Non-GMO Soup

[ysabetwordsmith]

Recently I noticed that Campbell's has started labeling its soups with GMO ingredients. As I'm not a fan of frankenfoods, I now need to look for alternatives. There's no such thing as GMO free anymore, but the non-GMO label keeps it to less than 1%.

Organic Soup: The Top 5 Brands

We Tested More Than 75 Store Bought Soups, And These Are The Ones We'd Buy Again


These are some of the soups that seem worth trying to me.

(preferably low sodium, regular or no salt acceptable)
Health Valley Cream of Mushroom Soup
Health Valley Chicken Noodle Soup
Health Valley Chicken and Rice Soup
Health Valley Cream of Chicken Soup

Imagine Organic Hearty Chicken Noodle Soup
Imagine Organic Portobello Mushroom Creamy Soup

Pacific Foods All Natural New England Clam Chowder
Pacific Foods Organic Chicken Noodle Soup with Chicken Bone Broth
Pacific Foods Organic Chicken Noodle Soup
Pacific Foods Organic Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Pacific Foods Organic Cream of Chicken Condensed Soup
Pacific Foods Organic Cream of Mushroom Condensed Soup
Pacific Foods Organic Cashew Carrot Ginger Bisque

Amy's Soups Mushroom Bisque with Porcini Soup

Annie's Organic Chicken Noodle Soup
Annie's Organic Star Pasta & Chicken Soup

Comments

[siberian_skys]

I didn't know Amy's made a Mushroom Bisque. I have to track that down. It sounds awesome.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

my_partner_doug came home with the Imagine mushroom soup. We plan to make Crockpot Mushroom Chicken with it.

Re: Yes ...

[siberian_skys]

That sounds really good. I love mushrooms.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Well, the original version is mind-blowingly good, so I'm very hopeful about the new soup in this role. Usually if you upgrade ingredients, you upgrade taste. :D If you're a mushroom fan, give it a try. It can be eaten alone, or poured over a starch base such as noodles or rice.

Today's recipe is a mushroom and black-eyed pea curry from an Indian cookbook.

Re: Yes ...

[siberian_skys]

I'm a huge mushroom fan. I'm always disappointed that the local grocery has such a sad selection of them.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Button mushrooms are okay. Baby Bellas or mature portabellas are better. Hen-of-the-Woods is a favorite among the less common mushrooms. Shiitake is also great, we have some dried ones. I've had morels and love them, but could never afford to buy them. I adore truffles; we have truffle infused oil, truffle salt, and Mushroom Truffle Hunt powder. I don't really feel inclined to spend more on whole ones as these ingredients produce excellent effects. Locally the selection is very shallow, but occasionally someone gets a medley.

Re: Yes ...

[siberian_skys]

I've never even seen Hen-of-the-Woods. I bet they're yummy. My parents used to hunt Morels when I was a kid. I would love to get my hands on some. I was watching Guys Grocery Game fairly recently and they had some in the produce section. They made me feel nostalgic. Button and the bellas are tasty, I just like to shake things up once in a while and my local grocery store doesn't seem to want to make that possible. They're produce section is pretty pedestrian. I shouldn't complain. At least I don't live in a food dessert. I'm horrified that people have to endure that.

Soup

[dialecticdreamer]

If I start worrying about the frankenfoods that might be in the fresh produce section of the grocery, I am sunk. However, making soup is dead easy, and even a one quart saucepan is two very generous bowls of homemade soup in barely more time than it takes to shop for something canned that doesn't mess with my allergies.

If someone wants to eat more nutritious foods, try making pho, which traditionally is stock or broth with no more than five other ingredients. for example,that's one scallion cut on a sharp angle, to look pretty, a single slice of Canadian bacon chopped (that's a generous amount even in a quart of soup), three cloves of garlic, roughly chopped, and (sweet and sour spices). More on that in a minute.

Chopping the vegetables was long done before the water for a packet of Ramen noodles came to a boil. Minutes of work, barely!

About the sweet and sour: I count the few drops of chili oil and the half teaspoon of cider vinegar I used when the soup was dished up as ingredients. The other half of the soup was dressed out with a bit of tamari and half a hard boiled egg.

Total time was less than fifteen minutes, including setting up the pot and washing the knife and cutting board after the bowls were dished up.

So it can be done quickly, which takes some of the pressure off making a big pot of soup.

I just wish that I could be certain that the raw ingredients, from scallions to flour or eggs, were non-GMO. As it is, I can't TELL, because there's plenty of reasons for grocery stores not to disclose that information about fresh produce.

Re: Soup

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>If I start worrying about the frankenfoods that might be in the fresh produce section of the grocery, I am sunk. <<

I know that feel. There are frankenapples now, designed to disguise how stale they are by not browning when cut. >_<

If you know the specific cultivars from before gengineering, those should still be safe. Anything wind-pollinated or animal-pollinated is at risk if a franked version exists, though, which is why there is no GMO free food anymore -- the labels only guarantee less than 1%. Totally useless for anyone allergic to GMOs.

Organic does not allow GMO ingredients, so anything organic is also as safe as can be had. It is also half again to twice as expensive, sometimes more. This applies to fresh products as well as boxed goods.

Read about non-GMO and other food labels.

Re: Soup

[dialecticdreamer]

Organics are right out of my price range. I don't have a way to set up a container garden the way I did when we rented an apartment. It's increasingly bothersome, because back THEN, the idea was to expose the boys to the way food HAPPENED, and maybe have some decent tomatoes...

NOW, it's a matter of finding or growing food that doesn't make me sick.

Re: Soup

[ysabetwordsmith]

That sucks.

A safe, nutritious diet is out of price range and/or reach for many if not most Americans. If you look at what causes premature death in poor people, most of those are caused or exacerbated by bad diet, which is all they can get, which therefore counts as genocide. Same with Indian reservations and commodity foods.

We can't afford to eat all organic, but can manage to buy some organic foods. I'm no good at growing vegetables, but I do all right with herbs and some fruits.

Re: Soup

[dialecticdreamer]

Try calculating the cost of a basic, barely-1500 kCal per day, diabetic friendly diet. That means EVERY DAY-- getting five fruits and veg, paying for five to six ounces of LEAN meat, and THEN fitting in carbs in controlled amounts with the calorie allotment left over.

THEN try doing that with a total of $3.45 per day.

It can't be done. EVERY decision weighs cost against health, and it's utterly soul-wrecking to try to do any of it when the common public narrative is to CUT benefits instead of improving them.