Soup doesn’t just warm you up and satisfy your tastebuds; it can actually reduce your hunger levels throughout the day. A study conducted at Purdue University found that participants who ate soup tended to eat fewer total daily calories.
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There are many soup options to choose from at your local cafe or market, but watch out for the kind loaded with unhealthy ingredients like heavy creams, salt and sugar. For example, a bowl of Panera Bread’s broccoli cheddar soup gets 57 per cent of its calories from fat. Yikes!
The solution? Make your own soup at home. Many soup recipes are easy and inexpensive, and that way you can control the sugar and sodium content. Plus, they incorporate a cornucopia of healthy ingredients. These are five of our favourite healthy soup recipes.
Roasted Butternut Squash And Shallot Soup
This recipe for Roasted Butternut Squash and Shallot Soup from Cooking Light is an easy, three-step recipe that blends the spicy flavor of ginger with mellow butternut squash and savory shallots.
Not only is butternut squash bursting with flavour, it also has a wealth of vitamins and nutrients, including extraordinarily high levels of vitamin A and various B vitamins. Vitamin A, is an antioxidant and helps maintain the integrity of skin and eyesight. B vitamins play an important role in cell metabolism and in the nervous system.
Kale And Potato Soup With Turkey Sausage
Kale has become a very popular vegetable over the last few years because it’s so nutrient dense. Kale is a good source of antioxidants like vitamin C, beta-carotene, manganese and 45 different flavonoids. These antioxidant micronutrients disrupt and prevent damage caused by free radical compounds. Oxidative stress from free radicals is associated with several diseases and unhealthy aging.
A serving of Gina Homolka’s hearty Kale and Potato Soup with Turkey Sausage has 19 grams of protein, 5.5 grams of fibre, the antioxidant power of kale and only 232 calories! A bowl of this soup will nourish your body and keep you feeling full for hours.
Easy Cauliflower Soup
Creamy baked potato soups are a popular ‘soup of the day’ at many chain restaurants but they typically serve up a lot of calories with very little nutrition. So if you’re craving creamy and savory flavor, try this Easy Cauliflower Soup from Tori Avey instead.
This calorie-saving swap will save your waistline and give you more of the nutrients you need. One cup of cauliflower has 73 per cent of the recommended daily value of vitamin C and just 29 little calories.
In addition to being nutritious, cauliflower is also good for your digestive tract. For every 100 calories of cauliflower you eat, you also consume 9 grams of fiber, which helps in digestion and feeling full. Cauliflower also contains compounds that can help protect the lining of your stomach by preventing bacterial overgrowth.
Really Good Vegan Tomato Soup
Don’t settle for canned, concentrated tomato soup. It typically has added salt and sugar. In fact, a serving of canned tomato soup might have as many as 20 grams of sugar! Flavor-impaired canned tomato soup is no match for thefirstmess.com’s recipe for Really Good Tomato Soup.
Tomatoes are a wonderful source of many nutrients: vitamins A and C, folic acid, alpha-lipoic acid, lycopene, choline, folic acid, beta-carotene and lutein. The antioxidant compounds found in tomatoes might even have cancer-fighting capabilities. In a review of several studies, the American Cancer Society reported that a diet rich in tomatoes could reduce your risk for certain types of cancers.
Chicken Soup
Feeling under the weather? Chicken soup may be what the doctor should order. Dr. Stephen Rennard, a pulmonary expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, studied the effects of chicken soup on a cold and found that the soup does have anti-inflammatory properties that can ease your symptoms.
The soup Rennard used in his study was made of many nutrient-dense foods like onions, sweet potatoes, parsnips, turnips, carrots, celery, parsley and chicken. If you’re looking to make a similarly healing soup, try the Oz Family Chicken Soup recipe. It includes immunity-boosting ginger and has less sodium than canned options.