Stephen Argent - Soupologie: Plant-based, gluten-free soups to heal, cleanse and energise

Heal, cleanse and energise your body with the ultimate healthy soup guide from Soupologie.

From soups to boost your metabolism and help you lose weight to ones that will leave your skin glowing, Soupologie includes something everyone can enjoy for optimum health.

All the recipes are plant-based, dairy free and gluten free. Choose from one of three cleanse plans to kick-start your body.

Stephen Argent launched Soupologie in 2012 at a London food market. His delicious, nutritious soups are now selling in retail outlets across the UK, the US & Europe.

Welcome to the world of delicious, health-giving soups. I am the founder of Soupologie, the UKs leading plant-based, free-from, fresh soup company, and I am excited to share with you my passion for nutritious, homemade soups. Gone are the days when soup was something you had as a bit of comfort food, to keep you going until the real food arrived. Now, through the use of some carefully chosen ingredients and a dash of imagination, the possibilities for nourishing and tasty soups are endless.

In this book, I shall be showing you how soups can become a staple in your diet, so you can benefit from their high nutrient value and their low energy density this means that you get lots of key nutrients for relatively few calories. Soupologie soups are vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free, and packed with fresh vegetables to ensure that each soup has as much goodness as possible.

The one principle that I stick to is that, no matter what your diet regime or how motivated you are to eat well, you will always compromise your diet if the food youre eating isnt enjoyable and satisfying. So youll find that all the recipes in this book are as tasty as they are good for you.

The first section of the book is about souping. Were all guilty of some over-indulgences now and again, as well as grabbing snacks on the go and wolfing down food thats convenient but not very good for us. So we devised the souping plans as a warming and highly replenishing way to give your digestive system a rest. The plans are not about deprivation or calorie counting, but nourishing your body with the nutrients it needs to rebuild and recharge. With the help of our dietitians we have put together a complete programme, which includes a regime to follow before following a souping plan as well as a gentle easing back to eating a wider variety of foods again. The one-, three- and five-day plans should provide you with all the nourishment you need to keep full and satiated with a sense of wellbeing.

The introductory section is followed by a variety of lovingly created recipes to give you an all-year-round collection of soups. They will enhance your wellbeing with their wide range of restorative nutrients, whose health benefits are clearly indicated by the small icons above each recipe.

We dont need to strive for perfection, we just need to help our bodies feel great by eating well. Heres to your Souper Powers!

Whether youre recovering from a period of excess, preparing for holiday sun, or feel that your body needs a nutrient boost, our souping plans step up to the plate (or bowl!). We all know veggies are good for us, yet most of us arent getting what we need. So commit to one, three or five days of nourishing plant power with our souping plans to give your digestive system a break and keep your immune system strong.

I started making soups for my family many years ago when my four daughters were little and supermarket soups were more likely to taste of chemicals than vegetables. As the children grew up, they went through a phase of clamouring for junk food, but then started to become more interested in what they were eating, gradually developing ideas and tastes of their own. Meanwhile my wife Amanda and I became more interested in understanding the relationship between food, diet and healthy eating and our own wellbeing. I sought out better-quality ingredients, cut down on certain foods that seemed to be less healthy and read about the power of great nutrition. It didnt take long to realise that eating healthily and responsibly directly affects how you feel physically, and often emotionally too.

Soupologie started when I was encouraged by friends and family to take my homemade soups to a local Christmas Fair. Armed with a couple of large saucepans, one filled with Tomato and Red Lentil Soup (see ), I was overwhelmed by how quickly the soups sold, and the wonderful compliments I received about the flavours. What started out as an adventure to revolutionise the soup market with my Soupologie fresh soup brand, packing as much nutrition as possible into every pot, has led to many insights for me into food, sensible eating and superfood ingredients. I am thrilled to be able to share my knowledge and recipes with you here.

Over the years, its driven me crazy that soup has become the Cinderella of the food world: it has largely been ignored, pushed around and treated harshly. Commercial soups are often stuffed with artificial thickeners, sugar, milk, cream, cheap cuts of meat, maltodextrin, glucose syrup and thats just the fresh soup! Sure, these soups will make you feel full because theres so much water content, but the nutritional value is next to nothing and the taste has to be pepped up with flavourings.

My philosophy is that soups should be naturally flavoursome and healthy, rich in nutrients and packed with superfood ingredients to provide food that is filling, delicious and good for you. In fact, I believe that soups should be good for everyone, from kids to grandparents and anyone in between. They should be crammed full of vegetables that include vital fibre, which makes you feel full, soothes your digestive system and keeps your blood sugar steady. Dont get me wrong, I am all for using up the veg knocking around at the back of your fridge, but with this book I want to show you how the clever use of some highly nourishing, sometimes novel ingredients can turn a bowl of soup into a nutritional powerhouse. Youre standing over a hot stove making soup anyway, so why not turn it into the most potent, health-giving bowl of goodness possible?