Salty Soups

Are you a label reader? You ought to be. Prepared food is made to be tasty so that you will become a repeat customer. But often "tasty" can mean "unhealthy". And so is the case with salt which makes everything taste better. The Canadian government has talked and talked about enforcing a reduction in salt additives in manufactured foods but in the meantime, you need to watch out for your own health.

The boullion cubes pictured above are a good choice for folks wanting to avoid adding gluten or sugar when they make a soup. Unfortunately they are heavily laden with salt. Note the second photo which upon close inspection shows that a mere half a cube contains 1100 mg of sodium. A good number to stay below with regards to sodium is 1600 mg a day.

In making my soup for lunch today, I tried this new bouillon flavour and threw in an entire cube. although my soup was a small one containing 5 garlic cloves, a small head of broccoli-flower and 8 mini carrots, plus 1 and 1/2 cups of liquid. The finished product tasted salty; horribly salty. That's when I finally read the label.  Following the directions on the box, you would throw in one cube for every 2 cups of water. Someone making a larger soup might use two! After a small bowl of soup, I've consumed 2/3 of my total sodium intake for the day and now I'm gulping down glasses of water to flush it out of my system. From now on, I'll only ever use half a cube.

Once again, the moral here is: Always Read Labels. Never assume that pretty packaging, pictures of trees, or the words "natural", "nutritious", etc means that a product will be good for your health. Stay informed by reading the labels, and know that ingredients lists can change without warning or a change in the packaging.