It is nearly October, a time of year in which many of us are happily welcoming the Fall season into our lives.  With the Fall comes many fun seasonal experiences—football games, Halloween, cool weather, beautiful leaves, and of course many comforting fall foods.  There are many foods we can focus on. (And don’t worry—I’m planning a fall recipe roundup next!). However, today we will turn our attention to a popular category of foods for the cooler weather months: Soups. 

Whether soups can be a healthy option after bariatric surgery can be a surprisingly confusing topic.  There are a few reasons for this.  

Firstly, it is usually recommended to avoid eating and drinking at the same time and to even have a 30 minute or so buffer period where you aren’t drinking before and after eating a meal.  In order to understand how to best approach soups, we first need to understand this question: Why is it recommended to avoid mixing solids and liquids anyway?  Well, remember that bariatric surgery works by, in one way or another making the stomach very small.  With this small stomach, there really isn’t enough room to drink and eat at the same time.  As a result, if you drink with your meal and/or after your meal, the water you are drinking is going to flush the food out of your stomach.  It’s kind of like if a funnel was slowly draining applesauce and you poured water into the funnel.  By flushing the food out of your stomach, you will be able to eat more, defeating the purpose of surgery.  For this reason, it is usually recommended to wait for 30 minutes or so after the meal to start drinking again.  

This leaves many people wondering whether bariatric surgery “rules” dictate that soups should therefore be on the forbidden foods list.  If this is you, I have good news, for you!  It is possible to enjoy soup after bariatric surgery.  Moreover, I will be outlining some tips and tricks to do so while getting the best bang for your buck nutritionally to stay on the bariatric road to success.  

Most creamy soups are made with heavy cream, an ingredient high in fat and calories.  Just ½ cup of heavy cream has over 400 calories and 43 grams of fat, 70% of which is saturated fat.  This being the case, going too heavy on heavy cream can sabotage your weight loss.  Just take a look at this example: 

If you look at this nutrition label, you’ll be that there is twice as much fat compared to protein. Moreover, you’ll see that the above nutrition information is for only half the container. If you look at the ingredients, you will see this is due to the high heavy cream content.

Another problem is finding soups with adequate protein content. Chicken noodle soup, for example, is not always high in protein.

While the word chicken is prominently displayed, one might expect higher protein content. Many people have the misconception that chicken or beef broth contains protein. It does not. Broth is little more than savory water. It has very little calories and is certainly not high in protein. The only source of protein is the pieces of chicken in this soup. And as most people know, this doesn’t amount to much. Many canned soups have the same problem, simply not much protein content.

But if you like thick and flavorful soups, don’t fret. There are several creative workarounds that I have observed in recipes that can help impart more body and creaminess to your soups without sacrificing your hard-earned progress.

Here is a list of ideas:

• Use a light roux base. A little roux goes a long way. What is a roux? A roux is made by making a paste made from a small amount of fat from butter or oil and a small amount of flour. Then, liquid is slowly whisked into this paste until the desired consistency is achieved. While the inclusion of butter and flour may give you pause, a roux only requires small amounts of these ingredients, which means they will be diluted over the whole soup to reasonable amounts. My favorite trick for making a roux is to use Fairlife milk as the liquid mixed into it. Fairlife milk is ultra-filtered, which means that half of the sugars in the milk is filtered out. This results in a milk that is higher in protein. The combination of the roux plus the milk will help achieve a thicker, creamier soup with lower fat content. Example: This excellent recipe by “My Food Story”. To increase protein content, I recommend substituting the whole milk for Fairlife milk (skim or %) and adding a protein such as chicken.
• Blend healthy vegetables into your soup. Typically, you will see this with healthy starches like beans, sweet potatoes, or even the humble white potato. But I have even seen lower carbohydrate vegetables such as cauliflower used as well. This can help both thicken the soup using fiber-rich and nutrient-dense vegetables. Example: This Hidden Vegetable Chicken Soup by Modern Nonna.
• Use calorie-thrifty ingredients to add creaminess. Examples include low fat evaporated milk, light coconut milk, low fat sour cream, and Greek yogurt. See this Low-fat Cream of Broccoli Soup by All Recipes and this Healthy Creamy Tomato Soup by Happy Kids Kitchen for an example.
• Add protein powder to add some thickness as well as protein content. But please be sure to wait until the soup has cooled off a little. If protein is added to a liquid that is too hot, then the protein will denature. For this reason, you will need to add the protein powder in when the soup is 140 degrees or lower. This essentially mean it cannot be at a boiling point. Wait until it cools down enough to comfortably eat it to add the protein powder. Bariatric Meal Prep uses protein powder to bolster the protein content for many recipes. One of my favorite examples of this is this High Protein Butternut Squash Soup recipe.
• Substitute broth for bone broth. This idea is simple but good. Regular broth, as we discussed is low calorie and flavorful. I have nothing against regular broth. However, substituting it for bone broth is a simple way to increase protein content in the soup’s liquid.
• Minimize liquid in general. Another simple way to make a soup more bariatric friendly is to cut back on the liquid in general. If you increase the ratio of solids to liquids, then the soup will keep you fuller longer. Great examples of this would be a nice thick bariatric-friendly chili or beef stew.

Now, the next question you may have is if there are any options to enjoy bariatric-friendly soups without cooking. This is where nutrition-labeling reading skills are vital. There are many products on the market filled with false promises, but if you know how to read a nutrition label, then you can find the diamonds in the rough. Here are a couple of examples:

Example 1: Panera Break Chicken Tortilla Soup

Notice the ratio between protein and calories. For 280 calories, you get 20 grams of protein. You can also notice that this provides 10 grams of fiber, 36% of the daily value which is excellent.

Example 2: Campbell’s Well Yes Power Bowls

Once again, while this contains a little lower protein and calories, the ratio between the two is fairly favorable. Moreover, there is 6 grams of fiber which provides 21% of the daily value. Again, this is good.

All in all, I hope that I have given some you soup-lovers out there some hope that you can enjoy soup this fall season while being successful on your bariatric weight loss journey. So, enjoy curling up on a cool autumn day and enjoying a wonderful warn, nourishing bowl of soup!