If you are into juicing or are considering a juice cleanse, may I suggest you soup instead? Soup offers some benefits that juice cannot deliver.
The New York Times reported last month on the rise of companies that offer meal programmes consisting only of soups. Many people who have tried juicing find that, though the juices are tasty, as a meal replacement juices are quite extreme. There’s nothing to chew and without added protein and fat juices tend not to be very satiating (filling) which makes it hard to stick it out till the next juice without reaching for the biscuit tin.
Soups feel more like meals and you can add meat or fish if you like. They are low in sugar but high in complex carbohydrates and fibre. Soups are nutrient dense but don’t cause the blood sugar spikes you get from most juices (as they tend to contain fruits). Soup has shown to make you feel full and this can help with weight loss. Also, I think it is easier to use a variety of spices in soups compared to juice. A bit of cinnamon or turmeric may be ok in a juice but many other spices with amazing health benefits would be out of place in most juices.
I don’t suggest you have soup for every meal, though that seems to be done by many people who want to ‘cleanse’ and see some fast weight loss. Having said that, if that’s how you roll there is no reason why you can’t get all your nutrients from doing this. Soups are easy to prepare, can be cooked in large quantities and frozen. Get creative, pretty much anything you like can be made into a soup. You can add even more nutritional value if you use bone broth as the basis for your soup. You can find a recipe for a delicious soup made with bone broth here.
