Eating soup as an appetizer will cut your calorie intake for that meal by 20 percent according to a study conducted at Penn State. After serving men pasta lunches for a month, the researchers found that the study participants ate an average of 135 fewer calories when they started their meal with 1 1/2 cups of a broth-based vegetable soup (approximately 150 calories of soup). Eating soup forces you to slow down, allowing your body to recognize that it is becoming full before moving on to the next course. The same held true in a University of Texas study of fatty soups like a clam chowder – men consumed 227 fewer calories when a pizza meal was preceded by soup.

So drink up a cup of homemade vegetable soup before your lunch and dinner as a sneaky way to get vegetables into your daily diet and to help you eat less overall calories.

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