The Tale of 3 Soups....

....a FABULOUS Miss Ginger Grant Consumer Product Review!!!


No wonder we are all overweight, dear GingerSnaps!!  It's simply not our fault! It's those damn grocery companies that are doing it to us!! 

The Royal Doctor informed Queen G that her blood pressure was still too high, and that she would someday have a stroke if she doesn't lower it immediately!  He gave the Queen more medication, and told her, once again, to watch what she eats and to get some exercise.  


So, off the Kroger she went to find healthy foods fit for a Queen of her stature!  She knows she needs to eat more chicken and less beef, but she also knows that chicken is like rubber without some yummy sauce on it, and the easiest way to make sauce is with Cream of Mushroom soup!


Mais, quelle dommage! Cream of Mushroom soup is full of fat, and all canned soups have way too much sodium!  What is a diet conscious Royal to do?  Certainly, if modern scientists can create a realistic looking fingernail that attaches instantly with rubber cement, they can come up with a healthy version of Cream of Mushroom that tastes great, non?


The assortment was staggering, but Queen G narrowed the selection down to 3, and began to explore their nutrition labels to check things out.  Here's what she discovered:

She began her research by checking out Classic "Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup"  to establish a baseline.  The first thing she noticed is that the serving size is based on a 4 oz. serving size, and that the can therefore contains 2.5 servings.  Now, really, do you know anyone who opens a can of soup for lunch, mixes in the water, and then saves 2 thirds of it for later?! Ridiculous!




As expected, this soup is woefully unhealthy, and becomes even more so when one accounts for an actual serving size. For the 250 calorie can, one gets:

This soup has 15 grams of fat and a whopping 2.2 GRAMS of sodium in it!  Sodium is measure in milligrams, peeps! This is insane! The DAILY recommendation is no more than 1,500 mg of sodium!! This contains almost twice that, in one bowl!

Next, she checked out "Campbell's Condensed Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom Soup".  Right there on the front of the can, within a green, heart-shaped logo, were checkmarks expounding this product as "Heart Healthy" with "0g Trans Fat per serving".  Surely, Doctor D should be happy with that, right?

A quick check of the label revealed that this can, too, has "naive portion" syndrome, so Queen G converted the contents thusly:

When comparing the labels, this soup would seem much healthier, at 70 calories vs. 100.  But, when one "rightsizes" the portion, it becomes 175 calories vs. 250;  not such a significant difference.  And with still over a gram over sodium, Miss G can't help but feel we are stretching the limits of "heart healthy" here!

So finally, our benevolent Queen checked out "Campbell's Ready To Serve Cream of Mushroom Low Sodium Soup". "Ready to Serve"? What does that mean?  Well, it says right on the front of the can: "Add no water".  And what do you know? For this soup, the serving size is "1 container". Which, FYI, is 10.5 oz. Not 4 oz. Because NO ONE EATS ONLY 4 OUNCES OF SOUP!! But I digress.

There's no math to do here, since Campbell's has finally admitted to the real size of a soup serving!

As expected, this soup considerably lowers the sodium content.  And although 8 grams of fat is few more than its heart healthy cousin, it's still half the amount of fat in the classic product, right?  But wait!  If you check out the saturated fat- the "bad" fat that causes heart disease- the low sodium soup has exactly the same amount as it's full fat cousin!!

So what the hell is a gurl to do?  Is any one of these really any better for her heart than another?

She bought all three, but at this point she thinks it best to just dump them all together and make one great big pan of Green Bean Casserole!!

Now, off to find a recipe for homemade Cream of Mushroom soup!!