A health researcher traveled to France to find out how French women maintained
their svelte physiques.
She knew about taking their time to eat, (lingering over a meal) a glass
(or two) of wine, real food with real ingredients, (cheese, grass fed beef
and butter), and using herbs and spices, (aka The “French Paradox”)
but what she didn’t know was that a lot of the women eat soup.

Yes, soup. In fact, there’s a French-born dieting coach, Valerie Orsoni,
who runs dieting boot camps and soup is one of the main weapons
she uses to help both men and women slim down.

Soup is quite popular in the U.S. especially as we head into the fall and winter
months. Researchers say that consuming soup curbs appetite by 25%, helping you
to shed about 50% more weight. Plus, it reduces your risk of obesity, Type-2 diabetes,
heart disease, and ovarian cancer.

So, are you convinced? If so, become more like your sisters from France and ditch
the tomato and chicken noodle soup (for a little while) and eat their slimming soup
this fall and winter. Their slimming soup: The French Flat-Belly Soup.
Listed below are the ingredients and (how they help you weight-wise) and the recipe.

Recipe For Flat-Belly Soup!
Ingredients:
4 small onions, or 2 medium, thinly sliced
4 Tbs. of olive oil
3 cups of thinly sliced kale
6 crushed garlic cloves
8 cups of chicken stock (low-sodium)
1 cup of dry buckwheat
4 Tbs. of tomato paste
2 cups of sliced mushrooms or mixed vegetables
2 tsp. of ground ginger
1 tsp. of black pepper
2 miso cubes (optional)
1/3 cup of red wine
2 cups of chicken (cooked)
2 tsp. of ground turmeric
Fresh lemon juice and herbs to garnish
To make:
In a large pot over low-medium heat, saute onion in oil for 10 mins.
Add kale; saute for 5 mins. Add garlic and saute for a min.
Add chicken stock; stir. Add buckwheat, tomato paste, mushrooms, ginger,
black pepper, miso, wine and chicken; stir well. Bring to a low boil, reduce heat
to medium, simmer for 15 mins. Add turmeric. Turn off heat. Serve with
a tsp. or two of lemon juice and toss in some fresh herbs (parsley, basil or dill)
to garnish.

Benefits of some of the Ingredients:
* Wine- Compounds in red wine slow the formation of new fat and may
even block some fat entirely.
* Olive oil- Nutrients in the oil help with weight loss, plus absorb significantly
more fat-fighting antioxidants from the vegetables.
* Mushrooms- Help improve blood sugar control-which reduces levels of insulin,
a hormone that stores excess sugar as belly fat.
* Tomato Paste- Concentrated cooked tomatoes provide lots of lycopene, an
antioxidant that increases the release of metabolism-revving hormones by 25%.
* Miso- a soup base from fermented soy, miso activates skinny genes and
contains probiotics-beneficial bacteria linked to natural weight loss.
* Turmeric- Blocks the formation of new fat and speed fat burning of existing
fat.
* Kale- High in folate, which helps speed up weight loss, especially in the waist.
* Buckwheat- A grain that’s loaded with a special type of fiber that fights hunger
and blocks calories.
* Onions- rich in quercetin, an antioxidant that boosts metabolism and prevents
fat accumulation.
And lastly, if you tire of the above ingredients, feel free to to make some
substitutions. Use beef, fish or tofu for the protein, whole grain pasta,
brown rice or starchy veggies (potatoes or butternut squash) for
the healthy starch, vegetable broths, spinach or turnip greens,
seasonings like cumin, cayenne pepper and oregano and
coconut or avocado oil.

Sources:
* French Researchers
* Valerie Orsoni, French Born Nutritionist
* Research Scientists from Harvard University
* AllRecipes.com Popular Food Blog

Please make sure to pass this post (and recipe) on to family and
friends who love making and eating soup in the fall and winter months.
Share it over at Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest,
Tik-Tok, Reddit and Twitter.
Thank-You!