Did you know that drinking soup after a meal is bad for your health?
Soup is both nutritious and relatively easy to digest. A survey by American nutritionists showed that among over 60,000 people who received nutritional check-ups, those who were well-nourished were precisely the ones who frequently drank soup. However, if you don't drink it at the right time, it can make you gain more weight the more you drink.
Many people think that drinking soup is a very simple matter, but they don't realize that only by drinking soup scientifically can you absorb nutrients while avoiding fat accumulation. In this regard, what do we need to pay attention to?
The difference between drinking soup before and after a meal is significant: The timing of drinking soup is very important. As the saying goes, "Drinking soup before a meal keeps you slim and healthy; drinking soup after a meal makes you fatter and fatter," which has some truth to it. Drinking a few mouthfuls of soup before a meal lubricates the mouth and esophagus, preventing dry and hard foods from irritating the digestive tract's mucous membrane, and it helps dilute and mix food, promoting digestion and absorption. Most importantly, drinking soup before a meal allows the food in the stomach to fully press against the stomach wall, enhancing the feeling of fullness, which in turn suppresses the feeding center and reduces a person's appetite.
Research has shown that drinking a bowl of soup before a meal can reduce the absorption of 100-190 kilocalories of energy. In contrast, drinking soup after a meal is an unhealthy eating habit. On one hand, you are already full from the meal, and drinking more soup can easily lead to excessive nutrition and obesity. On the other hand, the soup you drink last will dilute the chyme that has already been well mixed with digestive juices, affecting the digestion and absorption of food.
Drinking soup at noon is less likely to cause weight gain: Which meal is more suitable for drinking soup—breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Experts point out that "the least amount of heat is absorbed when drinking soup at lunch." Therefore, to prevent weight gain, you might as well choose to drink soup at noon. Dinner, however, is not a good time to drink too much soup, otherwise, the rapidly absorbed nutrients will accumulate in the body and easily lead to weight gain.
It's best to choose low-fat ingredients for your soup: To prevent gaining weight from drinking soup, you should try to use low-fat, low-calorie ingredients for the soup, such as old hens, fatty ducks, etc. Even if you use them, it's best to skim off the excess fat during the stewing process. Lean meat, fresh fish, dried shrimp, skinless chicken or duck, rabbit meat, winter melon, loofah, radish, konjac, tomato, seaweed, kelp, mung bean sprouts, etc., are all excellent low-fat soup ingredients, so you might want to use more of them.
The slower you drink soup, the less likely you are to gain weight: American nutritionists point out that if you extend your mealtime, you can fully enjoy the taste of the food and feel full earlier. The same goes for drinking soup. Drinking soup slowly allows ample time for the food to be digested and absorbed. When you feel full, it's the perfect amount to have eaten. Whereas if you drink soup quickly, by the time you realize you're full, you may have already consumed more than your body needs.