Is Canned Soup Healthy?

What's better than a hot bowl of soup on a cold winter's day? It feels like heaven when the hot piping liquid goes down our throat, soothing our taste buds, as well as our bodies. Besides satiating one's taste buds, soups also furnish the body with all kinds of essential vitamins and minerals.

Unlike other forms of cooking, which remove most of the essential nutrients, soups retain most of the nutrients from vegetables. No wonder, it rejuvenates the body!

However, with the jet speed pace of lives today, we're constantly on the lookout for faster solutions and ways to make life simpler. We quickly grab a few cans of soup and lap it up after work. After all, it's one of the quickest means to put a hot meal on the table.

Canned soup comprises several unhealthy components such as fat, sodium, starch, artificial food additives, preservatives and colors. Most canned soups contain about 1000 grams of sodium, which is way above the body's requirement.

Luxury soups containing cream also load the body with high levels of fat. These days soup manufacturers are touting that their soups are lower in sodium, fat and cholesterol. We find all kinds of canned soup brands with all kinds of labels such as low carb canned soups, healthy canned soups, etc., however, is the canned soup diet healthy?

However, most canned soups contain considerable amounts of salt, which can be seen in the list of ingredients on the label. High amount of salt is added to increase the shelf life canned soup. With each spoonful of delicious soup, you are actually taking in high doses of sodium.

Campbell's traditional soups still load the body with more than 800 mg of sodium in just one-cup serving of soup.

The FDA in 1994, stated that for a food item to be labeled healthy, it needs to contain less than 480 mg of sodium per serving, which is 20% of the daily value. Thus, a soup can be only called 'healthy canned soup' if it contains less than 480 g of sodium. Check the label on your soup before purchasing it.

Some of the canned soups available today are packed in metal cans coated with a potentially dangerous chemical called Bisphenol A (BPA).

As per Consumer Reports' November 2009, it was said that BPA is associated with causing deleterious conditions, such as breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and prostate cancer and is also known as an endocrine disruptor. They also went on to mention that some of the most loved soups were seen to contain dangerously high levels of BPA.

The soup in canned form has undergone a lot of processes before it undergoes canning. The soup we find in cans has less nutrition content, as compared to homemade soup. It contains lower level of vitamin C and vitamin B1.

Thus, quit perusing over reviews in the effort to find the best canned soup. Pick out some homemade soup recipes and make some yourself. The best part about homemade soups is that one knows what goes into it.

There's no fear about the ingredients and one does not have to spend unnecessary time worrying about what one is feeding the family. Canned shelf life is higher and it's easier to prepare, however if it decreases our shelf life, it's only wiser to stick to homemade soups.