Ah, check 
Yeah, that makes sense. Given the meaning it would probably be really weird with a noun anyway. I mean… “at the same time as soup” doesn’t sound very logical.
Hmm… yeah, that makes sense. I almost feel as if the distinction just doesn’t really translate well, and what’s happening in the Japanese grammar doesn’t show up clearly in English 
One of these days I’m gonna have to look for monolingual grammar resources. I know monolingual dictionaries help tremendously in understanding nuances and differences between seeming synonyms, so I’m guessing the same would be true for descriptions of grammar.
There’s a good chance I won’t be able to make heads or tails of it though.
EDIT
Ah, I may have to just get the Dictionary of Japanese Gammar books:
So if I’m reading this correctly, it’s not necessarily phrase vs verb as I understood it, it’s more about the indirection inherent in こと that was described in the short grammar questions thread earlier in relation to ことがある.
So where 食べること always refers to the actual act of eating, 食べるということ refers to the idea of eating. Which may well be the same in translation, but not necessarily - and it’s much less direct in meaning.