According to scientists who have studied how the body responds to the same meal eaten in two different forms, soup can help you lose weight.
Let's imagine a meal for two of poached chicken, fresh vegetables and a glass of water.
Subject #1 eats the meal and drinks the water as served.
Subject #2 combines the three components into soup.
On the outside of our body they're both the same meal, besides eating one with a fork and the other a spoon. But on the inside they are completely different. Your body will process the two meals differently and using MRI and ultrasound technologies, scientists have been able to see what happens to the meals once they leave our plate.
When Subject #1 eats the food and drinks the water, the food and water will enter the stomach together, but the food will be stopped by the pyloric sphincter at the bottom of the stomach, while the water passes straight through to the intestines. While the food is being broken down by digestive juices, Subject #1 will feel full; for approximately 2 hours.
When Subject #2 eats the food and water combination as a soup, the stomach reads all of it as food and everything stays in the stomach to be broken down. The subject will feel full up to an hour and a half longer than the subject eating the solid food plus water.
All this magic happens in the stomach and starts with a little hormone discovered in 1999 called, ghrelin. Ghrelin is constantly released by special cells in the stomach wall whenever the stomach is empty and while traveling through the blood stream, ghrelin heads straight for the hypothalamus part of the brain; our body's appetite center. When Ghrelin reaches its destination, the hypothalamus sends out messages that we're hungry.
However, if the stomach wall is stretched and full, ghrelin is not produced. Consequently, the hypothalamus does not send out signals that we need to eat.
Ghrelin has another job as well, and that is to promote fat storage and inhibit stored fat breakdown in times of hunger. This may explain why some sensible diets that have the "six small meals a day" philosophy can prove successful.
Let's keep this little gremlin, I mean, ghrelin, at bay by eating more soup!
I just recently discovered No Guilt Soup posted to Food.com by TLu and by substituting fresh vegetables and dried beans instead of canned, the sodium can be reduced even more!
