Soup Making

Soup making is fast becoming a disappearing art.

These days, there's nary a sign of a stockpot in many kitchens. Packages with dry ingredients along with their canned cousins have replaced the standard aromatic, long-simmering homemade soup of yesteryear.

Reclaiming the stockpot will not only pleasure the palate, it may also provide a number of health perks. In the cold, dark months of winter when stick-to-the ribs fare is most appealing, avoiding the accumulation of excess body padding can be tough.
Soup, however, can kill two nutritional birds with one stone.

Soup tames appetite:

Research from Pennsylvania State University shows that soup is a super way to tame hearty appetites.
In the study, scientists compared the effect of three meals containing the same number of calories and ingredients on the amount of food eaten later in the day.

Having a chicken rice casserole with or without water resulted in the same number of calories being consumed later in the day.
When the water was incorporated into the casserole to make a soup, the result was less food being eaten.
Adding chunky vegetables may make the job even easier according to French research. Strained or pureed soups were found to have less of an effect on curbing appetites than those with larger pieces.
If you're looking for help with waist management, put away your food processor when cooking up soup.

Less salt content

Homemade options offer other advantages as well, especially when it comes to sodium counts. Many commercial offerings are laden with salt and may lack intense flavours. And all too often selections labelled 'sodium- reduced' are anything but low in sodium.

But they can be used as a foundation. For example, simmering a cup of broth and adding a cup of chopped vegetables results in less sodium per cup serving. It's also a tasty way of boosting your vegetable intake.

When making chicken, beef or vegetable broths or stocks, use a variety of ingredients to provide a complexity of taste, making the lesser amounts of sodium less noticeable.