The benefits of healthy soups
You can go in any direction with soup. From a nice warm pumpkin soup on a cold winter day, to a fresh gazpacho in the Spanish sun. Bright or creamy, nice and simple or rich, starter or main course. Because of the endless possibilities, everyone has a favorite soup. But is soup really healthy? And what are the benefits of healthy soup? We will tell you all about it in this article.
What is a healthy soup?
Soup can fit very well into a healthy diet. In fact, you can easily get a lot of vegetables with soup. A good bowl of vegetable soup quickly provides you with 100 grams of vegetables. This is almost half of the recommended daily intake of 250 grams of vegetables. Soup is also very filling and contributes nicely to your fluid intake.
But not all soups are equally healthy. How healthy a soup is depends on its ingredients. Soups with a lot of cream, salt, sugar or fatty meat are usually not so healthy. On the contrary, a healthy soup contains many ingredients such as:
- Vegetables
- Legumes, such as lentils or beans
- Herbs and spices
- Complex carbohydrate sources (potato, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice)
Vitamins and minerals in soup
Thanks to the vegetables, legumes, herbs and spices, you quickly get a lot of healthy vitamins and minerals in your soup. For example, these vitamins and minerals are important for your resistance, energy metabolism, concentration and muscle function.
When preparing foods, vitamins can be lost. For example, think of the green water when you cook broccoli. You then lose vitamins to the cooking liquid, which you then often flush down the drain. A big advantage of soup is that you preserve all the moisture. As a result, you lose a lot less nutrients. In addition, heating makes some nutrients more absorbable for our body. Think, for example, of beta-carotene, which is found a lot in orange vegetables, such as carrot and bottle squash(1).
Making your own healthy soup
Of course, when you make your own soup, you can make it as healthy as you like. Here are some helpful tips.
Use lots of vegetables
By using lots of vegetables, you ensure that your soup is packed with healthy vitamins, minerals and fiber. In addition, vegetables make the soup extra filling and add lots of flavor and texture.
Season with herbs and spices
Herbs and spices are great for adding more flavor to your homemade soups without having to use a lot of salt. Moreover, they also contain many healthy nutrients. For example, choose cumin, parsley or fresh basil.
Choose your ingredients smartly
The best advice for making a healthy soup is to make sure vegetables remain the main ingredient. But, of course, you can certainly add all kinds of other ingredients. Choose things you like, but above all, think about what kind of soup you want to make. Do you want a hearty soup? Then make a soup with lentils or potatoes, for example. Do you want more protein in your soup? Then pieces of meat, fish or an egg are also a great option. A small splash of cream can also be added if you like, but don’t overdo it.
Do not cook longer than necessary
When the soup is heated, some vitamins may be partially lost. Vitamin C and folic acid are especially susceptible to this(2). By not cooking the soup too long, you ensure that as much vitamin C and folic acid as possible is preserved. Fortunately, the other vitamins and minerals are retained a lot better.
Is ready-made soup also healthy?
Extra salt, sugar and/or cream is often added to ready-made soups from a bag or can. You also regularly come across processed meat in ready-made soups. Think for example of pea soup with smoked sausage or tomato soup with meatballs. Of course this can be very tasty for a change, but to have this as a standard part of your diet is usually not the best choice.
Soups from Sapje
Of course, you can go ahead and make delicious healthy soups yourself. But you may not always have time for this or feel like it. At Sapje we have several healthy vegetable soups in our assortment. Our soups are always packed with vegetables and thus provide you with a lot of healthy nutrients. The 100% organic ingredients are carefully chosen and each soup is deliciously flavored with the best herbs and spices. Below is a list of our healthy soups:
New! Bell pepper soup and cauliflower soup
Good news!!! We have now added two more delicious soups to our range. The red bell pepper soup has a warm sweet taste and a slightly spicy character thanks to the addition of the special aromatic pepper Piment d’Espelette. Our new cauliflower soup is a perfect warm-up for your body. The cheerful yellow color immediately catches your attention, and when you open the bottle, the delicious scents of the herbs and spices immediately meet you.
Soup cure
Do you want to use soups to let go of your old unhealthy habits and work toward a new lifestyle with healthy habits? Then our detox soup cure is for you. During the soup cure, you are consciously working on your daily diet for three days. It is an accessible way to step out of your normal pattern. Read more about our 3 day soup cure here.
