Recipe - Primordial Soup
Primordial Soup is a very healthy concoction which is very easy to make. It is ideal for late-night hacking sessions, when all of your attention is focussed on the screen and you just need something to shovel into your mouth -- chips, sawdust, small animals, whatever. If you're like me, when you're deep into it, you can't taste what you're eating anyway, so it had might as well be something healthy.
See also About Primordial Soup for an explanation of its nutritional value.
Here's how you make it:
* Obtain one can (any size) of beans (usually kidney beans, but pinto beans work as well).
* Obtain one can of corn which is the same size as your can of beans. If you have trouble digesting large amounts of corn, try creamed corn instead (which is usually sweeter than usual corn, as well).
* Dump the beans into a bowl, and even them out a little.
* Dump the corn over the beans, and even them out a little so that the beans are covered. This will help keep your beans from exploding in the microwave.
* Microwave for 1-3 minutes depending on volume and power of microwave. If your beans start exploding, you've left it in too long.
* Remove bowl, mix corn and beans with spoon, and eat when cool.
If you're feeling really slovenly, you can skip heating altogether -- just mix the corn and beans together in a bowl and chow down.
Variations:
* Substitute Ranch Style Beans, Van De Camp's Pork and Beans, or your favorite bean chili for the kidney beans. This will make it tastier, but less healthy.
* Substitute cream of corn or corn chips for the corn. This will make it tastier, but less healthy.
Note: A distant cousin of
Primordial Soup which is much tastier but much less healthy is Frito Pie (qv).
About Primordial Soup
Primordial Soup forms what is
known as a complete protein. The human body's flesh and organs
are largely made out of chemical compounds called proteins, and the body
needs eight fundamental proteins (or amino acids) in the correct
proportions to manufacture the proteins it needs to grow skin, muscles,
hair, etc. The proportions are important -- if you eat enough of
seven of the eight amino acids to make 12 oz of protein, but only enough
of the eighth amino acid to make 2 oz of protein, your body will only be
able to manufacture 2 oz of useful protein, and the rest is kept by the
body for a few days until either they are eliminated, or enough of the
other amino acids are eaten to manufacture protein out of them.
Primordial Soup is nice in that it contains all eight of these
amino acids in roughly the correct proportions, and complex
carbohydrates. You could theoretically live on Primordial Soup,
water, vitamin pills, and roughage for your entire life quite healthily.
Note: Frances Lappe has
renounced her original claims about complete proteins, but only
because it was found that: (1) getting a complete protein is easier than
she originally described in her book,
Diet for a Small Planet, and (2) the system she described
in that book was too complex for most of her readers to understand.
She came out with a simpler description in the revised edition of
Diet for a Small Planet, but the original formula put
forth in the first edition remains valid. This recipe is based on
the protein formula published in that earlier edition.
qv: The IVU Protein Nutrition FAQ.
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