Soup is a wonder food. It is not only nourishing and delicious but also typically easy to make and inexpensive. You don’t have to be a carnivore to enjoy soup. There are a myriad of vegetarian and vegan recipes out there that are just as satisfying and hearty as healthy recipes for soup that include some type of meat.

I no longer purchase cans of soup. They are full of sodium and simply do not have the same taste or texture as homemade soups. Plus, the canning process kills most of the nutrients that are simmering loud and clear in freshly made soups. Let’s face it, there is nothing like the aroma of a pot of simmering soup to fill your house and leave you yearning for a steaming bowl of this curer of all ills.

There really is something to the folklore that grandma’s chicken soup will heal you when you become ill. In fact, it’s been studied. In 1993, University of Nebraska Medical Center researcher, Stephen Rennard, MD, found that his wife’s family recipe for chicken soup had anti-inflammatory effects and actually slowed the development of cold symptoms.

The soup definitively increased the cold-fighting ability of cells when they were bathed in chicken soup. The hot chicken soup also improved the movement of mucus and shortened the life of a cold. Although unable to pinpoint exactly what ingredient in the chicken soup did the most good, his theory is that the ingredients work synergistically to make a difference in the duration and severity of a cold.

But you don’t only have to enjoy chicken soup to reap the benefits of decreased sick time when you have a cold. In fact, any freshly made soup that contains organic vegetables, garlic and onion is filled with powerful anti-oxidants and is quite nutritious.

All healthy soup recipes can have the same effect on your health as chicken soup does. Not all of those who partake in soup are carnivores and for those of us looking for vegetarian recipes as alternatives, have no fear.

Vegetarian or vegan versions of soup offer us the wonderfully warming feeling and healing potential as chicken soup. Actually the vegetarian version might even be more beneficial. As much as it may match the nutrient content of a soup that includes chicken or other type of meat, when you replace the meat with a bean and include fresh, organic vegetables – you are only doing yourself good. The vegetarian recipes are lower in saturated fats that are artery clogging.