Dr Oz Soup Investigation: How To Find Healthy Low-Sodium Soup

Dr Oz: What’s Really In The Soup You’re Eating?

Who doesn’t love a good bowl of warm, comforting soup? If you know what to look for, soup can make for a great nutritious meal. But what’s really in the soup you’re buying? Dr Oz set out to find out in his latest Food Truth Investigation.

Soup is delicious and versatile, and is the original one pot meal. Whether you enjoy your soup sweet or savory, hot or cold, soup has always been known as both economical and nutritious. Because soup ingredients like vegetables and herbs are cooked in their own juices, it increases the potency of vitamins and minerals, all while providing your body with fluid. All that combined makes soup a superfood. Soups can even help the body detox.

Dr Oz: Undercover Soup Investigation

Now, many soups have “gone gourmet” with trendy versions showing up at specialty shops offering hot soup stations, grab and go soups, frozen soups, canned soups, dehydrated soups, and more. But what cost are we paying for convenience? What’s really going into those take-out soups we all know and love?

Dr Oz conducted an undercover investigation to find out. He sent his med team to collect samples of soup before sending them off to a lab to be tested. Are you ready to find out what was in those soups?

Dr Oz: How To Find Healthy Soup & Avoid Too Much Sodium

To help with his discussion, Dr Oz welcomed celebrity chef Curtis Stone. According to Stone, the problem with soup these days is that we stopped making it. We’re now relying more on pre-made soups, store-bought soups, and other more convenient versions.

So what about those soup samples? After they were tested at a lab, Dr Oz found that they ranged from 454 milligrams of salt to 1,311 milligrams of sodium. For a serving of soup, the FDA recommends no more than 565 milligrams of sodium. There was another soup that below the FDA’s recommendation, but three more that were above it.

Both Stone and Dr Oz encouraged viewers to start asking questions before purchasing food. If you’re looking into getting soup, ask what’s in it or for the nutrition facts.

Dr Oz: Healthy Ways To Add Flavor To Soup

You can also purchase canned, boxed, or frozen soup, but you first need to look at the ingredient list. The fewer the ingredients, preservatives, and additives, the better. Dehydrated soup could be a great option because it’s essentially just ingredients that are preserved without having to add anything to them.

As for low-sodium soups, Dr Oz wanted consumers to be aware that usually when sodium is taken out, other ingredients like sugar are added in for flavor. That’s why Dr Oz and Curtis Stone suggested you add your own flavor and seasoning to soups to avoid eating too much sodium. You can easily add flavor to a dehydrated soup without using salt, by using hot sauce, lemon juice, or fresh herbs. You can make a “bouquet garden” out of parsley, thyme, and bay leaf all tied together.