Here Is What It's Like to Do a 'Soup Cleanse'
If you are reading this post about soup cleanses it is either because you love cleanses and want to know about the next trendy one (hint: it’s soup), or you hate cleanses and cleansers, and need more ammo against them.
I will satisfy both types of readers.
Let’s get this out of the way: Juice/liquid cleanses are slippery little fish as healthy trends go. They’re basically crash diets disguised as a spiritual toxin flushes, and although people love them, they are unnecessary. You don’t really need to detox or cleanse anything. That’s what bowels and livers are for. Juice is often high in sugar and the processing removes a big part of the healthful benefits of the fruits and vegetables, the skins and the pulp that act as roughage. It’s not a viable weight-loss method, either, at least not in the long term, because the second you eat normal food again and up your calories you’ll just gain it back. And that lovely euphoric rush you often feel on cleansing? That’s probably your body in starvation mode. Really.
That said, I think short cleanses are remarkable at hydrating you, and resetting your relationship to food, if you, like me, are the sort of person who can’t seem to do this a little bit every day. I’ve done a few Master Cleanses (the lemon/cayenne/maple syrup thing, originally designed to heal stomach ulcers), and I really like fresh vegetable juice, which I’ve used in place of meals sometimes. I’m not a crash dieter, and I like eating healthy food, and I am not weight-obsessed. But I’m a mindless eater, and I eat too fast, and I don’t enjoy my food or chew it slowly enough most of the time, and I have to make myself snap out of that from time to time. And for some reason the thing that does that best is to not eat solid food for a bit. It feels good.
However, juice cleanses make me cold, which is on my short list of worst feelings (it’s why I’ve never been able to live in NYC). They also don’t have enough calories, which is also on my short list of worst feelings. That is why when I saw something about souping being the new cleansing and souping having more calories, I was interested. Actual food? Hot food? Soup? All day? I like a challenge. I like soup! This will be the easiest goddamn thing in the universe.
There is a company here in Los Angeles called Soupure (I believe it’s pronounced soup-ure) getting some buzzy coverage for its new soup cleanse, pitched as an alternative to juicing. This is happening alongside another soup trend in action right now where everyone is going nuts over bone broth, the centuries-old practice of cooking animal bones into a nutrient-dense broth. Bone broth heals everything you can think of, naturally. It’s being touted as a “winter miracle drink.” This East Village resto is serving it in to-go cups for $9 a pop. Gwynnie is pimping it on GOOP. (Beware the paleo types who will claim bone both’s trendiness as a personal victory.)
Soupure offers a chicken and beef bone broth as part of its soup cleanse package, and on the website, explains its philosophy:
IM-“PRESSED” BY JUICING?
With so many brands from which to choose, you would think cold-pressed juice had all the answers. Juice as a beverage? Sure! We like it, too. But we are only mildly impressed with juice cleanses as an ongoing lifestyle choice in place of food. Throwing away the vital fiber matrix reduces most fruits to simple sugars that could leave your liver overworked and kidneys imbalanced (not to mention, not very “sustainably responsible”). Without the benefits of macro-nutrients, like protein and good fats, many of the vitamins and minerals featured in some juice combinations are simply rendered unusable. Certain whole vegetables need cooking to maximize or add the necessary dimension to their nutritional pathways. The body requires food in a variety of forms, raw and not raw, to feel optimally good.
WHAT MAKES SOUPURE BETTER
Whether you “soup” by cleansing or enjoy our soups as a family meal, snack, starter course, or refreshing beverage, they are all an optimal way to ensure the benefits of consuming whole fruits and vegetables throughout the day. We are committed to keeping the fibrous flesh, seeds, rind, and pulp for the most authentic collection of diverse and intact nutrients your body can actually recognize. We don’t think the body is inherently bad or toxic, and deprivation is definitely not sexy.
It’s this:
The one-day supply ($79, 8 jars, delivered to you) is about 1200 calories and includes the following suggestion for consuming in “order”:
