I was in the grocery store today, looking for some things that are healthy and easily portable to work. There is no shortage of cups of this and cans of that.
But if you read the label, they are all 2, 2.5, or 3.5 servings per container.
For example a cup of lentil soup with a paper, peel off lid. The convenience is you can add water and microwave it in the container, but it makes 2.5 servings. If I were at home I could store the extra. But I am at work and can’t. Why not make a package of one serving?
But I did find single serving, portable soups! Nice. Just the right size! A single serving! Yay! It even has a little hole through which you can sip the soup! But the label warns, “do not microwave in this container”. So I should take a spare bowl, then heat up my soup, then pour it back into the handy container through the tiny hole, then drink it?
Wow. How annoying that must have been to discover. I’ve avoided those simply because how much you have to pay for the privilege of that single serving. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.
If there’s a Safeway near you, check out their Eating Right cup-style soups. My favorite is their split pea (OK, mashed pea, but it’s still good.) There are four or five other flavors as well. The only one I have on hand at the moment is Potato Leek. 140 calories in a single serving cup. Not jam-packed full of a lot of nutritious stuff (It’s part of a balanced diet!) but they don’t add a lot of artificial junk either. Very tasty! And a lot more pleasing to the eye than the Near East brand of cup o’ soups, which are healthy but look gross and sometimes have odd spices of which I’m not accustomed to.
I’ve been very pleased with Safeway’s Eating Right foods. They have frozen dinners, salad dressings, cereals, snack foods (try the Potato Crisps!) and a lot of other really excellent stuff.
If you have Trader Joe’s where ever you are, they have a lot of lunch size portions of various things. Most of them are heat and eat, one serving, okay on nutrition, cost and the like.
The chili in a box also says don’t microwave in this container. I also wondered why, when other brands come in a bowl. And now the boxes disappeared from my local store and all chili is in cans. Go figure.
Both Campbell’s and Healthy Choice make microwaveable soups in one serving containers. They come with the plastic tops and a pull-ring cover. I particularly like the Campbell’s gumbo, which is spicy and filling.
Campbell’s single-serving soup in-a-can is 10.75-oz., and lists the serving size as “1 container”.
The Campbell’s / Healthy Choice soup in microwavable containers are 15.25-oz., and list the serving size as “1 cup (240 mL); Servings about 2”
They used to have smaller microwavable containers, but the local grocery store manager told me they were being phased out, and I haven’t found them locally in years.
Check the nutrition labels and see how much sodium is in each serving. A healthy adult should only have about 2,000 mgs of sodium daily. A lot of soups have about 700 - 900 mgs of sodium per serving. That’s a lot combined with the rest of your daily diet.
Seriously. One regular can is one “serving” for my stomach. And, honestly, soup is one of those foods I don’t worry about too much. Generally speaking, a whole can comes in south of 400 calories anyway, which is perfectly appropriate for a meal, even on a weight loss eating schedule.
Heck, Progresso now has some Weight Watchers approved soups with 60 calories a serving (2 servings per can) and 4 grams of fiber, making them 0 Points. (I count it as 1 Point for the whole can.) Not as tasty as my homemade 0 Point soup, but good in a pinch.