How to identify healthy soup brands at the store that don’t come packaged in cans, cartons, or shelf-stable tetra paks.
When the essential life decision to eat healthy is made, commercial soups are arguably some of the most important processed foods to leave permanently behind.
Surprisingly, a simple switch to a line of healthy soups made with organic homemade bone broth is not as easy as it might seem.
Whether you buy from the supermarket or the health food store, soups in shelf-stable packaging or cans (including bouillon cubes) are unhealthy choices even if organic.
Worse, the vast majority of commercial soups contain neurotoxic MSG and other dangerous additives.
They are hidden under benign-sounding names such as “spices”, “natural flavors”, “seasonings”, “stock”, and “hydrolyzed protein” among dozens of others. (1)
Soup Ingredients and Packaging
Just as consumers catch on to the tricks behind one ingredient pseudonym, food manufacturers change it, resulting in a never-ending game of cat and mouse.
It can be a real challenge for label-reading shoppers to keep up with the many confusing aliases.
When I first realized how nutritionless and toxic soup in cans really is back in 2002, I found it challenging to quickly make the transition to homemade versions.
It seems that when you most need a bowl of healthy soup, you open the freezer to find you are out of broth!
Even if you have good broth on hand, perhaps the necessary ingredients needed to make soup are not available in the vegetable bin.
Who wants to make a run to the store to get soup ingredients, let alone expend the effort required to make a pot of healthy soup, when you are running a fever or simply exhausted from illness?
Aren’t there any brands of healthy soup to have in the pantry in a pinch? Let’s take a look.
Brands of Healthy Soup
Currently, the only place I am currently able to find quality soups the same as I make myself at home is my independently-owned health food store deli.
The chef makes them with real bone broth and organic ingredients.
Yay! So thankful for this option, I can tell you!
If you have any locally owned restaurants or health food delis in your community, ask the chef how the soup is made. You might be pleasantly surprised and find a good source of ready-made soup when you need it.
Cans and Cartons
Sadly, I cannot recommend any brands of soup in cans or cartons. This includes popular organic brands like Amy’s.
The packaging is just too toxic even if the ingredients are acceptable. This includes BPA-free cans, which is a marketing gimmick. Manufacturers simply substitute another similarly toxic chemical such as BPS.
Eating toxic processed food when you are not feeling well is not the best approach for a fast recovery!
Whole Foods Hot Bar
After examining the ingredients of the soups featured at the Whole Foods hot bar (and other health food store mega-chain), it seems wise to avoid them.
These concoctions are typically just commercial soups in disguise. Check the ingredients carefully!
Most have GMOs, hydrolyzed protein, and unhealthy fats like canola oil in them.
Glass Jars
What about Rao’s line of soups in glass jars?
While the packaging is excellent, this brand does not appear to use authentic chicken stock as the base even though the marketing says it is “slow-cooked”. There are also sketchy ingredients such as GMO corn starch for thickening.
5-Minute Soup
If you simply don’t have time to make your own soup or are in a location without kitchen access, it is definitely worth it to at least buy bone broth.
You can make this easy and delicious 5-minute soup by adding just a few spices to the basic broth.
Best Bone Broth
After trying numerous brands and carefully vetting the packaging processes used, I settled on Epic Bone Broth in glass jars as a shelf-stable option.
Unfortunately, this brand has little to no gelatin. The company was also bought out by Big Food (General Mills), which is never a good sign. But, at least the broth is authentic and packaged in safe containers if you need an option while traveling or in a pinch.
A better brand to use if a fridge is available is Bonafide Provisions soups and bone broth as it is gelatinous at room temperature. The cups and frozen bags are safe, but be sure to skip the cartons.
This bone broth brand is also excellent and available across the US which I’ve purchased before and highly recommend.
Watch out for other brands of bone broth that only come in shelf-stable packaging (such as cartons or tetra paks).
The bone broth is boiling hot when it is poured into the tetra paks aseptic cartons lined with plastic. This virtually guarantees a leaching risk of toxins from the plastic into the bone broth.
When it comes to healthy soup and broth brands, it’s not just about ingredients and preparation.
The packaging process is also important to vet before buying!
These look really delicious and would undoubtedly taste much higher quality than what other companies are offering. It should be expected that you have to pay more for better quality stuff. Having some of these on hand would be convenient, thanks!
Yay!!! Something I can buy and not always have to make myself. I’ll be ordering some for the occasional treat.
I would love to see gluten and dairy free! Then I would for sure keep some on hand.
I would absolutely love to have something like this in my freezer, but there is no way in the world I can afford that. Yes, it is top quality, but considering we can’t afford dining out and the cost of this is comparable, it wouldn’t happen. I’ll end up being the one making soup even when I’m sick and the days I don’t feel like it. 🙂 Sigh.
Welcome to my world! You will be a better woman for it. And really, even though it sometimes feels like it, those days don’t last forever! Starting to wish they did sometimes:-)
WHOA. You get colds 🙂
You guys need to pay attention to Sarah’s disclosure policies. They are the tiny little links at the bottom of the posts where she is reviewing products. Like most bloggers, Sarah is being compensated for featuring these products on her blog, so a proverbial grain of salt is needed when following her advice on purchasing products.
I do my own research and make my purchase after investing time and effort in extensive research using the Trivium Method and I also source all my consumption. I vote with my dollar with the basic understanding that real foods that are nutrient dense and good for me and my environment require the right language to acquire. Of course money is that simple language, a language of numbers to engage in commerce. I am the creator of the conditions I find myself in, conditions created from the choices I make. I find Sarah consistently recommends products that I deem worth investing in. I listen to all and follow none, and I am grateful to have a resource in Sarah, how cool that she has found a way to increase her language of commerce by being reimbursed for her valuable time and effort she spends in doing the research and sharing it with us who pay attention. Time is really a spiritual currency, my friend and a wonderful philosopher, Mark Passio says: you use your spiritual currency, Time, two ways, with what you spend your time doing, and what you pay attention to. Thanks Sarah, you rock, and it is women like you who show the rest of us how to do it right so the conditions of health, happiness and wealth or met with right choice.
I am so impressed with all of the inquiries, the likes and the comments being made regarding our soups. I love the opportunity to dialogue and explain they “why” behind our product line “Real True Foods”.
As a clinical nutritionist my advice is to always prepare your food at home to ensure the best possible nourishment. However there are times when I simply do not want to cook. In my quest to find a food line that offered all of my nutritional concerns as a Weston A. Price member and Paleo movement supporter, I came up empty handed. Our ingredients in our foods are ingredients that the average American family does not use in their home. They are ingredients that I tell my clients to use in their quest for good health.
Comparing our soup line to a “Trader Joes, low sodium stock” would be similar to comparing commercial eggs to Pasture eggs. They are both eggs, but the result and nutritional component pales in comparison.
Our bone broth is “Traditional Bone broth”. Before we even begin making our soups our bone broth has been cooked for 24 hours. We do not use just organic bones. We use GRASS FED organic bones. There is a considerable cost difference between organic and Grass-Fed. While there are many cheap, imitation Celtic salts on the market, we only use Selina Brand Celtic sea salt. This salt has over 80 minerals in it, is sun-dried and harvested naturally. A ½ pd bag retails for $11.00. Our water is triple filtered, and our dairy is not just organic dairy. Our dairy is PASTURE dairy. The cream we use is one of the only creams available that doesn’t use guar gum or carrageen. Our organic produce is LOCALLY sourced produce and is never supplied from Mexico or China. The chicken we use is organic, free range, pastured chicken. Again, the price is $11.99 per pound retail for this type of chicken as opposed to organic chicken. The oil we use to cook with is Coconut oil, as olive oil can become rancid when cooking at high temperatures. Our coconut oil is raw, organic and cold pressed. $16.00 retail for a 22 oz jar.
Our consumer is a consumer who understand real food, and the cost of preparing it. Many people question why someone would buy a $5.00 cappuccino from Starbucks when you can make it at home. I agree! . Suja is the fastest growing juice company in the Nation and a bottle of their juice will cost you $8.00 for a 16oz bottle of juice. You can make it for pennies at home Hail Mary’s tarts will cost $4.50 for a 3 oz tart. These are companies that provide convenience to consumers.
There is a cost to having the convenience of Real True Foods that follow the teachings of Dr. Price and the Paleo movement. As we grow, we will be passing our savings on to our consumers. We are happy to be there for those who need us when in a pinch or in need of a break. We do however, always encourage you to cook your meals from home and applaud you for doing so.
In Health and wellness,
Sharon Brown, CN, Certified GAPS Practitioner
At that kind of price, I can make 4 GALLONS of soup, portion it out and freeze it myself, and I usually do, a couple of times a year. This is ridiculous and out of reach for the average American family.
As mentioned in the post, you should obviously continue to make it yourself as you’ve always done (and which I will continue to do). This is an insurance policy when you can’t make it or are out and need something in the freezer in a pinch. Also, at $19.95 per 24 oz. container, it is very reasonably priced … about the same price as the authentic French onion soup at a local restaurant here in my community (which is $10 per bowl).
What about Real Bone Broth stocks listed in the WAPF 2014 Shopping Guide? Has anyone tried them? Are they any good?
YUM! and Hurray!