The cabbage soup diet – Fact or Fad

The cabbage soup diet is a carb-burning soup diet that became popular around the 1980s when it was broadly disseminated by fax machine. To this day, no-one has claimed responsibility for creating this diet based on cabbage soup– now universally known as The Cabbage Soup Diet. It is simply as its name says – a diet in which you eat (pretty much nothing but) cabbage soup.

The Cabbage Soup Diet is considered a FAD diet by the majority of reviewers and commentators, and has gained popularity because it is effective in helping to lose a few quick pounds by eating/drinking cabbage soup only. Because this whole plan is based around a low-calorie, high-fibre and no-protein soup this diet should not be continued for more than 7 days. The goal of the diet is rapid weight loss and it claims that you will lose 10 lbs if followed correctly. However the Cabbage Soup diet is NOT a long term solution to weight-loss and it should not be used by dieters seeking to shed more than 10lbs. Therefore, if you have specific goals for your diet such as losing tummy flab or ´muffin-tops´, getting rid of man breasts or ´moobs´, etc, think carefully about whether this is really the diet for you.

Cabbage in itself is a valuable dietary element, containing large quantities of fibre, vitamins and minerals, including those characteristic of green leafy vegetables, such as Vitamin C and Vitamin K (of course, the darker the green of the cabbage, the more of such minerals and vitamins the cabbage leaves will contain – think Savoy cabbage rather than white garden cabbage). However, as mentioned above, it is lacking in several ESSENTIAL dietary requirements such as protein, fatty acids and some vitamins and it is therefore definitely NOT a complete food. Even if you are only following the cabbage-soup diet for a few days, it may be worth your while (and it may even help the weight loss) to supplement with vitamins and minerals or ´natural´ supplements such as acaiburn extracts , amino acids or just a straightforward multi-vitamin pill.

Cabbage has also gained some reputation as a ´superfood´ or medicinal food because of various reported properties of the raw juice or cooked vegetable. Raw cabbage juice is included in many raw diets and alternative treatments for various illnesses. This may be why the idea of a cabbage soup diet has captured the imagination of many dieters. The fact is that a diet based on soup made of ANY non-starchy vegetable will provide a ´crash burn´ of fat during the days in which it is consumed to the exclusion of other, more usual foods. But the ´Cabbage Soup Diet´ has kept its name. You might also try a ´Carrot Soup Diet´, ´Onion Soup Diet´ or ´Tomato Soup´ diet – all home-made of course with no added cream, fat or starch.