Canned Soup

You might be asking yourself why I bother dedicating an entry to canned soup. Then again, you might not be a soup snob and enjoy it every day. Whichever the case, I am not a canned soup aficionado since I tend to make soup from scratch. As everything else really. However, I had a tooth pulled a couple of days ago and was not in the mood to cook, also partly due to the heat engulfing our house, thus I resorted to Campbell’s Chicken Soup with Rice and the one with noodles. On the rare occasion that I’m sick and can’t move, I ask my husband to pick me up soup from the store, which usually turns out to be just those cans. So I’m familiar with it. It’s not rocket science to heat it up and it tastes pretty decent. Today I actually made it a point to check the ingredient list and nutritional label. It was way overdue and I finally remembered to do so. Needless to say that I was flabbergasted despite the prior suspicion I had that I wouldn’t be happy with the outcome. Why in heaven’s name was there cream in it, milk solids, beef extract, various types of sodium, high fructose corn syrup and my favorite, mechanically separated chicken. Mmm. Nothing like chicken meat straight out of the Matrix. After reading the label to my husband, we mutually decided that it is in our best interest to make the damn soup ourselves, which I have done when not sick. Honestly, you throw water, a couple of drumsticks, carrots, onion and rice into a pot, add salt and bring it to a boil and you get the same thing. Minus the 2,000 milligrams of sodium. Yes, that’s how much one of those small cans of soup has. I did the math. And then promptly realized why my stomach and kidneys hurt. I should have consumed an extra gallon of water afterwards. Alas, I have learned my lesson and won’t do it again. For an extra twenty minutes, I can have a delicious soup made by moi without the worry of having mechanically separated my chicken.