Vegetarian Soups With Barley for Weight Loss

Following a vegetarian diet doesn't automatically guarantee you weight-loss success. You should eat in moderation even when consuming nonmeat meals. In addition, incorporating soups into your diet can help keep your caloric intake down. Eating an 8- to 10-ounce serving of vegetable soup that includes barley for one or more meals a day is a healthy way to watch your calories.
Diet Benefits of Barley

Like other whole grains, barley is an excellent source of fiber -- with 6 grams of fiber in just 5 ounces of barley, barley packs almost a gram of fiber per ounce. When dieting, high-fiber foods are your best friend. They make you feel full sooner so that you'll stop eating when you should. They also make you feel full longer so you won't be tempted to snack on unhealthy foods between healthy meals. On the nutrient front, barley is also packed with minerals like calcium, manganese, iron, phosphorous and copper, all essential to an active, healthy body.



Soups for Weight Loss

Eating soup can be an effective a weight-loss strategy. A 2005 study carried out at the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue University in Indiana showed soup to have a high satiety value. This adds to the benefit that the fiber from the barley already provides in making you feel full sooner. It also means you won't get hungry again very quickly, keeping you from the "snack trap." On top of that, soups that are not cream-based tend to be fairly low in calories -- roughly 100 calories per 8-ounce serving, depending on what type of soup you eat. So you'll be eating less as well as eating less often.
Making Soup Vegetarian

Most soup recipes use beef or chicken stock, even if you're making vegetable soup that doesn't call for any whole pieces of meat. It is simple, though, to make any soup recipe vegetarian. The obvious first step is to omit any solid meat that the recipe calls for or replace it with tofu. The next step is to substitute the exact same amount of vegetable stock for the chicken or beef stock in the recipe.
Appetizing Vegetarian Soups with Barley

There is almost no end to the different varieties of vegetarian soups you can make that include barley. Tomato barley soup has -- in addition to barley and diced tomatoes -- tasty chunks of onion, celery and carrots with garlic for added flavor. Vegetable bean barley incorporates tomatoes, zucchini and carrots with tantalizing herbs like basil and dill with barley in a vegetable stock. The fiber in this one gets a boost by adding in a can of kidney beans. You don't really need a recipe, though. Just add 1/4 to 1/2 of a cup of barley to any of your favorite vegetable soup recipes for the last 30 to 45 minutes of the cooking time to increase the nutrition and fiber content of your already healthy soup.

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