If you’re craving the comfort of a warm bowl of soup, you have a lot of options — and miso has proven to be one of the most nutritional varieties. This classic Asian dish, which has become increasingly popular, is as delicious as it is healthy and can be altered to suit any flavour preference. Miso soup has many benefits and wholesome ingredients that will optimise any diet.
What Is Miso Soup?
Most people have heard of miso soup, but not everyone knows what miso actually is. Miso is a fermented paste used to add flavour to many Japanese dishes, bringing on a salty umami taste. It is made with a blend of soybeans and a type of mould called “koji,” which produces enzymes that break the beans down acids and sugars.
Miso paste can be mixed into dressings, sauces, and batters, but is most commonly used to make soup. Miso soup is traditionally made by heating and mixing miso paste, dashi and ingredients like vegetables, tofu, and seaweed.
What Makes Miso Healthy?
There are so many benefits of miso soup for weight loss, digestion, and immune health. In addition to its great taste, miso soup delivers many essential substances to the body. Check out a few benefits:
- Rich in nutrients: Miso contains many healthy vitamins and minerals like vitamin K, manganese, zinc, protein, and calcium. Many of these nutrients support essential structures like the bones and nervous system.
- Improves digestion: Because miso is high in probiotics, it helps the body maintain healthy bacteria levels. This bacteria contributes to digestive health, reducing gas, diarrhoea, bloating and constipation.
- Strengthens immune system: The probiotics in miso soup also reduce the production of bad bacteria, improve blood circulation and ultimately boost your immune system. Probiotic-rich diets can also help you recover from infections faster and reduce the need for antibiotics.
- Lowers cholesterol: Miso comprises lecithin-rich soybeans. This plant-based substance helps strengthen blood vessels and reduce cholesterol.
- Improves mental health: Soybeans are also known to contain acetylcholine, which can aid memory, and vitamin B — which can help to ease stress.
It’s easy to take it to another level by adding your favourite ingredients.
It’s incredibly nutritious and linked to a variety of health benefits, including better digestion and a stronger immune system.
Not sure what to add to miso soup? Try enhancing it with these delicious ingredients:
- Seafood: Shrimp, fish, clams or crab.
- Root vegetables: Carrots, potatoes or onions.
- Squash: Butternut or acorn squash.
- Greens: Asparagus, broccoli, spinach or green beans.
- Tofu: Ganmodoki, atsuage or aburaage.
- Noodles: Soba, udon, ramen, or rice noodles.
Miso improves your digestion.
Your gut is home to trillions of bacteria.
Some are beneficial, while others are harmful. Having the right type of bacteria in your gut helps you maintain a healthy gut flora.
Having a healthy gut flora is very important because it helps defend your body against toxins and harmful bacteria. It also improves digestion and reduces gas, constipation and antibiotic-related diarrhea or bloating.
A. oryzae is the main probiotic strain found in miso. Research shows that the probiotics in this condiment may help reduce symptoms linked to digestive problems including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
In addition, the fermentation process also helps improve digestion by reducing the amount of antinutrients in soybeans.
Antinutrients are compounds naturally found in foods, including in the soybeans and grains used to produce miso. If you consume antinutrients, they can bind to nutrients in your gut, reducing your body’s ability to absorb them.
Fermentation reduces antinutrient levels in miso and other fermented products, which helps improve digestion.
Miso Soup May Reduce the Risk of Certain Cancers
Miso may offer protection from certain types of cancer.
The first may be stomach cancer. Observational studies have repeatedly found a link between high-salt diets and stomach cancer.
However, despite its high salt content, miso doesn’t appear to increase the risk of stomach cancer the way other high-salt foods do.
For instance, one study compared miso to salt-containing foods such as salted fish, processed meats and pickled foods.
The fish, meat and pickled foods were linked to a 24–27% higher risk of stomach cancer, whereas miso wasn’t linked to any increased risk.
Experts believe this may be due to beneficial compounds found in soy, which potentially counter the cancer-promoting effects of salt.
Animal studies also report that eating miso may reduce the risk of lung, colon, stomach and breast cancers. This seems especially true for varieties that are fermented for 180 days or longer.
Miso fermentation can last anywhere from a few weeks to as long as three years. Generally speaking, longer fermentation times produce darker, stronger-tasting miso.
In humans, studies report that regular miso consumption may reduce the risk of liver and breast cancer by 50–54%. The breast-cancer protection appears especially beneficial for postmenopausal women.
This condiment is also rich in antioxidants, which may help guard your body’s cells against damage from free radicals, a type of cell damage linked to cancer.
For instance, the probiotics in miso may help strengthen your gut flora, in turn boosting immunity and reducing the growth of harmful bacteria.
Moreover, a probiotic-rich diet may help reduce your risk of being sick and help you recover faster from infections, such as the common cold.
In addition, regularly consuming probiotic-rich foods like miso may reduce the need for infection-fighting antibiotics by up to 33%.
That said, different probiotic strains can have different effects on your health. More studies are needed using miso-specific strains before strong conclusions can be made.
This Japanese condiment may offer an array of other health benefits:
- May promote heart health: Miso soup may reduce the risk of death from heart disease. However, the protective effects appear to be small and may be specific to Japanese women.
- May reduce cholesterol levels: Animal studies show that miso may help reduce levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol in the blood.
- May reduce blood pressure: Miso appears to reduce blood pressure in animals. However, results in humans remain divided.
- May protect against type 2 diabetes: Some studies show that fermented soy products such as miso may help delay the progression of type 2 diabetes. However, not all studies agree.
- May promote brain health: Probiotic-rich foods such as miso may benfit brain health by helping improve memory and reducing symptoms of anxiety, stress, depression, autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
- Miso consumption is generally safe for most people.
- However, it does contain a large amount of salt. Thus, it may not be a good choice for individuals who need to limit their salt intake due to a medical condition.
- Finally, most varieties are made from soybeans, which could be considered a goitrogen.
- Goitrogens are compounds that may interfere with the normal functioning of the thyroid gland, especially in those who already have poor thyroid function.
- That said, when goitrogen-containing foods are cooked and consumed in moderation, they are likely safe for all individuals — even those with thyroid problems.
