White Button Mushroom Miso Soup

This soup is amazingly simple, fast, and powerfully health-promoting!

Ingredients:

• White button mushrooms: get a double handful
• Vegetable broth or chicken broth--I use a 32-ounce container
• Miso paste
• You can keep it simple by only using the ingredients above, or you can add diced tofu and green onions, chives, garlic, and/or ginger

Preparation:

• Start warming the vegetable/chicken broth
• The button mushrooms can either be pureed or food-processed into a "baby food" consistency; you can do *both* for the same soup
• Chop and brown the tofu/garlic/ginger/onions in a separate pan at high heat if you are adding these.
• Mix about 1/4-cup of the miso paste in a small amount of the broth, then add the miso-broth mix back to the soup
• At about 5-10 minutes after starting, you should be finished.  What you have now is a miso-mushroom-broth base with chopped mushrooms and tofu/garlic/ginger/onions to add some texture and variety.
• This soup is really good, and the miso paste has plenty of salt so you won't need to add more.

Serving Recommendations:

• Eat it while it is hot!

Health Benefits of This Meal:

• The (soy) miso has anti-cancer enzymes and phytonutrients, but I think the real power of this recipe comes from the white button mushrooms, which have aromatase-inhibiting action.  AROMATASE is an enzyme in the human body that converts androgen hormones like testosterone into estrogens like estradiol.  In general, estrogens like estradiol promote cancer growth.  Therefore, when we inhibit the aromatase enzyme--either by using foods or by using drugs like letrozole or anastrozole--we achieve an anticancer benefit.  This applies to several forms of cancer, but it is most clearly applicable to breast cancer, and--probably--prostate cancer.  Readers should note that the "first line treatments" for breast cancer, other than the usual surgery, chemo, and radiation is the use of aromatase-inhibiting drugs and estrogen-blocking drugs such as etrozole, anastrozole, and tamoxifen.