Craving chicken soup
While the mall may have been be crazy and full of shoppers last December, the same density of people and difficulty with parking happened again in the first few days of January but this time in the big hospitals of Metro Manila. I experienced that in The Medical City last January 2009 and again this year.
While waiting to be attended by my doctor, I bumped into friends who were there or whose relatives were there for diabetes, heart attack or just a nasty and lingering cold. In my mind, I tried to review why most get sick at the start of the year. Must be the added holiday stress, or the deadly buffets and big meals (especially late at night), the unpredictable weather (sometimes unusually warm during the day but chilly at night), or all of the above.
I didn’t feel well the first Friday of the year. Nothing serious, but I had to rest in bed and drink a lot of water. I also didn’t want anything but hot soup. For days, I just wanted chicken noodle soup, chicken macaroni soup, and arroz caldo. Was it just me, or is there really something in chicken soup that makes us well?
Soup-Er Healer
Food historians note that chicken soup was already prescribed as a cure for the common cold in ancient Egypt. A Persian physician Avicenna from the 10th century referred to the curative powers of chicken soup in his writings. And in the 12th century, the Jewish sage Maimonides wrote about chicken soup as a popular home remedy. Experts say that the steam from the soup opens up congested noses and throats. They say that the fluid in the soup is important in fighting infection.
Medical websites, intrigued by the beneficial properties of chicken soup, report that the relief happens in two ways. The chicken soup acts as an anti-inflammatory by inhibiting the movement of immune system cells involved in the body’s inflammatory response. This is also the opinion of Dr. Stephen Rennard, a specialist in pulmonary medicine, who put the recipe of his wife’s grandmother to the test. It also temporarily speeds up the movement of mucus through the nose, helping relieve congestion and limiting the time viruses are in contact with the nose lining.
But is this only true for homecooked chicken soup or will easy-cook grocery versions work? Researchers from the University of Nebraska found that many, but not all, of the soups in groceries work.
While chicken soup seems to be used to comfort the sick in a lot of cultures around the world, preparations, including vegetables and herb ingredients, vary from one country to another. I even read somewhere that chicken soup is dubbed “Jewish penicillin,” alluding to its healing properties.
Sites such as Medicineplus and drkoop claim that “chicken soup contains an amino acid that is similar to a drug used to treat some respiratory infections.” The amino acid is not named though.
A Bowl To Soothe The Soul
With almost 80 million copies sold, there is no question that the magic of a warm bowl of chicken soup has rubbed off on a series of books written by Jack Canfield to soothe the soul. He was a passionate professor and inspirational speaker. It was in one of his travels that he thought of compiling the inspiring stories he uses in his lectures into a book called Chicken Soup for The Soul.
What appeals to me more than the books he wrote is his own story of persistence. His idea was rejected by more than 140 publishers. Even his own agent gave back the manuscript and declared it was so bad nobody would read it. Undaunted, he took it to the convention of the American Book Sellers Association where 4,000 publishers had booths. He went from booth to booth pitching his book.
On the third day after hundreds of rejection, a small publisher from Florida, Health Communications Inc. agreed to take a look. When they agreed to publish it, they were neither offered an advance nor were they given marketing support. The first book did not make the best- seller list until 14 months after it was published. But it stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for almost three years! Canfield and his co-author even won a Guinness Book of Records for having seven books on the New York Times best-seller list on May 24, 1998.
Canfield said in a Barnes & Noble interview, “If you have a vision and a life purpose, and you believe in it, then you do not let external events tell you what is so. You follow your internal guidance and follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell used to say.”
He added, “My inspiration for writing comes from my passion for teaching others how to live more effective lives. I started out as a history teacher in an all-black inner city high school in Chicago, graduated to a teacher trainer, then psychotherapist, then trainer of therapists, then large group transformational trainer, and then a writer and keynote speaker. All along the way, my desire was to make a difference, to help people live more fulfilling lives. That is what I still do today. Most people don’t know this, but I was not a good writer in college. I got a C in composition. Nobody would have ever believed I would grow up to be a best-selling author.”
If you are starting the new year with a cold like me, sip some warm chicken soup. If you are starting with fear and cold feet not knowing what the year has in store for you, believe that the God who loves you has only the best intentions for you and take inspiration from persistent and purpose-driven people like Jack Canfield and the contributors of the many Chicken Soup books.
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Post me a note at mylene@gmail.com or mylene@goldsgym.com.ph.
