Clare Teal: Who'd have thought soup would become a fashion statement?

I am certain the reason I have yet to succumb to any winter bugs is down to Muddy bothering to make us a fresh veggie juice every day full of loads of good nutritious stuff like kale and ginger I wouldn’t otherwise eat. In fact that’s what I was drinking when I saw the headline.

Here’s the thing, news just in reveals “soup is the new juice!” So all of us who have been cooking and eating broth for years are now officially down with the health gurus. I could happily eat soup all day every day, not only tasty but comforting, especially chicken soup.

Surely one of the perks of being ill is a constant supply of chicken soup. Our good friend Megan gave us the simplest recipe for chicken soup EVER. Chop an onion and a few carrots, brown them in a pan with a quarter of chicken piecea add stock and cook slowly for an hour. Interestingly, scientists have been testing the health restoring properties of chicken soup for decades. It seems our grandmothers were right all along apparently chicken soup reduces inflammation of the nose throat and lungs.

The good stuff in the soup inhibits the movement of neutrophils – the white blood cells that fight against infection, which in turn serves as a defense against early cold symptoms. The only problem being they can’t identify the exact ingredient in the soup responsible for making us feel better. They say it’s a compound called carnosine like a team effort between the chicken, carrots and onions.

However, reading the doctor’s recipe I see he adds parsley too which as I have now discovered is rich in vitamins and keeps your immune system in good shape whilst flushing out water retention – good to know.

But before you start counting your chickens, the same researchers at the University of Nebraska have found that many tinned varieties (57 in fact!) work just as well as homemade.

So that’s what I’m having for tea tonight and I’m not even ill (touch wood) I’m going down the homemade route but I’m thinking I’m thinking I might substitute the onions for leeks, hey I might even throw in a bit of celery because that’s what kind of a mood I’m in.