Plants never tasted so good.

8.10.12

Soup is good food?

Posted by Sinfully Nutritious

 

While out shopping with Mya, she had a lunch craving for tomato soup.  Usually, I always have a can of Amy’s Organic or Earth’s Best Elmo Tomato soup for such an occasion, but not today. 

I have made homemade before, but I knew there was no time.  We were in Target at the moment, so I checked to see if they had any organic varieties of tomato soup, no luck.  Then, it caught my eye.  The red and white can.  Ole Faithful. 

Tomato Soup

I grew up on the occasional warming can of Campbell's tomato soup. I have not had this in years. It brings back memories of family moments around the table with our white soup bowls and that red soup turned pink by milk (today almond milk). 

We would have a few Ritz crackers on the side, and maybe even share a grilled cheese sandwich.  It was a treat, because, like me, my grandmother never made homemade tomato soup.  She made pretty much every other soup you could think of, but not tomato, we left that to Campbell’s, although, she did like to doll it up with some leftover rice.  My mouth began to water just thinking about it. Soup is good food, yes, that was the slogan.

Remember the commercials?

With all those childhood memories flooding in, I neglected to look at the can.  I thought, I will buy two cans and we can all have a bowl with a grilled “cheese” on whole grain bread. 

Once I got home, I excitedly prepared my grilled cheese sandwiches and began warming the soup with a stirred in can of almond milk. 

As it warmed, I couldn’t help but to take a taste and see if it was as good as my long ago memories. Wait. Hold on, something is not right here.  All I could taste was SUGAR. YUK!  It tasted like tomato sugar soup.

I raced to the recycling bin and pulled out the can,  then I carefully read the back. OH MY GOSH, this stuff has as much sugar as a candy bar or a soda!!! And it makes 2.5 servings in a can!  12 grams of sugar per half cup! One tablespoon in half a cup, who eats a 6oz bowl (add 2oz water)? Most people put less sugar than that in a 20oz coffee. 

That means if you eat the whole can, which is a nice size bowl, you would eat a whopping…

30 Grams of sugar or 8.5 PACKETS IN A CAN. Not only is it sugar, but HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!

If that is not bad enough, look at the sodium… 480mg per 1/2 cup or 1200 for a can.  That is more than half a days worth. 

Check it out yourself, this is directly from Campbell's website:

Campbell’s Tomato Soup

Nutrition Facts*

Amount Per Serving (serving size) = 1/2 cup (120 mL) condensed soup

  • Calories 90
  • Fat Calories 0
  • Total Fat 0g
  • Sat. Fat 0g
  • Trans Fat 0g
  • Polyunsat. Fat 0g
  • Monounsat. Fat 0g
  • Cholesterol 0mg
  • Sodium 480mg
  • Total Carb. 20g
  • Dietary Fiber 1g
  • Sugars 12g
  • Protein 2g
  • Potassium 690mg
  • % Daily Values**
  • Vitamin A 8%
  • Vitamin C 10%
  • Calcium 0%
  • Iron 4%

* The nutrition information contained in this list of Nutrition Facts is based on our current data. However, because the data may change from time to time, this information may not always be identical to the nutritional label information of products on shelf.

** % Daily Values (DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

I know, I am being judgmental, they have a version of their tomato soup in their Healthy Requests line.  Let’s take a look and compare:

Healthy Request® Tomato Soup

Healthy Request® Tomato SoupLow in Saturated Fat & Cholesterol — Certified by American Heart Association (heartcheckmark.org)

Nutrition Facts*

Amount Per Serving (serving size) = 1/2 cup (120 mL) condensed soup

  • Calories 90
  • Fat Calories 15
  • Total Fat 1.5g
  • Sat. Fat 0.5g
  • Trans Fat 0g
  • Polyunsat. Fat 0.5g
  • Monounsat. Fat 0g
  • Cholesterol 0mg
  • Sodium 410mg
  • Total Carb. 17g
  • Dietary Fiber 1g
  • Sugars 10g
  • Protein 2g
  • Potassium 700mg
  • % Daily Values**
  • Vitamin A 8%
  • Vitamin C 10%
  • Calcium 0%
  • Iron 0%

* The nutrition information contained in this list of Nutrition Facts is based on our current data. However, because the data may change from time to time, this information may not always be identical to the nutritional label information of products on shelf.

** % Daily Values (DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

Oh, I see it now, this “healthy” stuff only has 25 grams of sugar per can, they left out one packet!  And, how kind, they cut 70mg of sodium per serving, this whole can only has a total of 1025 mg. 

To put this in perspective, check out this list of FUN SIZE Candy chart from fitsugar, almost every candy has less sugar and calories than a half cup tomato soup.

1 treat size (fun size) Calories Fat (g) Sugar (g)
Snickers 72 3.7 7
Reese's Peanut Butter Cup 80 4.5 7
Almond Joy 91 5.1 9.2
Reese's Nutrageous 95 5.5 7.5
       
Milky Way 76 2.9 10.9
Butterfinger 100 4 10
M&M's 90 4 11.5
Peanut M&M's 93 4.7 9.1
Nestle Crunch 51.3 2.7 5.6
Peppermint Pattie 47 1 8.6
Kit Kat 73 3.7 6.7
Dots 70 0 11
Skittles 80 0.8 15
Jelly Belly Jellybeans 35 0 7
3 Musketeers 63.3 2 10
Milky Way Dark 81 3 11
Hershey's Bar 66.7 4 7.7
Take 5 105 5.5 9
100 Grand 95 4 11
Nerds 50 0 12
Whoppers 100 4 13
Mike & Ike 50 0 9
SweeTarts 10 0 2.4
Milk Duds 40 2 6.3
Babe Ruth 85 4 10
Heath Bar 77 4.7 8.7

This is crazy.  So, if you pack your child's healthy lunch with one serving of Campbell's classic tomato soup, it is like packing them a fun size piece of candy for lunch.

Want more perspective? Larger than the serving of tomato soup, 3/4 cup serving of Post Fruity Pebbles has less sugar and more vitamins than this soup. Wow.

 

This was an important reminder for me as a nutrition coach and as a mother, ALWAYS READ THE LABEL. Or preferably, buy whole veggies and make soup with no label. Lesson learned.

This was in no way meant to be a rant on Campbell’s. Most other brands have similar ingredients. I was absolutely shocked at how sweet the flavor was and how bad the stats were. I just wanted to remind my readers that we need to always be proactive in knowing what is in our food. Even I slip up sometimes.  Now, I know I am not going to let nostalgia get me again! Winking smile

I hope you find this as fascinating as I did.  Thanks for reading, now go find some healthy soup to have for lunch this cold dreary day.

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