A World Without Wheat....Pre-Made Soup and Salt, Beware the Sodium!

Soup, beautiful soup of the day! It is freaking cold out there and I don’t know about you but I crave warmth in my food these recent weeks.  Soups and stews sure hit the spot of my frozen tummy and so when my friend gave me a can of vegetable quinoa soup I couldn’t wait to try it.   Made by Health Valley Company.  Not sure where he bought it but I am guessing Giant Foods?  Anyway, I had it for lunch last week and it was delicious, tasted like it had asparagus as an ingredient.  Checked the label; nope, no asparagus.  Full of potatoes, onions carrots, green beans, spinach, roasted garlic and quinoa.   The flavor was complex and satisfying.  My only “beef” with it was the sodium; 480 mg for one cup! And I couldn’t stop slurping this tasty mixture; I ate the whole can of nearly two servings….yikes!

Yesterday I had Progresso Lentil Soup for lunch, an old dear friend of mine that thankfully is GF. Tasty and satisfying but oops, 500 mg of sodium in a serving.  At least I only ate one cup of it…. When I had the rest of it a couple days later I forgot and added a touch of salt as it didn’t seem to have any but I now know better from the label!  Then I really boosted my sodium intake by what I made for supper the same day I had the lentil soup for lunch: tuna casserole.  This is my mom’s recipe kicked up a bit, full of homemade French fries, broccoli stems, red pepper cubes and topped with potato straws.  The liquid is provided by cream of mushroom soup.  As Campbell’s is not GF I had to go with Progresso’s Creamy Mushroom.  Good stuff it is but the label says 830 mg for one cup and I needed the full can, which make it 1660 mg in my 4 serving casserole not to mention any salt in the rest of this dish! That works out to 415 mg of sodium per serving just from the soup.  I would say that is okay once in a while but I prefer to eat far less sodium in my meals. 

I can’t think of a good solution.  Making my own cream of mushroom soup would work but who has time for that?  Well, I don’t make the tuna casserole more than 3-4 times a year so I guess I can live with that amount of sodium. 

Lesson learned: think about the prepared foods you add to your homemade meals.  They can be a hidden source of sodium and other unwelcome additions (Think hydrogenated fats) to a healthy meal.  I try hard to avoid prepared foods for that very reason.  This can be a tough row to hoe day after day as a time pressed home cook…. In this frigid weather I feel a serious craving for comfort foods so I am going to enjoy the rest of my potato-tuna masterpiece without guilt or salt recriminations!