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Can chicken soup really cure body and soul?

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JULIANE SCHLA

Chinese chicken noodle 

Archaeological evidence shows that people started using poultry to make soups soon after they discovered how to boil water. The earliest recorded evidence of chicken soup being used as a therapeutic dish, dates back to Chinese antiquity.

In the second century BC, the Chinese medical text, Huangdi Neijing, declared that chicken soup is a “yang food” – a warming dish – to which different therapeutic herbs can be added to cure various diseases.

In China, chicken soup is given to women after pregnancy and to elderly people. Both groups are considered to be in the need of energy-giving yang food, which is believed to transport “energy” around the body and have an invigorating effect.

During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), noodle shops became widespread and chicken noodle soup was a popular dish. 

The Jewish tradition 

The Jewish folklore about chicken soup is closely tied to the central European medical history of chicken soup. The Greek physician Galen, in the second century AD, recommended chicken soup as a cure for migraine, leprosy, constipation and fever.

A few centuries later, in the Babylonian Talmud, a story refers to the chicken of Rabbi Abba (175–247) which, when cooked, served him as a general remedy.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the Jewish philosopher and physician, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), recommended chicken soup for the weak and the sick. But chicken soup remained an infrequently eaten dish until the 15th century. It was only then that a revival of raising chickens started to compensate for other meat shortages and people began to eat chicken soup regularly.

Similar to traditional Chinese practice, among Sephardic Jews the custom prevailed to give “caldo de gayina vieja” – old hen chicken broth – to women who had given birth and to ill people.

After the 15th century, chicken soup slowly became a traditional dish within Jewish Ashkenazic culture, having spread from the Sephardic Jews to Eastern Europe.

After the Second World War, Jewish emigrants popularised it in America, leading to its nickname “the Jewish penicillin”. 

The scientific evidence 

While there is a cultural belief that chicken soup has therapeutic properties, researchers cannot determine exactly why chicken soup, or which content of it, has a curative effect.

Here is what we do know about chicken soup’s curative properties.

Marvin Sackner, in 1978, conducted a study showing that drinking chicken soup was significantly better at clearing up congestion in the nose, compared with drinking hot or cold water.

In 1980, Irwin Ziment showed that chicken broth helps to thin mucous in the lungs with a higher effect being achieved when the broth was spiced. His study was followed up by Stephen Rennard in 2000, who argued that chicken soup, by reducing mucous in the lungs, supported the white blood cells in fighting a cold.

Generally, it can be observed that the calcium content of the soup increases with the duration of cooking and, depending on the composition, can have a mild anti-inflammatory effect. 

Juliane Schla is a PhD student from the University of Hull and this story appeared in the The Conversation. See: conversation.com/can-chicken-soup-really-cure-body-and-soul-52357

 

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