If you’re in the mood for a healthy comfort food or just fancy a hot meal, soup might be just the thing for you. Enjoying a bowl of soup can be an easy, quick and tasty way to add nutrients to your diet. However, although it is a very versatile and tasty dish, not all soups are as healthy as you might think. Here’s what makes soup healthy, the health benefits of eating soup, and in detail, a few different varieties.
What makes a soup healthy?
When made with the right ingredients, soup can be a truly healthy dish with multiple nutritional benefits. For example, soups prepared with broths made from bones, vegetables or meat provide vitamins, minerals and nutrients, such as collagen. They are also very tasty while limiting added fats and calories. Plus, eating soup is an easy and tasty way to increase your vegetable intake.
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High vegetable intake is associated with a reduced risk of weight gain, which is a risk factor for chronic diseases, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. Additionally, vegetables offer many health benefits due to their high content of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and plant compounds. Plus, soups can be made with almost anything you have available in your kitchen. That said, there are some ingredients to watch out for, like thickeners and condiments, which can increase the calorie and sodium content of your soup and turn it into a rather unhealthy meal.
The health benefits of soup
In addition to helping you increase your vegetable intake, there are other potential health benefits to eating soup. For starters, it can help you manage your weight. Studies show that daily calorie intake tends to be lower in people who eat soup. For example, an observational study showed that people who regularly ate soup had lower body weight and waist circumference than people who did not. The study also found that these people had higher quality diets, characterized by reduced fat and increased protein and fiber intake.
Studies have also shown that eating soup can reduce hunger and increase satiety. Fiber is known to increase feelings of fullness by delaying gastric emptying (the rate at which your stomach empties after eating) and increasing stomach volume by absorbing water and swelling once it is eaten. entered the stomach. Delaying gastric emptying and increasing gastric volume allows your stomach to feel full longer, which results in less hunger.
Finally, eating soup can help you stay hydrated. Water is essential to your health, and your total water intake may come from drinking water, water from beverages, or water from food, such as soup, fruits and vegetables.
Be careful, thickening agents can ruin everything
Some of the most popular ingredients used to thicken soups include whole milk, heavy cream, coconut cream, bread, cheese, egg yolks. In small amounts, these ingredients can be part of a healthy lifestyle, but it’s the amounts used in cream-based soups that you have to be wary of.