Stew, soup, broth: may be healthy but psychologically it doesn’t seem like food to me. 
Soup: it’s the new white meat.
Yes.
I would not worry about soup being not good for you. John Foss is right: the sodium/potassium osmosis cell balance is a crucial issue
for hard riders/runners/workers. So cool it on the salt ahead of time, try citric acid ( lemon/lime.) as flavoring in advance. Simply use salt as needed and pay attention to electrolytic management. Read a basic biology/chemistry overview. It is not, and I am loathe to say this, rocket science. It’s simply the way our bodies work. We are, in the end, a chemical/electrical/mechanical system. Oh, and I guess there’s the mind.
Manufactured soup is so sodium heavy it is scary.
May offer this: from the North country we roast hearty root vegetables for 45 minutes ( about 375) and then, in a simple water base, bring them to a boil, then turn it down for an hour to very, very low heat. No meat, a little canola oil, and no seasoning until everything is soft. Run a hand blender through it ( a texture issue) and then, and only then, taste it. Add the things you like ( lemon juice, some pepper, sage, coriander) say.
At the last going off ( another regional expression), a few healthy tablespoons of good yogurt, strained Greek for instance(10% milk fat),and an egg yolk. That will will thicken everything, after you whip it up.
Squash, yams, good carrots, turnips, onions, decent potatoes, apples, a few mangoes: soup can be anything. Just let it do it’s thing, season lightly. Read MFK Fisher, “How to Cook a Wolf.” Learn to cook and you will find the lover of your dreams.
Best from where, evidently, we make soup.
More on bouillabaisse soon ,as I am from Marseilles (not Barcelona)
Wobble on, fueled by decent soup.
Best regards, where the tide is high ( never mind)
william dockrill
Soup is the only food.
I just had some yummy tortilla chicken soup.
It was scrumptious
my mom makes good soup. Split pea, pot pie(its a soup), tortilla soup, and some other ones.
The body is able to regulate sodium levels if you have a high sodium diet. How is it bad to have a high sodium diet if you are a healthy person with no heart disease or hypertension? Why does salt have to be a boogyman to be avoided?
Electrolyte needs vary from person to person. I need a lot of electrolytes when I exercise. Some people can do a marathon with only water. Put me in the same marathon and I would never make it through without extra electrolytes, even if it is not a hot day.
I used to wonder why I was always feeling drained when others on the same ride were feeling just fine. We’d eat the same, drink the same, but I’d end the ride wasted with salt crusts on my face.
I know there is a difference between regular daily intake of salt and the use of electrolyte tablets during exercise. But it still leaves me confused about why salt in soup, chips and fries is bad while electrolytes during exercise is good.
Roast chicken soup with bended carrots, potatos, and a bit of cream cheese. Mmmm.
A haybox is great for making soup too. There really should be one in every kitchen.
haybox?
a haybox is a box filled with hay, hay is a good insulator, if you take the pan out of the oven and put it in hte haybox it will still cook and stay warm. they used to use them in WW2 to take food into the shelters, without ruining it.
Soup is one of the greatest culinary inventions. And with bread it’s also very filling.
Mine is a basket with crumpled paper and a discarded sleeping bag.
You boil things until they’re warm all the way through, and then put it in the haybox. Rice just need to boil for a few seconds before they go in the haybox. Bigger vegetables need more time.
It makes cooking easier because you can’t burn the food and it stays warm until the rest of the meal is ready.
Cream soups are amazing. Chowder…mmmm!
Thanks for this thread
I knew nothing about haybox cooking. Now I do.
Thanks to you.
william
Thanks for balance
I have been on the forums for five months now and I find your posts, Mr. “Guinness” Childs especially thoughtful. Thank you for another way to look at making soup. I do not uni but ride a bike 90 miles a week, and I know I was speaking from my own experience as a point guard and long distance runner (Abebe Bikila was my hero.) I think your observation about the bad rep salt has achieved has influenced my thinking, but I only know what I feel when I go distance.
I have no answer to the “salt in soup, chips and fries is bad while electrolytes
during exercise is good” conundrum. I know what I feel.
Thank you for your on-going wisdom.
Best,
from where Riding the Lobster is not quite as cross-genetically perverse as it is may seem at first blush,
Why not come here and be a commentator? We have some Internet TV content producers who might be interested in your cogent insights.
william dockrill
Electrolytes is salt when you’re losing a lot of salt and need to intake to keep your level steady. Fries are salt when you don’t need it. Presumably you agree that eating sugar is a good idea on the trail but that eating sugary food all the time is bad? I think the negative health effects of excess salt are fairly well proven, and in a country with so much mal-nutrition a the US giving the genreal advice to avoid salt seems reasonable. Obviously if you have different body chemistry or make particularly harsh demands on your body you have to take this advice with a pinch of, well you get the idea.