I fell in love with soup as a kid and yes, its was Campbell's soup. My favorites were tomato, chicken noodle, and vegetable. I used to put so many saltine crackers in the vegetable soup, all the soup juice would be soaked up. It made my soup crunchy and I liked it that way.
When I was stationed in Germany, I ate Goulash soup. In Arizona, we always got the tortilla soup. For years, we had tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches (okay, that really sounds good right now). By the way, if you are ever in Occoquan, stop by the Blue Arbor Cafe and try their grilled cheese panini. The other day, my Stepdaughter said it was the best grilled cheese she has ever had. After seeing it, I'm going to have one next time we go (which may be very soon considering the fact that I can't stop thinking about grilled cheese sandwiches). http://bluearborcafe.com/
Anyway, back to soup. At work, my husband loves to make soup for lunch. Its light and absolutely perfect when its chilly outside. Last night, he stopped off at the local store and picked up a couple of soups.
"Sweetie", I said, "Did you know the soups you picked up are loaded with sodium?" He replied, "I want to keep the calories down." Well, you know me. I saw a challenge and I love a challenge maybe even more than I love soup. Mission: Find soups that are low in calories and low in sodium. It wasn't easy. I tried looking on line first. On line, I discovered some of the most popular soups. The lowest in overall calories was the Campbell's Select Harvest. The Chicken with Egg Noodles had 90 calories and 6 grams of protein per serving. Unfortunately, it had 650 mg of sodium per serving. The Light Southwestern Style Vegetable had 50 calories per serving. Unfortunately, it had 650mg of sodium also. The Light Italian Style Vegetable had 50 calories as well. It had 650mg of sodium. Even the Light Vegetable and Pasta with 60 calories had 650mg of sodium. The Light Italian Style Wedding had 100 calories. It only had 400mg of sodium, but remember we need to double it as each microwavable container equals two servings. So, I kept looking. Maybe I was just getting the serving size too large? I picked up the Campbell's Soup at Hand and nearly dropped it. Sure it was only 80 calories but, even with the label saying 25% less sodium than our regular product, it still had 730mg. Ugh! I kind of liked the Healthy Choice option. The Country Vegetable had 90 calories per serving (2 servings) and 480mg of sodium. Both the Chicken Noodle and Chicken and Rice had 90 calories per serving and only 390mg of sodium. Still, I wasn't quite satisfied. I want to keep my husband healthy. So, I continued my search for a low calorie, low sodium soup he could make in the microwave at his office. Amy's had some great low sodium soups, but they weren't low in calories like he wanted and weren't available in microwavable containers. Oh well. While in the health food section, I discovered Dr. McDougalls vegan soups. I hesitated. They looked an awful like Ramen and we all know Ramen noodles are filled with sodium. Still, I gave them a look see. I was curious. As it turned out, Dr. McDougalls soups are both low in calories and sodium and each container is single serving size. And just like Ramen, all you had to do was add water to the cup. I picked these up.
Calories Sodium
Tomato Basil Pasta 100 360mg
Pad Thai 100 290mg
Miso w/organic ramen 90 340mg
Tortilla w/baked chips 100 310mg
I'm not sure if my husband will like them, but at least I know I'm making an effort to help him eat healthy while he is at work. So, as the "Soup Nazi" put it on "Seinfeld" back in June 2008, make good choices when it comes to microwavable soups or "No Soup For You."
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