Updated May 12, 2018
Until recently juicing was the go-to for cleansing, detoxing, kickstarting a weight-loss plan and maximizing your fruit and veggie intake. This past winter, the ‘consciously uncoupled’ actress turned lifestyle guru we love to hate—aka Gwyneth Paltrow—introduced a game-changer when she extolled the virtues of soup cleansing.
Soup cleanses aren’t new, the cabbage soup diet has been a recurring fad since the 1950s, but they’ve gotten a much more appealing and nutritious reboot of late. The Splendid Spoon has been serving up 1-3 day vegan soup cleanses in Brooklyn since 2012. Flavors like Kale Ginger, Sweet & Spicy Beet and Butternut & Turmeric are definitely a million times more enticing than cabbage. Founder and chef Nicole Chaszar has this to say about the advantage of souping over juicing vegetables: “I think there’s a lot of fatigue around juicing, especially when people learn that juicing takes out the best parts of the vegetables, like fiber. Soup is more nourishing and sustaining, while also being appealing from a cleansing concept. It’s less cold and clinical, and it’s a product that people know.”
In the past year, soup-only eateries are beginning to outnumber juice bars. Last November Brodo opened it’s doors in lower Manhattan sparking a bone broth craze in the city. This year Indie Fresh joined the party offering meal plans that can be shipped anywhere in the country. L.A.-based Soupure has been getting tons of buzz for its tasty and beautifully packaged 1-3 day cleanses.
Read Related: Your Go-To List of Juicing Recipes for a Flat Belly Summer
