At this time of year, when comfort foods appeal, a steaming hot bowl of soup can really hit the spot - something that's very valuable as the festive season starts to gear up. There is nothing quite like soup to tame a hearty appetite. In fact, including soup on your menu on a regular basis can be a smart way to practice girth control.
While filling up on assorted liquids can appear to help in weight management, research from Pennsylvania State University shows that eating soup offers more advantages than drinking plain water. The study examined the effects of water, both served with a food and incorporated into a food, on satiety.
Study subjects received one of three pre-lunch snacks and then were encouraged to eat as much lunch as they wanted. The three pre-meal snacks, all containing the same number of calories, consisted of chicken rice casserole, chicken rice casserole served with a glass of water and chicken rice soup - which had the same ingredients and amount of water as the second test snack.
After having the first two test snacks, the chicken rice casserole and the casserole plus water, the subjects consumed almost the same number of calories at the following meal. But when they had the soup, where the water was basically incorporated into the casserole, they consumed about one third fewer calories than the other two options. And they didn't make up for the fewer calories at dinner.
Soup is not just super in preventing weight gain, it can also make shedding pounds easier. In a one-year study by the same researchers from Pennsylvania State University, overweight subjects on a controlled calorie weight loss regime consumed either one or two servings of low calorie soup, two servings of higher calorie snack food or just the controlled calorie diet each day. Each group consumed the same number of calories. While the subjects in all the groups lost significant amounts of weight at the end of the one-year mark, consuming two servings of low calorie soup daily led to 50 per cent greater weight loss than consuming the high calorie snack food.
Again, the key words for reaping the weight benefits were low calorie soup.
If you're opting for soup as part of a waist management regime, keep in mind that not all soups are created equal. A fat-laden one with cream or cheese certainly might curb your appetite but at a cost. A broth-based soup packed with lots of vegetables like zucchini, cabbage, spinach and mushrooms offers appetite taming at any time at a caloric bargain. There's not much that can beat a veggie-packed soup before dinner or prior to heading out for a meal or a party. It won't ruin your dinner but can help stop you from devouring the bread basket at a restaurant or hijacking a hors d'oeuvre tray as it passes by.
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