| Soup's
solid advantage: It's filling even without fat
Sunday, March 14, 2004
By Suzanne Martinson
www.post-gazette.com
If you or someone you love is trying to lose weight,
soup may
be the savior.
Soup's On
Barbara
Rolls, a nutritional sciences professor at Penn State
University , says dropping pounds is hard because research shows
that over a day or two, people will eat the same volume and
weight of food each day -- no matter how many calories it contains.
The
trick is to maintain the volume and weight of the food but decrease
the calories, Rolls said by phone from her State College
office. "You feel as full and satisfied if you have the weight
and volume. You spontaneously eat less."
Members
of the Pennsylvania Dietetic Association referred me to Rolls
to talk about the value of soup in a weight-loss diet. The dietitians
have an appealing new 100-recipe cookbook called "Soup &
Ladle Favorites," a fitting companion to Rolls' book, "The Volumetrics
Weight-Control Plan: Feel Full on Fewer Calories" (Quills, $13),
co-written by Robert A. Barnett.
"Soup
is a food you drink," writes Rolls, who is working on a cookbook
of her own. "It's mostly water. Yet our bodies perceive it as
food, not drink."
Try
soup based on broth, rather than cream or a starchy puree, for
weight loss because it is at the low end of the energy-density
(calorie) spectrum.
The
book cites a Penn State study that found we don't get
the same appetite-depressing action from drinking water. The
researchers gave women a 270-calorie first course before lunch.
Some days, the women ate a chicken-rice casserole. Other days,
they got the casserole plus a 10-ounce glass of water. And sometimes
they got the casserole with an extra 10 ounces of water cooked
into it to make soup.
Only
the first course of soup reduced their appetite and the calories
they ate at the lunch. With this research, we can add a new
word to our weight-loss vocabulary -- "volumetrics."
According
to Rolls, "Not only did the women consume about 100 calories
less at lunch after the soup, they didn't feel hungrier later,
and didn't eat more at dinner to make up the difference."
In
a similar study in Paris , researchers found that chunky
soup was more satiating than strained soup, according to the
book. In the early 1980s, Dr. Henry Jordan, then at the University
of Pennsylvania , had studied 500 people trying to lose weight.
Some were told to eat soup at least four times a week. "The
more soup they ate, the fewer calories they took in and the
more weight they lost. On average they consumed 100 fewer calories
a day compared to people who had soup less frequently," according
to "Volumetrics."
"Soup,
in particular broth-based soup with vegetables and lean meats,
fills you up while you're not eating very many calories," Rolls
says.
Rolls,
who has a Ph.D. in physiology, has researched how the body works
for many years, first at University of Oxford in England, then
Johns Hopkins Medical School and now Penn State, where she is
the Guthrie Chair in Nutrition.
Nobody
should try to live by soup alone. In 1998, when Rolls appeared
on ABC-TV's "20/20" to talk about her book, her spot was preceded
by a woman who had lost weight on the "Cabbage Soup Diet."
"She
looked miserable!" Rolls writes. When the dieter was re-interviewed
several months later, she had regained the weight.
"If
you follow such a highly restrictive diet, you may eat less
for a while out of sheer boredom, but you will not be able to
sustain such a strategy," Rolls writes.
Yet
all soups are not created equal. This dilemma can be solved
by varying the serving sizes depending on what's in the soup.
So what do you do if you want a 200-calorie soup course? Her
advice:
- Cream
of broccoli with cheese -- it's high in
energy density, so 1 cup is the serving.
- New
England clam chowder -- for this classic
cream soup, eat only 1 1/4 cups.
- Chicken
rice -- it's low in calories, so 1 3/4
cups can be eaten.
- Vegetables
with beef broth -- there are plenty of
water-rich vegetables so this has the largest portion: 2 1/2
cups.
The
stomach has its own way of taking care of business. "The stomach
empties liquids differently from solids, and light, more dilute
liquids differently from heavier ones," writes Penn State
professor Kenneth Koch in "Volumetrics." "When you cook a noodle,
it absorbs water, but your stomach no longer recognizes that
as water -- it now identifies it as a noodle."
At
Penn States' Eating Lab, researchers found people ate less at
lunch if they started with soup rather an appetizer of cheese
and crackers, though they were equal in calories. It's not surprising,
because 200 calories of cheese and crackers weighed only 1.5
ounces compared to soup's 20 ounces, Rolls writes. The volume
activates the stomach's "stretch receptors," telling diners
they're getting full.
She
recommends a soup with fewer than 150 calories to start a meal.
The
nutritionist adds that soup is also a "terrific" meal in itself.
"If it's lunch, a well-balanced soup might have between 350
and 500 calories," she says. "If it's dinner, you might want
a bit of fruit to round out the meal. Or you could have a glass
of wine."
Taste
comes first
Denice
Ferko-Adams of Nazareth in the Lehigh Valley is a member
of the Philadelphia Dietetic Association, which edited the 100
recipes in "Soup & Ladle Favorites." The paperback, which
had 49 contributors, came out in December and is getting a push
in March for National Nutrition Month.
Ferko-Adams,
who grew up in Glassport, is a registered dietitian who provides
company wellness programs, including cooking demonstrations,
weight-management and fitness programs.
Just
back from a cooking conference in Napa Valley , Calif.
, she says she "can't wait for the low-carb stuff to go away."
She says dietitians have long stressed that if you get rid of
refined products, typically sugars and sweets, "you're cutting
a third of the calories. And that means junk foods or foods
with very little nutritional value.
"We've
always been preaching that story -- we just didn't have the
right book."
She
laughs a no-nonsense laugh, as a front-line nutritionist who
studied at University of Pittsburgh , earned her degree
in dietetics (RD) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and
her master's degree in public health (MPH) from East Stroudsburg
University . And she has one more set of initials for us to
learn -- LDN, or licensed dietitian/nutritionist, a recent designation
for Pennsylvania .
Ferko-Adams
has two daughters, 16 and 20. "If you want to know the latest
trend, just ask my younger daughter."
When
it came to the cookbook, taste came first. "Nine times out of
10, I know there's going to be a version of the soup I want."
Each
recipe has a nutritional analysis, though not vitamin and mineral
content. Some soups are higher in calories than others. "People
questioned including a soup with kielbasa," she says. "I'm Polish,
and it's a cup of soup that can be part of a meal plan."
Many
of the soups have lots of vegetables in low-sodium broth bases.
"Scientists
go back and forth on who's sensitive to sodium," she says. "I
tell people it's 1 in 3 or 4 people, but we don't know who they
are."
She
stresses that we don't have to drop 30 pounds to get a health
benefit. "What people don't realize is if they take off 5 or
10 pounds, they can lower blood pressure. I think that's very
motivating."
Many
people are clueless about cooking, especially cooking healthful
food.
"I
like to show them how easy it can be."
PG
tested
Swiss
Cheese Onion Soup
This
soup is absolutely delicious. We served the quantity suggested
by Dr. Barbara Rolls -- 1 cup for such a rich soup -- and it
was filling as a meal.
- 2 tablespoons olive
oil
- 3 cups thinly sliced
sweet onions
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon dry mustard
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1/2 cup evaporated
skim milk, warmed
- 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces)
grated Swiss cheese
- 1 tablespoon dry sherry
- 1/2 teaspoon prepared
horseradish
- Pepper to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
- Dash each of hot red
pepper sauce and Worcestershire sauce
- Plain yogurt as needed
Heat
olive oil in a large saucepan. Add
onions, garlic, salt and dry mustard and saute until tender.
Pour in stock. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 or 20 minutes.
Melt
butter in another saucepan over medium-low
heat. Whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute. Add milk and cook
for 5 to 8 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly.
Stir in cheese, sherry and horseradish and cook until cheese
has melted. (We did these steps in the microwave, but next time
we will use a saucepan, as there was too much running back and
forth with the recipe.)
Pour
cheese mixture into onions and mix
well. Add pepper, soy sauce, hot red pepper sauce and Worcestershire
sauce.
Cook
for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat. Stir in plain yogurt to make of desired consistency.
(We used a whole 6-ounce container.) Yield: 4 servings.
Nutrients
per serving : calories 355; protein
16g; carbohydrates 18g; total fat 24 g; saturated fat 12 g;
cholesterol 54mg; fiber 2g; sodium 1185mg.
"Soup
& Ladle Favorites: Recipes From Pennsylvania Dietitians."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Suzanne Martinson can be reached at smartinson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1760. )
|
