HIPPOCRATES’ BROTH

Those who are allergic to milk drinks of all kinds should learn to make and take nourishing soups and broths with meat stock, chicken stock (N.B. the Jewish peoples place great store in the health restoring properties of chicken stock, and still do today, although it is not popularly understood why), bouillon cubes or dry brewers’ yeast.

The oldest broth of all vegetable broths was created five hundred years before Christ by Hippocrates, the wise Greek physician. He recommended that a rich mineral broth be made with carrots, celery, root parsley and, especially, leek. Here is the ancient formula:

1 cup chopped or grated carrot
1 cup chopped or grated celery
1 cup chopped leek
1/2 cup chopped parsley

Put all vegetables into 1 and a half quarts of water and simmer slowly for 30 minutes. This makes a rich combination of the water soluble vitamins B and C. When Americans make potage hypocrites, they add some onions and tomatoes and other flavoursome vegetables and season it with vegetable salt. In health/beauty farms they add a tablespoon of celery flavoured brewers' yeast and call it their complexion broth. The selection of vegetables and herbs still offers an excellent alkaline broth. Earlier this century the most popular of all the "alkaline broths" was created by Gayelord Hauser (one of the great pioneers of wholefood cooking and holistic living practices) in 1922. It was then called Potassium Broth. This clear broth was based on the Hippocrates formula (and very successfully marketed in the USA and Europe for decades as Hi-Vitality Mineral Broth). Gayelord Hauser recommended it to all who felt "under par"; the broth was used on many beauty farms.

The broth was an integral part of Gayelord Hauser's seven-day elimination diet or, as her termed it, one week housecleaning. Gayelord Hauser would encourage his students (many thousands) to begin the diet in spring, as he put it, during this season "when all nature turns green and glad, when vegetables are at their best".

The formula is:

1 cup finely shredded celery, leaves and all
1 cup finely shredded carrots
half cup shredded spinach
1 tbsp. shredded parsley
1 qt. Water
1 cup tomato juice
1 tsp. vegetable salt
1 tsp. brown sugar or honey