Almost No Calorie Soup

You have seen several adds on TV and in magazines for ‘ bust that belly fat” shakes, vitamin powders, purges, detoxes and the list goes on and on. They are mostly a combination of hype, fasting, chemicals and a very good way to make money from people desperate to lose weight and willing to try anything. Fasting too hard eventually causes your body to slow down its metabolism, and to fight against your weight loss, and create insatiable hunger when you stop crash dieting and increase food intake.

The only sure way to succeed in weight loss, in a healthy, long term, permanent way, is to maintain a daily eating plan that you can sustain as a lifestyle. The recipe for vegetable soup below is an easy, convenient way to increase vegetable intake and reduce calories that can be good for the whole family.

It is also a cost effective replacement for commercial diet shakes and can also be used as a drink chilled, liquidized and garnished with a dash of Worcestershire sauce.
Easy to make and store in the refrigerator, soup can be a quick microwaveable extra meal whenever needed. It is very tasty and a bowl will soon fill you up. Add some extra zest if needed with your favorite pepper or spice. The high fiber content will keep your digestive system working well and it does takes time to digest keeping your stomach full to reduce the level of ghrelin being produced, the hunger hormone.

Use vegetable soups as a quick alternative go to food that can be eaten anytime when temptation of high calorie, high fat, comfort foods are taking over your thoughts.

Ingredients

This makes 2 batches of soup.
– 5 carrots, peeled and diced
– 4 onions, chopped
– 2 large cans of diced tomatoes – low sodium preferred.
– 1 large cabbage, sliced and chopped
– 15oz chopped frozen green beans, use fresh if in season
– 2 quarts’ tomato juice (no added sugar/ low sodium)
– 2 green bell peppers, diced
– 1 hot pepper – chopped – optional
– 10 stalks of celery, diced
– 1 x 14 oz. container of low sodium beef broth.
– pint size zip lock bags for freezing
1 large zip lock bag for freezing vegetables for second batch of soup.
All these ingredients are readily available at regular grocery stores, this group of ingredients was purchased for $12 (Walmart prices).
Method:
Use a large cooking pot.
Chop each ingredient, put half in the large cook pot, and the second half in the large zip lock bag for a later batch.
Add half the tomato juice, 1 can of tomatoes and half the c0ntainer of beef broth to the cooking pot.
Cook slowly, simmer until vegetables are soft but still firm. Stir occasionally.
Let cool.

Plan Ahead

The recipe here provides enough vegetables for two batches of soup.Freeze the large zip lock bag of remaining un-used chopped vegetables to speed up soup making next week. Keep the remaining tomato juice and broth in the refrigerator.It will keep for 7 days for next week’s batch.
Once the cooked soup batch is cooled it can be refrigerated in a sealed container or frozen in zip lock bags or individual portion sized plastic containers. ( I placed the zip lock bags in a container in the freezer to freeze, the container can be removed as soon as it is frozen- this prevents spillage – see photo below)
Serving the soup:
Take out the number of servings you need from the refrigerated container of cooked soup and re-heat on the stove or in the microwave oven. It is important to re-heat the soup to 165 F before serving if you are cooking from a frozen bag.   Change the flavour as you wish to your taste – add chilli sauce and beans or  diced cooked chicken or  shrimp or fresh chopped herbs.