Healthy Soups And Stews: The Perfect Main Meal

Cold and warm soups can be a complete main meal

Soups and stews often eke out their existence as starters and rarely make the ascent to the perfect main course.

That’s a shame, because both cold and warm soups and stews can be put together so healthily that they result in perfect main meals.

Soups: poor people eat?

Soups used to be considered a meal for poor people, because a soup fills the stomachs of many people with just a few ingredients.

If another person joins the soup, simply add a little water or broth to it. The fact that soups are seldom nutritious and that people who eat soups are “thin as a soup man” is another prejudice that stubbornly adheres to soups.

Could it be because of the fact that soups are only found among starters and never as a main course in restaurants?

What makes soups and stews a main course?

If you want to make a soup the perfect main course rather than a diet meal, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. The soup should:

• Satiating (i.e. containing complex carbohydrates and fiber),
• be low in fat and
• Contain protein.

A complete main meal always consists of the three macronutrients (complex) carbohydrates (grain products), protein (animal or vegetable) and some fat.

If your soup meal contains these three components, it is perfect as a main meal. In the following, we will show you examples of what ingredients these could be in your soup.

carbohydrates

The main source of energy for almost all types of activity is carbohydrates. If you eat too little of it, the carbohydrate stores in the muscles and the liver are under-stocked, which limits physical (and also mental!) Performance.

In addition, carbohydrates have a filling effect, so a “thin soup” does not really fill you up, but only satisfies the first feeling of hunger.

Carbohydrates in soups can be all grain products such as small soup noodles or rice, but also less common products such as barley, dumplings, semolina or semolina dumplings.

Croutons and peas also contain carbohydrates, but are extremely fatty and therefore only recommended as a “decoration”, not as a source of carbohydrates.

Legumes (beans, lentils, peas) are also a good source of carbohydrates. If you don’t manage to fill your soup with enough filling carbohydrates, just serve a (wholemeal) bread roll with it!

Fiber

Dietary fiber makes you feel full for a long time because it only slowly increases and decreases blood sugar levels. They can be found in whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Legumes (peas, lentils, beans) are also ideal. They provide valuable vegetable protein and a lot of fiber.

Your perfect soup main meal should include vegetables that are high in fiber. If you have decided on a soup that is low in fiber (for example potato soup or pumpkin soup), simply serve whole wheat bread or whole wheat pasta with it!

protein

During normal physical activity, the (normal weight!) Body must be supplied with approx. 0.8 g of protein per kilo of body weight.

The actual protein intake in Germany exceeds this recommendation by approx. 50% and is approx. 1.2g per kg of body weight per day. A person weighing 70 kg therefore needs 56g (70 × 0.8 g) protein per day.

This corresponds to about 18g per meal (with 3 meals) and that in turn corresponds to a piece of meat of about 100g. And that’s a steak only about the size of playing cards!

A small “meat insert” in the soup is enough to cover the protein requirement!

That could be the leftovers from yesterday’s grilled chicken or one sausage per person. Please do not count more than one sausage per person, otherwise the soup will mutate into a fatty calorie bomb!

Legumes also contain very valuable protein, which is even more valuable than animal protein. For example, if your colorful vegetable soup has peas, beans or lentils on the list of ingredients, you have already taken care of the protein.

If nothing at all comes in the soup that contains protein, you can serve it with cheese grated (low-fat), add an egg or serve a yoghurt, quark or milk pudding as dessert.

fat

Dietary fats are suppliers of essential fatty acids, they are vitamin carriers and also vitamin suppliers and ultimately, as flavor carriers, they also ensure that a dish tastes “round”.

A fat-free diet is practically impossible because of the many hidden fats in food. However, fat also has the highest calorie density and more than twice as many calories per gram as protein or carbohydrates.

The daily fat requirement is covered with approx. 60 – 75g! This corresponds to approx. 20-25g fat per meal and that is already contained in just 100g minced meat, for example!

If you eat fat, you should make sure that it is mainly high-quality vegetable oils with a healthy and balanced fatty acid ratio.

Watch out for hidden fats in your soup ingredients such as sausages, cheese, cream, fatty broth (skim fat eyes!), Baked peas, croutons and the oil in which you may have fried the vegetables beforehand.

We wish you a lot of fun in your soup kitchen and bon appetit!