This potassium broth nourishes and strengthens you immune system against colds and flu, is rich in potassium and in plant immune agents (phytochemicals) to powerfully fight disease and cancer. A daily dose is great at preventing flu and colds, or helping you to get over them.

Properly stored in mason jars, we find it can last months in the fridge. Consider this mineral broth as a daily tonic to prevent flu and colds all winter long. If someone in your close circle has become sick, consider it as part of your your preventive for flu, colds, sore throat, or any illness. In addition, consider the other healing tools we list.

If you are already sick, make the broth without the astragalus, since astragalus is a tonifying herb that strengthens the body’s performance in its current state. You don’t want to strengthen the body to exist with the disease, you want the body to eliminate the disease.

It’s a great way to make miso soup with strong nutrient broth. By consuming it while healthy, you are building your immune strength, so you get sick less often.

You can also use this broth:

• to cook hot cereal in the morning
• to cook rice or lentils
• to add to stews or other dishes
• as stock for soup

Ingredients

• 6 shitake mushrooms
• 1 reishi mushroom
• 1 ounce maitake mushroom
• 6 pieces astragalus root
• 1 piece kombu/laminara
• 4 carrots
• 1 large yellow onion (with skin)
• 1 bunch parsley1 tbsp minced garlic
• Celtic salt to taste
• 1 tsp tamari
• 1 tsp miso
• 1 gallon distilled water (Important to use distilled water, not tap or filtered or bottled water, in order to get the full benefit of the high potassium in the broth)

Optional:

• Spinach (558 mg potassium/100 grams)
• Beet greens (762 mg potassium/100 grams)
• Kale  (447 mg potassium/100 grams)
• Swiss Chard
• Fresh mushrooms are much more potent than dried. The Whole Earth Center in Princeton almost always has fresh shitake and maitake. Reishi are difficult to find locally, but we get dried reishi from Mountain Rose Herbs.

Cooking

1. Add herbs together with water
2. Bring to boil
3. Simmer for 2 hours
4. Strain
5. Add minced garlic, salt, tamari and/or miso to taste

Storage
If you pour it into mason jars and tighten down the lid while still very hot, a vacuum seal will form as it cools that helps preserve it for longer periods. Put in the fridge. You can use a 3.5 gallon pot to make a double batch of the immune potassium broth, yielding two gallons. Stored in the mason jars, it can last an average family about a month.

Why a potassium broth? Potassium is a key electrolyte that supports the healing and recuperation process. It also supports the nervous system, muscle function, heart function, headaches, and metabolism of protein and carbohydrate. The ability to fight cancer is largely the result of a healthy immune system, which these ingredients help to build. Although we spend a lot of time and money studying cancer, it is usually studied in isolation from our whole immune system, so the data we get from such tests tends to miss this larger issue.

Credits: Theresa Boardwine who included it in a lecture she called Cooking with Immune Potentiating Herbs and Foods, presented at the Medicines from the Earth conference in 2010.