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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Everyone has a can of Campbell soup with the familiar red and white label on the shelf in the kitchen cabinet. Some of us grew up on casseroles based on cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. Many of our mothers made homemade mac & cheese by using Campbell’s cheddar cheese soup. The Campbell brand is 115 years old and it is keeping up with the times.
Why should you care about soup, you’re thinking? Here a few good reasons.
People who start a meal with soup eat fewer calories than those who don’t have a soup course. It’s estimated that eating soup daily can save 100 calories. Over the course of a year, that equals a 10 pound weight loss. Canned soup averages $.50 a serving. During these tough economic times that is a bargain. And, Campbell has been silently lowering the sodium in its soups and expanding the product line to provide many new healthy options.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Campbell Soup headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. It is a sprawling, beautiful complex with a building so large you need a GPS to get around successfully. Processed foods are often maligned and canned soup is the quintessential old-fashioned processed food. But, after my visit I gained some insights you might find interesting.
Did you know that 25 million people eat Campbell’s Tomato Soup each week? Raise your hand if you are one of the crowd. In the early 1980s, tomato soup had 917 milligrams of sodium in one serving. Over the last 30 years Campbell has quietly been lowering the sodium in this soup and many others. Tomato soup was first lowered to 710 milligrams of sodium. Today, the iconic and beloved tomato soup has 480 milligrams of sodium in a serving, a saving of 32%. And, the taste has not been compromised. How does Campbell do that?
Campbell’s employs an army of trained chefs and food science professionals. These teams devise soup recipes that are first tested in the Campbell’s test kitchens, next tried on employees and consumers in taste panels, and finally formulated into a recipe that can be canned for retail sale. The timeline for a recipe can take as long as 18 months until the product is perfected.
As the sodium was lowered in tomato soup, it was taste-tested in 50 states by over 10,000 consumers. And even with all this effort to define consumer’s preferences, the sodium lowering statement is simply noted on the back of the label. Why? Because Campbell’s has learned through extensive consumer surveys that we all know we should lower our salt intake. If fact, 65% of consumers surveyed say they are concerned about salt. However, when a product boldly announces it is low in sodium, sales often fall off. Consumers equate low sodium with lack of taste, but they associate salt with adding taste. That’s a tough tightrope to walk when marketing a product.
Campbell’s has reduced the sodium by as much as 45% in almost half of their total soup varieties. In the condensed soup group 45% of the soups have 25% to 45% less sodium than the original recipe. This is no easy chore because not all soups varieties can lower sodium and still retain the taste consumers want. But, for a brand such as Campbell’s, which is widely eaten, any sodium reduction will have an impact on the population.
Currently, we eat about 3,500 milligrams of sodium a day. The latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans to be released at the end of this year are recommending 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day for adults. Every one of the 25 million Campbell tomato soup users will save 230 milligrams of sodium a serving with the reformulated, lowered sodium soup. On a public health scale this amounts to close to a 6 billion milligram reduction in sodium nationwide.
If every food manufacturer equaled this effort, it would make a significant impact on the health of Americans by lowering their overall sodium intake. It’s estimated that over 75% of our salt intake comes from salt and sodium-containing additives used in food processing. Only slightly over 10% comes from salt used in cooking or at the table. The rest is from sodium naturally found in foods.
Next time you grocery shop, take a closer look at the soup aisle. You might be surprised at what you find.
© NRH Nutrition Consultants, Inc.
Jo-Ann Heslin, MA, RD, CDN is a registered dietitian and the author of the nutrition counter series for Pocket Books with 12 current titles and sales in excess of 8 million books. The books are widely available at your local or on-line bookseller.
Current titles include:
The Calorie Counter, 5th Ed., 2010
The Ultimate Carbohydrate Counter, 3rd Ed., 2010
The Complete Food Counter, 3rd ed., 2009
The Fat Counter, 7th ed., 2009
The Healthy Wholefoods Counter, 2008
The Cholesterol Counter, 7th Ed., 2008
The Diabetes Carbohydrate and Calorie Counter, 3rd Ed., 2007
For more information on Jo-Ann and her books, go to TheNutritionExperts
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