Juicing became the hottest trend few years ago. It was new, fresh, exiting and promised to fill you with tons of healthy vitamins and minerals. Juicing is still very popular and it had never stopped being healthy. People drinking fresh organic juices on daily basis can witness the positive aspects juicing brings into their lives.
Although soups have been with us through decades it seems like souping is becoming the new trend. Unlike juicing it doesn't introduce anything new or unfamiliar into our diet. Most of us already eat soup once a day and love it.
When people talk about souping most of them mean soup cleanses. Juicing term is much more versatile and can be used to refer to different portions of juice in our daily diet.
There are various juice diets and plans. Some dedicated to weight loss and others to improving different health aspects. Drinking fresh juice every morning, without changing anything else in your menu will also be referred to as juicing.
In this post we will try to compare juicing and souping and therefore we will address mostly juice cleanses. Are soup cleanses healthier or more effective than juice cleanses? What are the benefits and the down sides of each of those trends? We will try to provide you with detailed answers to those rising questions.
Why Cleanse Your Body?
The most common desire for body cleanse solutions often comes from people wishing to solve their weight loss problems. However cleanses may help with more than just weight loss. A balanced cleanse can help flush toxins out of our organs and let some of them rest for a while.
Among popular cleanses you can find Colon Cleanse, Liver detox, Kidney Cleanse, Full body cleanse and more. While doing any kind of cleanse it is important to make sure you are not depriving your body from any essential nutrients.
What is a Liquid Cleanse?
There are many different detox plans and detox diets. Liquid cleanses are probably the most popular ones. When talking about liquid cleanses we are not talking only about souping or juicing.
Throughout the history other liquid cleanses were popular as well and some of them never lost their popularity among body cleansers. Water detox, master cleanse, beer fasting, milk fasting are only some of the existing liquid cleanse plans.
The main principle of liquid fasting is to avoid all solid food for the time period of your liquid cleanse.
What is Juice Detox?
Juice detox is also a form of a liquid cleanse. Most juice detox plans are based on consuming juices throughout a day without eating anything besides them. Drinking fresh organic juices is a way to give some rest to your digestive system while still consuming more vitamins and minerals than in an average diet.
People who oppose to juice cleanses and juice fasts claim that the body needs to consume food in a variety of forms and not only in their raw state. They are concerned with the amounts of sugar gained from fruit juices and the lack of fiber in all juices. The lack of proteins in a standard juice cleanse is also a concern for many.
What is Detox Soup Diet?
Souping is a more comprehensive form of liquid cleanse. Soups served during the cleanse might be all liquid and puree soups. While some souping cleanses will include all kinds of soups with grains and ad-dons. Unlike juicing it also contains processed foods and not only raw fruits and vegetables. It contains carbs and fiber, lacking in fresh juices. An average souping fast diet will include a variety of soups. Some of the soups can be served cold, some hot, some will be fruit soups, some vegetable soups and even beef bone broths.
People who prefer souping over juicing explain that it is easier for them to maintain a long fast while there is a variety during their meals through the day. They believe that souping makes you fill much less hungry during the fast period than when it comes to juice fasts.
Soup Detox Programs
With the rising popularity of souping it is possible to find different commercial detox programs promising to organize your souping experience the right way. Some even provide you with ready-made soups you will need for your detox.
One of the popular soup detox programs was introduced recently by Dr.OZ. The program is aimed at loosing extra weight and is actually a 3 day detox plan based on soups.
A relatively new and rising in popularity company called Soupure is now offering a hall line of souping products. Those are not yet available world wide but this trend might expand very quickly.
Soups & Weight Loss
Souping cleanse just as juicing cleanse can deliver some good weight loss results if planned correctly. The main problem with long term weight loss cleanses is the difficulty to maintain the achieved results when the cleanse has ended.
Most dietitians will not recommend long term cleanses for weight loss. It would be best to incorporate a healthy soup into an everyday diet and substitute a less healthy meal with it.
Healthy Soup Recipes for Weight Loss
The general assumption is that soups are healthy meals. They warm us up in winter and most of them supply sufficient amounts of nutrients to our bodies. Some soups are even being researched as cancer fighters. However not all soups are healthy, and not all of them will assist you in loosing weight.
Creamy soups should be something to watch out from when looking for a healthy meal. Those are high in fat and will not do much good for your weight. Best soups for weight loss are the ones made mostly from vegetables. Canned soups are also not recommended as they contain lots of salt and other undesired components.
Diet Cabbage Soup
Ingredients
- 1/2 Cabbage Head
- 1 Bunch of Celery
- 2 Onions
- 3 Carrots
- 2 Green Peppers
- 2 Tomatoes
- 1/4 Lemon
- Salt, Pepper and other spices
Instructions:
Boil a pot of water and add chopped celery, cabbage and tomatoes into it.
Meanwhile, spray a frying pan with a little bit of oil and add chopped onion to it. Once the onion turn yellowish add grated carrots and stew them for few minutes then add chopped peppers and stew everything for few additional minutes.
Add all the frying pan contents to the boiling pot and cook until all vegetables are tender. At the end add salt, pepper, lemon juice and additional seasoning.
Diet Beetroot Soup
This one is actually a dietary variation of the popular Russian soup Borscht. Unlike the traditional one, this one is fully vegetarian.
Ingredients
- 1 Large Beetroot
- 1 Large Carrot
- 1 Potato
- 1 Onion
- 1 Can of Peas
- Small can of tomato paste
- 1/4 Cabbage Head
- 1/2 Lemon
- 2 Bay Leaves
- Salt, Pepper and other spices
Instructions:
Boil a pot of water and add chopped potato and bay leaves to it.
Meanwhile, spray a frying pan with a little bit of oil and add chopped onion to it. Once the onion turn yellowish add grated beetroot and carrot. Stew them for 15 minutes.
In a separate bowl mix the tomato paste with 2 cups of hot water and add it to the frying pan after 15 minutes. Let it stew for additional 15 minutes.
Chop the cabbage. Once you finish stewing the beetroots and carrots, add all the frying pan contents to the boiling pot, add the cabbage and the peas as well.
Add Lemon juice, 1 table spoon of sugar, salt, pepper and other spices of you choices. Let it cook for additional 10 minutes.
Diet Lentils Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Cup of Lentils
- 1.5 Liters of Water
- 2 Tomatoes
- 2 Carrots
- 1 Onion
- 1/2 Lemon
- Salt, Pepper, Cumin and other spices
Instructions:
Boil a pot of water and add the lentils in. Meanwhile, spray a frying pan with a little bit of oil and add the chopped onion to it. Once the onion turn yellowish add grated carrots and chopped tomatoes. Stew them for few minutes.
Add all the frying pan contents to the boiling pot. Let it cook for about 40 minutes. Add salt, cumin, pepper and lemon juice.
Use a blender to blend everything to a uniform puree soup.
What is the Best Detox Diet?
Now when we explained the main differences between the two cleanse forms, it is time to conclude which one we think is better. It is quiet hard since there are benefits and down sides to both of them.
Although soup cleanses do provide variety, fiber and proteins, they also are much less nutritious and cannot compete with the amounts of vitamins a body gets from a fresh organic juice. Although soups are considered to be healthy meals, most vegetables loose the majority of their health benefits when cooked. Even a homemade juice consumed few hours after it is made is much less nutritious than a fresh one.
The lack of fiber and proteins in fresh juices is definitely a downside, especially when it comes to long term cleanses. For short fasts, lasting 1 or 2 days this is much less of a problem and might even be considered as an advantage. Juicing would definitely be our choice when it comes to a short cleanse.
Those concerned with sugar quantities in fresh fruit juices do not have to include lots of fruits in their juice fast. There are tons of juice detox recipes made entirely from vegetables. There are even green detox plans with only green veggies and leafy greens.
Long term juice fasts can be difficult to handle and might even be dangerous for some. The health aspects and the effectiveness of long term fasts of all kinds is questionable. However if one insists on starting a long term cleanse, fresh juice detox plans can be easily altered to contain proteins. Just by adding some additional foods during a juice fast can solve most of the downsides of a juice cleanse.
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