Soup is a light dish but at the same time filling. It is rapidly absorbed by the organism, warms well in cold times of the year and helps to improve the work of the digestion system. Compared to baked or fried products, boiled vegetables, mushrooms, meat and poultry in soup retain much more nutrients. In addition, soups usually contain less calories than non-liquid dishes.
Health Aspects
Healthy and tasty soups and broths are simply necessary for those who take care about their health. Vegetable soups are unmatched for their stimulant and preventive properties. Liquid dishes also restore the fluid balance on which the level of arterial blood pressure depends.
Some soups and broths are irreplaceable. For example, chicken broth has beneficial effects on the blood vessels. And soup based on chicken broth facilitates the symptoms of colds because it contains the ingredients of anti-inflammatory action.
Blended soups are the most nutritious way to enjoy a good soup. They have a refined, gentle consistence hence your body can easily absorb all the nutrients during digestion. Fact is that blended soups are very good for your health, as vegetables contain many of the necessary vitamins and microelements.
Soups are ideal for those who prefer dietary food. The amount of energy that the organism spends on digestion of soup and on digestion of full-fledged dish is virtually the same. With soup we eat fewer calories and burn as many calories as we would burn by eating high-calorie non-liquid dishes.
Seasonal Aspects
In the cold time of the year soups are especially relevant. They are quickly warmed, good for improvement of the metabolism and give the necessary energy to the body to warm up. In summer and during the harvest season soups allow us to use the gifts of nature with maximum benefit.
Let’s talk about summer soups first. Depending on the weather, summer soups can be cold or warm and of course with the flavour of seasonal vegetables in it. Just think how nice it is to eat cold avocado and cucumber soup with schrimp in the end of July or beginning of August. Tarator and Gazpacho are two wonderful examples of cold summer soups. Simple summer vegetable soup, spinach soup or broccoli soup will let you feel a real summer aroma of freshly harvested and cooked vegetables.
In the cold times of the year the choice of soups is greater of course. Chicken soup, beef stew, cauliflower soup, mushroom soup, lentil soup, potato soup, butternut squash soup – it is impossible to remember all of these amazing soups we can cook in winter time when it is cold and not so pleasant outside. But there is always a wish to eat something very warm and tasty in in winter, early spring or late autumn cold days.
Soup Advice:
- Do not cook soups too long - they lose their nutritional value and vitamins.
- First wait until the water boils, and then add the vegetables. Vitamins get destroyed less if vegetables are put into the boiling liquid.
- Do not put all the vegetables in the pan at the same time; otherwise you will end up with whole potato pieces and other vegetables mashed.
- Fry carrots in a frying pan and don't cook, so the carotene dissolved in fat can be digested more easily.
- Cook soups with a «secondary» broth in order to reduce the number of carcinogenic substances. For this bring the broth to the boil, cook the meat for about 5 minutes and then pour the broth off the pot. Then pour clean water in the pot, add the meat back into the pot and continue to cook. You can cook the vegetable soup in the same way, adding the cooked meat separately.