Light Vegetable Broth

Ingredients

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• 1 red onion , coarsely chopped
• 2 carrots , cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 celery ribs , coarsely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves , crushed
• 2 Roma tomatoes , cored and halved
• 2 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 1 piece of kombu , 2-inch; dried sea vegetable (optional)
• ½ cup fresh parsley , coarsely chopped parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 ⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 Tbsp white miso paste
• Dr. Greger’s Special Spice Blend

Method

1. Heat 1 cup of water in a large pot over medium heat.
2. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Cook 5 minutes.
3. Stir in the tomatoes, mushrooms, kombu, parsley, bay leaves, ground black pepper, and remaining water (8 cups total).
4. Simmer 30 minutes.
5. Remove from heat. Discard the kombu.
6. Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, then whisk in the miso paste until dissolved.
7. Cool to room temperature, then store in containers in the refrigerator or freezer.

About the ingredients

red onion Allium cepa

Purple-red cultivar of common onion; bulb eaten raw or cooked. Minimally processed. Anthocyanins, quercetin, organosulfur compounds, vitamin C. Whole-plant bulb — canonical WFPB.

carrots Daucus carota

Whole taproot, eaten raw or cooked. Orange domesticated form is the familiar one; heirloom landraces range purple to white.

celery ribs Apium graveolens

Crisp, fibrous leaf stalks (petioles) of Apium graveolens, eaten raw or cooked. Very low caloric density, high water and fiber; provides vitamin K, folate, potassium. Whole, intact vegetable, fully canonical to WFPB.

garlic cloves Allium sativum

Garlic itself is canonical, but extract denotes a concentrated/isolated derivative outside the whole-food canon. Marketed as natural/healthy supplement, hence mistaken-as-WFPB flag.

Roma tomatoes Solanum lycopersicum

Whole fruit of the tomato plant (botanically a berry, culinary vegetable). 'Organic' denotes a farming method, not a distinct ingredient. Raw whole fruit, rich in lycopene, vitamin C, potassium. WFPB-canonical.

dried shiitake mushrooms Lentinula edodes

Fresh whole edible mushroom widely used in East Asian cooking. Rich in B vitamins, copper, selenium, and beta-glucans; umami-dense. Whole unprocessed fungus. Canonical whole food.

piece of kombu Saccharina japonica

Edible kelp (brown seaweed) dried in sheets, used in Japanese cooking and dashi; whole sea vegetable rich in iodine, glutamate, fiber, minerals. Minimally processed (dried). WFPB canonical.

fresh parsley Petroselinum crispum

Fresh leafy herb in the carrot family; flat-leaf (Italian) and curly types. Eaten raw or added late as garnish/aromatic. Whole leaf and stem, no processing. Rich in vitamin K, C, A, folate. Whole plant — fully WFPB canonical.

bay leaves Laurus nobilis

Bay leaf: aromatic leaf of the laurel tree Laurus nobilis, native to the Mediterranean and prized since antiquity (Greek/Roman symbolism). Used whole, dried or fresh, to infuse dishes then removed. Contains essential oils (eucalyptol). A whole dried herb/leaf. Canonical WFPB.

⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper Piper nigrum

Dried unripe fruit (peppercorns) of the pepper vine, used whole or ground. A whole dried spice with nothing added or extracted. Canonical WFPB aromatic.

white miso paste Glycine max

Japanese paste of soybeans fermented with koji (Aspergillus oryzae on rice or barley) and salt. Fermentation chemistry benign and traditional, but high added salt (~6-13%) is a non-WFPB addition; noncanonical.