Niki Bezzant: Soup for satiety

Soup makes us feel full, and people tend to eat less for the rest of the day when they have it. Photo / Getty Images

Comfort food can be good for you: Niki Bezzant explores the satiety of soup.

It's about the time of the year when winter really starts to bite: the cold is really setting in; the rain and grey feel relentless. It's a long time until a long weekend and even though we know spring will come, it feels like it never will.

This is a time we tend to turn to comfort eating. We don't want to go outside; we feel more like ordering in and hunkering down with warming, sometimes less-than-healthy foods. But there's plenty of comfort food that's health-boosting. And top of the list for me is the humble soup.

Soup is one of the simplest things to make. Photo / Getty Images

There are so many good things about a bowl of steaming soup. To start with, whatever the flavour, it's genuinely comforting and truly warming, in ways many other foods just aren't.

There are health benefits beyond comfort, too.

Soup can provide a sense of satiety beyond its calorific value. In other words, we feel full when we eat it, even when it's not super energy-dense.

There's evidence for this. There have been studies testing people's hunger, feelings of fullness and subsequent food intake when soup is consumed, and they seem to show that soup makes us feel full, and people tend to eat less for the rest of the day when they have it.

One study gave subjects a meal of chicken and vegetables and a glass of water, then tried the same food blended to make a soup. The soup meal led to delayed gastric emptying, leading to greater satiety than the solid meal. If weight loss is a goal, a meal or snack of soup could be a useful thing to include.

What I really like about soup though, is that it's a way of getting a boost of vegetables into your day. Think about it: we can pack quite a bit of nutrition into a vege soup, whether it's a smooth pureed version or a chunky-style soup, especially if it's home-made.

That includes those lovely legumes. And whole grains; think barley, buckwheat, even brown rice – to add fibre, vitamins and energy.

Soup is one of the simplest things to make: just a bit of chopping, fry some onion and garlic, chuck in whatever veges you like and some water or stock and cook. Blend it up or leave it chunky; vary the spices and seasoning and the only limit is your imagination and what you've got in the fridge.

On that note, soup is a fantastic way to avoid food waste; just use whatever is lurking at the end of the week.

We can't live on soup alone, of course. Or not pureed soup, anyway. It's probably not ideal to eat too much blended food, like soups and smoothies, in place of solid food. That's because there is some worth to chewing; it starts our digestive process and signals to our brain and stomach that food is on the way.

There's a suggestion also among scientists looking at fibre intake that we might not get the benefits of all that nutritious fibre in our vegetables and grains if they're already effectively pre-digested. So varying the texture of soup is a good idea.

There are some pretty good bought soups on the shelves and in the chiller at the supermarket, and they're a convenient option if you're short on time. You'll need to do some label reading, though. Lots of packaged soups are pretty low in energy, so if you're looking for a meal, you'll want to add some extras in to make them fit-for-purpose. I like to do this with chilled soup pouches; I just add a handful of extra vegetables and usually a bit of extra protein, too – leftover cooked chicken or fish or meat.

Keep an eye on the sodium levels in packaged soups; some are great, and some are off-the-chart bad, giving you a whole day's worth of salt in one small serving. The lower that sodium number, the better.

What you have with your soup, if anything, can boost the nutrition, too. Toast is the classic accompaniment, and it's great for dipping. Choose a grainy bread, or consider a seedy cracker or two crumbled on top for a crunchy crouton alternative.

I can eat soup any time of the year. But now – when maximum comfort is called for – a warming bowl is a perfect pick-me-up.

Niki Bezzant is a food and nutrition writer and speaker, and editor-at-large for Healthy Food Guide www.healthyfood.com. Follow Niki @nikibezzant