toxic wastes and should be added to most of the meals for it's alkalizing effect.

Egg plant though not a green vegetable family member is still an alkaline vegetable. Eggplants can be consumed in a variety of ways. Cheese and eggplant bakes are tingling for the taste buds. Eggplants with a few potatoes can make a lovely alkaline vegetable dish. For children try out mashed eggplant as a side dish.

The alkaline vegetable list is unending. Cabbages, lettuce, Mushrooms, onions, peas, pepper bells, parsley, radish, cucumber and almost all vegetables are all alkaline vegetables. So go out there and skip the meat section and walk into health and vigor. With an alkaline vegetable diet plan you cannot go wrong.

Growing Pumpkins at Home

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Rather than making a canned pumpkin soup recipe the next time you fancy this warming dish, how about making a classic pumpkin soup with your own produce? You can grow pumpkins from seeds or from baby plants which are available from the nursery. Pumpkins are a long season crop but growing your own can be very rewarding.

Sow the seeds directly in the earth after the last frost, in manure and compost-enriched, well-draining soil, somewhere that gets full sun. The seed packet will tell you how much space to leave between the plants because there are different pumpkin varieties. Once the plants start to grow, use organic matter as mulch to deter weeks and keep the soil moist.

More Tips for Healthy Pumpkin Plants

Give the pumpkin plants a couple of inches of water every week, especially when the fruit starts to appear. Use seaweed extract or compost tea to feed them every couple of weeks.

When the fruit appears, pinch the vines back to stop them growing too much. It is a good idea to put boards underneath any big pumpkins to keep them off the wet ground. This stops them from rotting. Orange pumpkins should be picked before the first freeze and after the vines have dried up. White pumpkins should be picked when their skins are streaked with green lines.

Recipe for Pumpkin and Beef Stew

Once you have grown your own pumpkins, you will be anxious to make some tasty recipes with them. The following recipe combines beef, garlic, vegetables, tomatoes and more and this wonderful beef stew recipe is served inside a pumpkin bowl. This pumpkin recipe feeds four to six people and is a real winter warmer.

What you will need:

2 lbs stewing beef
4 minced cloves garlic
1 cup water
4 sliced carrots
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 sugar pumpkin
2 tablespoons beef bouillon granules
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 chopped green bell pepper
2 teaspoons salt
3 peeled, cubed potatoes
14 1/2 oz can chopped, peeled tomatoes
1 chopped onion


How to make it:

Add 2 tablespoons of the oil to a pan and heat it over a medium high heat. Cut the beef into 1 inch cubes and add it to the oil. Brown the beef cubes all over. Add the carrots, potatoes, water, garlic, salt, pepper, onion and bell pepper to the pot.

Bring the stew to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer it for a couple of hours. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Stir in the bouillon granules and tomatoes. Cut the top off the sugar pumpkin and take out the pulp and seeds, leaving an inch thick wall. Chop the pulp and add it to the beef stew.

Fill the pumpkin shell with the beef stew and brush the rest of the oil over the pumpkin exterior. Bake for a couple of hours or until tender. Serve the stew from the pumpkin, scraping out more of the pumpkin flesh from inside the shell.