http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8068733.stm

	Quote:
	After you eat a meal, the pyloric sphincter valve at the bottom of your stomach holds food back so that the digestive juices can get to work. Water, however, passes straight through the sphincter to your intestines, so drinking water does not contribute to "filling you up". When you eat the same meal as a soup, the whole mixture remains in the stomach, because the water and food are blended together. The scientists' scans confirm that the stomach stays fuller for longer, staving off those hunger pangs.

Surely that should be drink soup, not eat?

I hesitated over that as I wrote the title but figured that soup is a food rather than a drink.

Maybe "slurp"?

i confidently predict if you ate soup as opposed to say - cheeseburgers then yes, you will lose weight.

Probably safer with "Consume".

My sister swears by a vegetable soup made with pureed celery sticks, onion, tomato, carrots, French beans and chicken stock.
She eats it for both lunch and dinner for a few days whenever she wants to lose a few kg. The trouble is she starts craving other kinds of food after the third or fourth meal of such a soup.

Aah, but in the spirit of the article, if you blend a cheeseburger up with your coke and fries you will only need one portion to feel fuller for longer than eating 4 of the solid versions and feeling peckish again soon after.

Yumm...

Consommé? No thanks

I've heard about this before and I think it really does work. The soup doesn't have to be dull or the same every day. It's amazing how many great soup receipes there are out there. A few years ago in order to save some cash I started making my own lunch to work and it was easier to make soups. So for about 4 lunches a week I had soup and bread. I started losing weight even though I certainly didnt plan to as I didn't have much to start off with so I think there must be some truth to this theory.

I would also stick with 'eat' soup too

That's a pretty good idea if you are on a budget, too. Invest in one of those wide-necked thermos flasks and you are sorted for a cheap, nutritious lunch.

I also found this interesting, also because I am quite a soup lover, especially in winter. But I understand that they are not talking about any soup -- but about creamy, blended vegetable-based soups -- so no consommé which is probably too thin to be filling enough.

One of my favourites is Nigella Lawson's pea and pesto soup -- because it is virtually effortless to make. In case you don't have the recipe, here it is:

750ml water
375g frozen peas
2 spring onions, trimmed but whole
1 tsp Maldon salt or ½ tsp table salt
½ tsp lime juice
4 x 15ml tbsp fresh pesto (from a tub, not a jar)

1 The quickest way to proceed is to fill a kettle first and put it on to boil. When it has boiled, measure the amount you need into a pan and put on the hob to come back to the boil. Fill a Thermos with the remaining hot water.
2 Add the frozen peas, spring onions, salt and lime juice to the pan and let everything bubble together for 7 minutes.
3 Discard the spring onions and blitz the peas and their liquid with the pesto in a blender.
4 Empty the Thermos flask that you’ve left filled with hot water and then pour in the soup, making sure you screw the top on securely.

... and add a sex diet.

Looks yum, but surely it can't be diet; Nigela is rather full-figured and she looks like she spanx.

If pea soup gives you that figure - bring on the peas and blender! I think she looks fab.

Soup is sooo healthy.
Filling, can be luxurious (rather like Nigella herself!) or just
a balanced meal, along with some good wholemeal bread, cheese and some fruit.

What counts are the calories. Whether it is liquid calories (beer? whiskey?) or solid is irrelevant. Obviously a vegetable soup is low calorie unless you add cream, sherry, bouillon cubes, etc.

Read "Good calories, bad calories" by Gary Taubes!

Just watched a BBC programme about secrets of losing weight and your soup theory was one of the tips. Seems it does make you feel fuller for longer compared to eating the same food in solid form.

My favourite tip though was that dairy helped you "excrete" more fat. Apparently the calcium in dairy food binds to fat and forms a sludgy substance that the body can't absorb. What great news. Bring on the cheese.

If only... My body definately absorbs dairy produce only too well... Living in dairy heaven does nothing for my figure but harm. I gain kilos and pounds just crossing the border!