Souper Sunday: Cheating

We really like home made soup in our house, but sometimes time and energy is just a little short to prep and work through all the stages needed for some soups.  I have a confession-I keep Bear Creek dehydrated soup mixes on hand for just such times.  There are other brands, but my family likes this one quite a bit, particularly the creamy wild rice. To homemade it up a bit, I throw in a quickly diced celery stalk, perhaps a can or a few fresh sliced mushrooms, and some leftover chicken, ham, or bacon bits.  I know these are not the most  nutritious soups, and the sodium, content is 40% RDA for a 1 cup serving, so we try and keep any accompaniments very fresh and salt free, such as a loaf of crusty bread and some fresh fruit. We stock up when they go on sale, often at $3.00 or less and usually do not make more than once per month.  The package will make 8 one cup servings, so plenty plus leftover lunch for my small family.  It is not as tasty as home made varieties I have had, but considering you can get this started on the stove and to the table in 30 minutes, with relatively little watch time as most is the simmering, this is a convenience food that will stick around my pantry.  I'll be making plenty of  true home made soups this winter, but I doubt I'll attempt wild rice.

While purging my guilt with this confession, I wanted to share an interesting website I discovered that can help, or terrify, the person with kitchen duty in being more aware of what is being served when using various ingredients. Foodfacts.com is a handy, if not frightening, site where a person simply types in the product in the search bar and up will come a report on the ingredients and  brief summary of the nutritional benefits and weaknesses of the product. The report grades the food product as well. The ingredients come up color coded for controversial and non-controversial, and also red indicators for "avoiding" certain food traits.  I hate to admit the soup I will be serving my family gets an "F" at Foodfacts, but so does virtually every other variety of wild rice soup, including those at restaurants such as Panera.  As scary as it is, I think knowing what you are eating, helps you decide how to serve food around it. Sometimes the need for a warm comforting meal, even when time is a factor, overrules fresh and organic, particularly when it is waiting and ready to be prepared from your pantry.

Still, just as restaurants are being legally driven to provide nutritional details on wrappers and placemats, it is good to have a source to get the information a person may want.  Everyone knows McDonalds food eaten as a sole diet is not going to be good for you, but knowing the difference between  a Big Mac and a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, might be enough to alter a choice, or skip altogether and just get a single hamburger with a yogurt and apple slices. I'm not a nutritionist, but I did manage a government funded nutrition program contract for several years, so I can't plead complete ignorance on my food choices. With tools like Foodfacts and nutrition labels out in the open, it should make us more informed consumers.  Whether it changes behaviors is a discussion for another day.