Drinking food with soup and smoothies

1. In 'liquid food', such as soup and smoothies, you can package many healthy substances, while it often contains few calories. But there is one but: eating too often drinking is not good.

2. In 'liquid food', such as soup and smoothies, you can pack a lot of healthy substances, while it often contains few calories. But there is one thing: eating too often drinking is not good.

1. Soup can very well serve as a lean meal. You can easily make a meal soup from the familiar tomato soup with some meatballs, finely chopped vegetables and grated parmesan cheese. Gratin onion soup or a tasty full vegetable soup can also serve as a complete meal. Just like the French bouillabaisse with large pieces of fish or the Italian minestrone, which has as many variants as there are chefs. Not only in Europe do we know the tastiest meal soups. Harira is eaten in the Maghreb (Northwest Africa), Vietnam is the land of pho soup, a refined meat stock and Thailand is known for its tom yam. Also China, with its versatile gastronomy, serves a whole range of thin and thick rich soups with surprising ingredients and Japan also has a culinary tradition devoted to the soup.

2. Soup can very well serve as a lean meal. You can easily make a meal soup from the familiar tomato soup with some meatballs, finely chopped vegetables and grated parmesan cheese. Gratin onion soup or a tasty full vegetable soup can also serve as a complete meal. Just like the French bouillabaisse with large pieces of fish or the Italian minestrone, which has as many varieties as there are chefs. Not only in Europe do we know the tastiest meal soups. Harira is eaten in the Maghreb (Northwest Africa), Vietnam is the land of pho soup, a refined meat stock and Thailand is known for its tom yam. Also China, with its versatile gastronomy, serves a whole range of thin and thick rich soups with surprising ingredients and Japan also has a culinary tradition devoted to the soup.

Healthy and slim

1. Soup owes its popularity to its taste, ease of preparation and natural ingredients. The fact that she does not appear more often on the table is mainly due to our lack of imagination. But the possibilities for variation are endless. Soup helps us eat vegetables and thus get the recommended serving of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and dietary fiber. Vegetables that children don't like can be used to make soup they love. Another advantage is that most soups are low in fat, cholesterol and calories. Good for your diet, at least if you pay attention to ingredients such as cheese, cream and meat. And soup is an excellent appetite suppressant: when you eat it, the stomach expands, creating a feeling of satiety and the receptors in the intestines sending a signal to the brain to stop eating.

Fine fibers

1. This effect is stronger if the soup is not sieved or pureed and therefore contains pieces. The less the vegetables are processed, the more the dietary fiber is retained. These fibers ensure a feeling of fullness and also have a beneficial effect on the cholesterol level in the blood. While cooking vegetable soup, some vitamins are lost, such as vitamin C, but other healthy substances, such as beta-carotene (carrots) and lycopene (tomatoes), are better absorbed by the body from soup. A large-scale French study entitled Suvimax showed that people who regularly eat soup tend to consume fewer calories during the day, have a lower body mass index and lower cholesterol.

Don't forget to chew

1. No matter how healthy and lean soup is, it is also important to also take enough food that requires a lot of chewing. There is a trend towards softer food: cornflakes, fish fingers, drinking breakfast and delicious fruit smoothies mean that our jaws have little to do. But chewing is necessary. After all, digestion begins in the mouth with grinding food, mixing it with saliva. Enzymes are released, which initiate digestion. The mouth analyzes the food and sends the necessary information about it to the brain, which in turn starts the digestion process. If we do not chew or chew too little, the brain does not have time to produce the satiety hormone, so that we often eat more than we need. Chewing has been shown to have a satiating effect. The better we chew, the less chance of overweight.

2. No matter how healthy and lean soup is, it is also important to also take enough food that requires a lot of chewing. There is a trend towards softer food: cornflakes, fish fingers, drinking breakfast and delicious fruit smoothies mean that our jaws have little to do. But chewing is necessary. After all, digestion begins in the mouth with grinding food, mixing it with saliva. Enzymes are released which initiate digestion. The mouth analyzes the food and sends the necessary information about it to the brain, which in turn starts the digestion process. If we do not chew or chew too little, the brain does not have time to produce the satiety hormone, so that we often eat more than we need. Chewing has been shown to have a satiating effect. The better we chew, the less chance of overweight.

Hunger Hormone

1. Chinese research also found that people who chew every bite 40 times have less ghrelin (the â € hunger hormoneâ € ™) in their blood than people who chew only 15 times. From this, the researchers concluded that chewing well and eating slowly is an effective method to combat obesity. Dentists also emphasize the importance of chewing. They warn that slackening of the masseter muscles weakens the jaws. This makes the teeth vulnerable. In addition, soft food sticks more easily to the tooth enamel and thus increases the risk of tartar and cavities. To keep the mouth in good condition, dentists recommend that you regularly eat something to put your teeth in, such as a carrot or an apple.

2. Chinese research also showed that people who chew every bite 40 times had less ghrelin (the â € hunger hormoneâ € ™) in their blood than people who chew only 15 times. From this, the researchers concluded that chewing well and eating slowly is an effective method to combat obesity. Dentists also emphasize the importance of chewing. They warn that slackening of the masseter muscles weakens the jaws. This makes the teeth vulnerable. Moreover, soft food sticks more easily to the tooth enamel and thus increases the risk of tartar and cavities. To keep the mouth in good condition, dentists recommend that you regularly eat something to put your teeth in, such as a carrot or an apple.

Good weight loss aids

1. All this does not mean that you should leave all delicious soups and smoothies alone. But don't overdo it: smoothie or soup diets, for example, are not a good idea. They are difficult to maintain, too one-sided and do not help to permanently change eating habits. If you work on the diet, you can - in addition to a balanced diet - take in very few calories for one or two days each week: no more than 400 or 500 kcal per day. This is called intermittent fasting, which is currently all the rage in the United States. Soup is a godsend on these low-calorie days, but should of course not contain too many calories. A regular vegetable soup (without fat marrow bones and meatballs) is fine for such days. And also consider pumpkin soup. Pumpkin is packed with vitamins and minerals and contains a lot of fiber that makes you feel full. A