Use Soup to Get Slim
One of my favorite "secret weapons" against the battle of the bulge is soup. Soup is satisfying, goes great with a salad, my kids love it, and I can make large amounts that can be quickly reheated for meals in minutes.
John Foreyt, Ph.D., director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine says, "People tend to eat less following a bowl of hot, nutritious soup. It's usually hot, so you eat it slowly and feel fuller."
A study at Pennsylvania State University found that eating soup caused volunteers to reduce the amount they ate at lunch by 100 calories and they also did not get hungry later in the day or eat extra calories at dinner to compensate.
The researchers at Penn State found that foods high in water content had a very strong impact on satiety (the feeling of satisfaction/fullness).
Drinking a glass of water with a meal does not do the same thing--the food itself has to contain the liquid or the liquid must be part of the food. So you can see how eating a big high water content salad and having a bowl of soup can be very satisfying! No wonder this combo is one of my favorite meals.
If snacking is one of your downfalls, try soup for lunch or dinner (after your salad) and you will notice a difference.
Soup is also wonderful if you dine out often. Practically every restaurant has soup on the menu. You can stick to your weight loss program, enjoy your food and continue to slim down when you choose soup!
If you make your own soup as I do, you can save a bundle on meals. I will make a huge pot of soup and my family literally lives off this tasty concoction for days. My husband takes it to work with him, my kids love it with some sprouted whole grain bread, and I love that I can warm it up quickly and not have to spend too much time in the kitchen.
Here are a couple of my favorite soup recipes. I call them "dump" soups because you just dump the ingredients in the pan, heat and serve. I use whatever leftovers I can find in the fridge to make the food stretch even further. Substitute any ingredients in the recipes with ingredients you have available in your part of the world.
Minestrone Dump Soup
Makes A LOT
2--32 ounce boxes organic vegetable or chicken broth
(you can also make it from scratch of course)
1 large can organic roasted tomatoes (Muir Glen has a
GREAT one but if you cannot find it, you could substitute
with a jar of spaghetti sauce and it will add good flavor)
1 pound organic fresh or frozen green beans
2 cups leftover cooked organic kidney beans or you can
use one 15 ounce can of cooked kidney or northern beans
1 large shredded organic carrot
1 finely chopped small organic onion
2 cloves finely minced organic garlic
one bunch of fresh organic spinach (you can substitute
with frozen)
2 sliced organic zucchini
other organic vegetables you like or have available
(squash, collard greens, cabbage, etc.)
sea salt, pepper and any other herbs you like to taste (if
you added spaghetti sauce instead of roasted tomatoes,
you will not need any extra herbs)
1 pound cooked organic whole grain pasta of your choice
Dump everything into an 8-10 quart stock pot and bring to a light simmer. Cook for only a few minutes so that the vegetables stay on the firm side. Put a little cooked pasta in the bowl, then cover with the hot soup. Make sure to have start with a big raw salad first.
Note: It is best to keep the pasta separate because if you add it to the soup, it absorbs the water from the soup and gets very mushy each time to rewarm it.
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Mexican Bean Soup
Serves six
4 cups organic cooked pinto beans or 2--15 ounce cans
of organic refried beans (make sure they do not contain
any hydrogenated oils)
1--16 ounce can of organic tomato sauce
1 cup organic chicken or vegetable broth
juice of two organic limes
1 tablespoon cumin
1 to 2 tablespoons chile powder
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
finely chopped onion for garnish
Dump all ingredients except the onion into a pan. Blend with a hand blender until smooth and cook for about 10 minutes. Garnish with onion and cilantro leaves when you serve. You can bake some organic corn tortillas until crispy and dip them into the soup. My kids like to eat it this way.
Note: If you don't have a hand blender, you can use a regular blender or food processor to blend the ingredients, then warm in a pan.
You can also make a soup super simple by adding chopped veggies you like to the broth. Find what works best for you so you can include satisfying soup in your eating plan.
Victoria
Creator of the Living Well Plan
HEALTHY RECIPES
VEGETABLES/FRUITS
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