Supercharged soups for health, weight loss

You’ve probably heard of juicing, the liquid diet trend that has exploded in recent years. But what about souping?

That’s right, souping.

Sipping soup or broth to improve health or lose weight is the elixir du jour on the healthy eating scene.

At both the 2015 winter and summer Fancy Food shows held in San Francisco and New York, bottled drinkable soups were big. And three new souping cookbooks came out in December (just in time for the holidays and New Year’s resolutions).

But let’s be clear. We’re not talking about the sodium-laden canned soups we grew up with, but rather freshly made broths or stocks sipped as is or used as a base for soup or fruit-based soups blended with herbs and vegetables.

So is it the new juicing?

That’s the goal of Angela Ablates and Vivienne Valle, authors of the “Soup Cleanse” (Grand Central Life & Style, $22) and founders of Sou pure, the Los Angeles-based bottled soup company. Founded in 2014, Sou pure makes 21 varieties of soups and waters and is set to sell them nationwide next month.

Ablates and Vella believe so much in making souping part of a daily regime they’ve trademarked the phrase “souping is the new juicing.”

But unlike juicing, fiber isn’t loss during the souping process — something the authors say spurred their soup business.

“The fiber is the important part of fruits and vegetables and we were baffled by how we as well as the

 Roasted Chicken Broth and Beef Bone Broth. More people are making their own for health reasons. (Photo: Sal wan Georges, Detroit Free Press)

Keep the good stuff

While souping touts some of the same benefits as juicing — feeling better, less brain fog and weight loss — its one big advantage, health experts and chefs say, is the fiber it retains.

“Typically, you are leaving the pulp and fiber behind, so with soup you are getting all that good fiber and the nutrients that come along with it,” says Bethany Thayer, director for the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at Henry Ford Health System. Just this week, Thayer named souping as one of the next new diet trends at 

Thayer says she’s seeing soup consumed for breakfast (in the form of a smoothie bowl), lunch and dinner.

With the right ingredients, that bowl of soup can be a healthful meal, and by consuming it mindfully, she adds, you can limit your caloric intake.

“Soups, because of the liquid, with the vegetables and lean meat, they lead to feeling fuller longer,” she says, adding that she prefers to eat soup with a spoon, rather than drink it. She suggests adding whole grains or ancient grains like Rebekah to it and pairing it with a glass of low-fat milk.

“Because it’s warm, and you’re using a spoon, you’re sitting down and you are more mindful of what you’re are eating,” she says.

Skua Wool bright, director of Whole Cities Foundation for Whole Foods Market in Detroit, says some of these soup detox programs are designed to specifically support and cleanse the liver and kidneys.

“The beauty of the soup is that you can take as many healthy ingredients as you prefer and put them in one big pot,” Wool bright says. “For a lot of people, they need something more hearty and flavorful and that’s the best part of souping: You get all the micro nutrients in your system without sacrificing taste or satiety.”

Broths for bone health

Stocks and broths have been around for tens of thousands of years, but healthy eating trends like the Paley diet (eat like a caveman) have brought them back into the spotlight.

The basis for any soup is a liquid, mainly broth or stock (also now called bone broth, thanks to Paley).

Taking meat and poultry bones, prostrated or not, and simmering them for hours unleashes proteins, collagen, biotin and gelatin. The gelatin helps the broth congeal, a sign that you’ve made it properly. Many of the other primary nutrients found in bones help with joint health.

“Bone broth can add an important vitamin and mineral infusion to a Paley lifestyle since the boiling of a substance helps with predigest ion,” Nate Furlong of New Hudson, a clinical exercise physiologist, told the Free Press in an e-mail.

Bone broth is made by taking meat bones, roasting, boiling, then simmering meaty bones for a long time, anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. During the long simmering process, key nutrients stored in those bones seep out, cook down and become concentrated.

Bob Sparrow, owner of Sparrow Market in Ann Arbor, says he’s definitely seen a rise in the popularity of broths, especially among millennials.

Sparrow sells beef knuckles, oxtails, beef neck bones and split marrow bones raw or pre-roasted for making sipping broths or using as base for soup.

Sparrow store manager Miriam Maksutova says lots of people are making broths because “they realize how easy it is.”

“They are also getting back to the basics of eating, not eating processed foods and knowing what goes into their food.”