What is the Minestrone Diet?
The minestrone diet was born in the United States of America, developed by a cardiologist surgeon at the Sacred Memorial hospital in Saint Louis. Originally, the minestrone diet was intended mainly for patients in a strong state of obesity, who had to drastically reduce their weight in view of heart surgery.
The minestrone diet lasted about 14 days, no more, however, enough time to produce a weight loss of 7 to 8 kilos; however, this weight loss, although "encouraging", remains absolutely fictitious, mainly due to the loss of fluids and muscles, not fat.
Classification
The minestrone diet can be classified in different ways. If the origin of the ingredients is taken into account, it can be classified as a diet suitable for vegetarian food (naturally, with the exclusion of meat in the second part, see below). The diet of minestrone can be classified as a single-paned diet, given that - following appropriate recipes - inside the minestrone there are all the nutritional components, such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, minerals and vitamins. Finally, the minestrone diet can be classified as a theme diet, because the most consumed food is vegetable soup.
Functionality
Basically, the minestrone diet aims to make patients - or people who intend to follow this diet - take a portion of vegetable soup accompanied by other foods. For the first four days of the diet, only the consumption of vegetable soup, tea and unsweetened fruit juices is expected. Starting from the fourth, the minestrone is accompanied by skimmed milk or yogurt, and only on the fifth day is it possible to eat beef. After a week, the minestrone diet involves adding a small amount of brown rice to the basic recipe of vegetable soup.
To make the minestrone diet more effective, often, although not falling within the original characteristics of the diet, it is combined with an aerobic physical activity, for example light running, swimming, cycling or a walk of at least thirty minutes every day . Physical activity, in fact, is able to set in motion the various metabolisms of our body, favoring the consumption of fats with consequent weight loss.
The minestrone diet should last seven days or at most two weeks, never more.
Nutritional aspects
The minestrone diet includes the main administration of a vegetable soup, so from a nutritional point of view we are talking about a low calorie dish. Minestrone recipes are very variable and have many reinterpretations. If the minestrone is based only on vegetables, without adding seasonings, the dish can be considered decidedly low-calorie. The minestrone, however, is no longer low-calorie if you add carbohydrate-rich ingredients, such as potatoes or legumes, or olive oil as a condiment.
The nutritional aspects of the minestrone diet are mostly negative. The proteins made, for example, are scarce. The proteins present in the diet can be either of vegetable origin, by adding legumes to minestrone, but also of animal origin, thanks to the combination of milk, yogurt and beef. The same goes for lipids, which apart from the addition of raw oil to minestrone, are paltry. Among all the macronutrients, carbohydrates are therefore the favorites, and thanks to the addition of potatoes and / or minestrone rice they are present in greater quantities than proteins and lipids.
A separate speech must be made for vitamins. Many claim that there are in the minestrone; however, many of them are thermolabile and / or photolabile. Therefore, in the minestrone diet the supply of vitamins is in some respects scarce, precisely because the thermolabile vitamins are altered with the cooking heat, while the photolabile vitamins are destroyed when they are prepared, exposing the vegetables to light.
Mineral salts, on the other hand, are present, since they are solubilized in the cooking water, which is consumed with all the salts dissolved in it.
Still in the nutritional field, the minestrone diet provides immediate results, but fails to give good nutrition to those who follow it. Many supporters of the minestrone diet suggest drinking in the last few days at least 1.5 / 2 liters of water, to allow a greater removal of toxins from the body. At this point a question spontaneously arises: "but wasn't all the water introduced with the numerous minestrone courses sufficient to eliminate these" waste "from our body?".
By carefully examining all the nutritional aspects mentioned so far, we can say that the minestrone diet is low satiety, so the person who follows it is never fully satisfied. This characteristic is linked to the presence of carbohydrates and the monotony of foods, which as a whole can cause some suffering in response to hunger pangs.
Another minus point of the minestrone diet is the very low intake of proteins, which associated with the poor intake of calories promotes muscle catabolism, with a consequent drop in metabolism and predisposition to the yo-yo effect. Even if the minestrone diet makes it possible to lose weight quickly, the lost kg are not made up of fat, but mainly from liquids and muscle proteins; as such, when they suspend the diet they tend to be recovered very quickly and with interest!
Fundamental points
To summarize everything and clarify the ideas about the qualities - few - and about the defects - so many - of the minestrone diet, let's review the fundamental points that characterize it:
- the minestrone diet does not give the rules of a correct and healthy diet.
- It offers no benefit, provided the illusion of getting a strong weight loss in just 15 days.
- It produces very few calories, however difficult to quantify given the variability of the ingredients that make up the various types of minestrone. In this regard we recommend the use of our tool: it calculates the calories of the minestrone.
- Low protein intake. The only ones supplied are those of pulses, milk, yogurt and possibly meat or fish.
- Almost no intake of fat, except for those who use olive oil as a condiment. Cholesterol is also almost absent, but can be obtained by replacing olive oil with animal fats such as butter.
- Vitamins are deficient in that they are thermolabile and / or photolabile; as such they are easily degraded in the preparation and cooking of minestrone.
- Mineral salts are mostly recoverable, since the cooking water of the vegetables is consumed.
- The minestrone diet does not satisfy the person who follows it.
- Given the low intake of proteins, the minestrone diet favors the use of muscle for energy, lowering the body's metabolism
- It induces a rapid and consistent loss of weight, but with its suspension it promotes an equally rapid recovery of the lost pounds, often with a lot of interests.
See also: Minestrone Diet Example
The points to the disadvantage of the minestrone diet are therefore noteworthy, even if there are people and internet sites (fortunately few) that urge it as a valid solution to being overweight. To you the conclusions.
