Soup really is a superfood. Not only is it convenient, packed with vegetables, and extremely versatile and creative, but you can also have them delivered straight to your office or doorstep with us here at POW Food.
This guide explains why it’s important to have a healthy lunch and outlines the benefits of choosing soup to achieve this. It then suggests some great recipes for all types of people as well as the benefits of organising a soup delivery to your place of work.
The Importance of a Healthy Lunch
We’ve all experienced that post-lunch slump at work and it can really derail your focus for the rest of the day, impacting your performance at work. The first thing to recognise is that humans actually have a natural slump after noon between 1pm and 3pm regardless of what and when you eat. We used to sleep twice in a 24-hour cycle so our bodies are naturally attuned to getting tired at this time.
That being said, this natural slump can be greatly reduced by being careful of what we eat for lunch. It’s particularly important to avoid eating voluminous, heavy lunches with lots of carbohydrates and protein as your digestive system will take longer processing these foods for the rest of the day. Instead, you should focus on lighter meals with a good balance of the five essential food groups and you should also ensure the food you eat is fresh, with a good amount of fruit or vegetables. Nutritional soups are an excellent way to go about doing this!
Making sure your workplace nutrition is up to scratch by making sure you eat more healthily around the middle of the day has multiple proven benefits. It increases your overall energy and alertness and it improves your sleep when it comes to nighttime. This will mean you’re better rested the following day. Not only this, but eating a healthy lunch improves your general mental health and immune system, allowing you to lead a healthier, more fulfilling life! For example, employees who eat five portions of fruit or vegetables for at least four days out of the seven in a week show 25% higher average job performance than those who don’t.
At POW Food, we can help you achieve this with our healthy ready meal deliveries!
The Benefits of Having Soup for Lunch
A brilliant option for a healthy lunch is to eat a well-balanced, nutritional soup. This is because they’re a very creative, convenient and nutritious type of meal compared to fast food, unhealthy snacks and carbohydrate-dense lunches. Here are some key reasons to choose soup for lunch:
Versatility: Soup is an ideal lunch option because it’s such a versatile type of meal. You could even have a different recipe for each day of the month and there would still be a huge amount of alternatives available. They can be vegan, vegetarian, or packed with meat. They can be eaten as a starter before something more substantive, accompanied with a range of bread and toast options, and even drank from a portable Tupperware if you’re in a rush!
Time-Efficiency: Another key benefit is that they’re a very time-efficient meal to prepare for work. Not only is it therapeutic to prepare a soup but you won’t need to cook many elements all at once and the actual cooking time is usually fairly low. A brilliant time-saving tactic is to make a large batch and then bring portions to work throughout the week. Plus, you could make it for the whole family the night before and take some to work the next day.
Convenience: Unlike other meals that might require a number of components, cutlery, and reheating methods, soup is fairly straightforward. You just need to bring it in a container, make sure you have a spoon, and it can even be consumed cold if you’re pressed for time. Alternatively, it doesn’t take long to heat up and it’s very straightforward to clean up afterwards. You could even have healthy soups delivered!
Hydration: Not only do nutritional soups help toward healthier joints and weight loss but they’re also great for keeping you hydrated at work. The average person in the UK drinks below 1.7 litres of fluids per day which is well below the 2l minimum for women and 2.5l for men. However, hydration is a key factor for concentration, communicating effectively, and sustaining healthy work relationships. By eating soup for lunch, you can kill two birds with one stone!
5 A Day: Lastly, by their very nature, soups contain a lot of vegetables. The general consensus is that, if a soup contains 80g of vegetables, then this counts as one of your five a day. Hence, you could potentially be making two steps closer to your five a day if you consume a hearty bowl of nutritional soup for lunch, making them a great option for optimal workplace nutrition!
Some Nutritious Soup Recipe Ideas
Regardless of whether you’re a traditionalist or prefer modern takes on soup recipes, whether you’re a vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, or a meat-lover, and whether you’re looking to boost immunity, gain muscle mass, or lose weight, there are literally hundreds of soup options out there. Here are a few examples to get your creative juices flowing:
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Pumpkin Soup: Pumpkin soup is a great seasonal, vegan option and it’s packed with lots of vitamin A to help your eyesight.
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Vegetable and Beef Soup: Packed with protein and accompanied by a range of vegetables of your choice, this soup tastes like a roast dinner in a bowl!
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Ham and Pea Soup: This is a great option for those looking to gain lean muscle mass as it’s high in protein but low in carbohydrates.
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Tomato and Basil Soup: Tomato and Basil is a classic option and it’s rich in antioxidants and may even have cancer-fighting properties!
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Chicken Noodle Soup: Particularly good if you’re recovering from an illness, chicken noodle soup is very well rounded as it contains protein, carbohydrates, and vegetables.
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Cabbage Soup: If you’re really serious about losing weight then this is a great choice as cabbage is a notoriously low-carbohydrate vegetable.
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Fish Soup: Packed with healthy omega-3 fatty oils, fish soup is a great option for pescetarians who don’t want to resort to vegetables.
When it comes to making soup, you can get really creative. So many world cuisines incorporate soup and each has its own twist. Treat your soup-making like an experiment to find your favourite versions!
Have Healthy Soups Delivered to Your Office or Doorstep!
Whilst it’s a great idea, not everyone has the time to prepare nutritional soups ahead of time because a lot of people have busy schedules. For example, if you have children or any other responsibilities to attend to outside of work hours, or if you work particularly long hours at work in the first place, you may need to find an alternative.
A brilliant way to get around this is via soup delivery. Here at POW Food, we’re proud to have won the Greater London Enterprise Award (2021) with our nutritious healthy ready meals delivery services. Our healthy soup recipes have developed over the past 20 years and we only use organic ingredients to ensure high quality. Some of our unique recipes include:
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Greens and Grains
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Carrot & Ginger
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Tomato & Chickpea
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Mushroom & Black Bean
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Leek, Seasonal Root & Potato
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Sweetcorn Chowder.
Improve Your Workplace Nutrition with POW Food
Here at POW Food, we understand that healthy meals improve overall productivity - it’s literally in our name, ‘Power of Wellness’! We’re a dedicated team of expert nutritionists and talented chefs who use only the freshest, locally-sourced ingredients to create healthy ready meal options. We make these in small batches to ensure top-quality food is always provided for you. Plus, we’ve made a number of partnerships with charities and sustainability-oriented companies to make sure we’re having a positive impact on the broader community.
Some of our meal options include fish pie, roast chicken, vegan Mediterranean falafel, and amazonian chilli. We also have a variety of snacks such as our signature superfood snack box, mixed oat truffle balls and mixed brownies. All of these options are carefully crafted with proper workplace nutrition being the top priority.
If you have any further questions, or if you’d like to discuss how we can help your employees stay productive through the working day, then don’t hesitate to get in touch by calling us on 0345 340 5397 today!