Soup is Good Food....Right?

One of my favorite comfort foods is soup. Nothing warms me up and improves my mood like a good, soothing cup of soup on a cold, lazy day.  However, many of the soups available to us may not be as nutritious and benefitial as we think. 

Before buying any canned soups at your grocery store, I hope you're reading that nutrition label on the side of the can or box.  Nutritionists agree that a good percentage of Americans fail to read the labels on the sides of prepackaged foods while grocery shopping.  It is one of the best ways to see what you're really consuming, and if you have any type of dietary concern, including high blood pressure, diabetes, calorie counting, carbohydrates, or other health issues, it is the best way to see exactly what's right for you personally.  Aside from cooking up your own soups at home (which is much easier and economical than many people think! Really! Google it.), reading the nutrition label is your number one way to protect yourself from additives, preservatives, chemicals, and other individual health concerns.

But what if you're out at a restaurant?  There's no label on the ladel, and no nutritional info on the side of the bread-bowl.  So unless you're in the back whipping it up yourself, there's really no way to know what's in there, is there?

Well, here is an article from Men's Health magazine that shows what's really inside many of our favorite soups.  What I like about it is it not only lists the sodium, calories, and fat in each soup, it also gives you an alternative to the more unhealthy choice which is lower in these key areas.  Take a look at this article and see if some of what you've been putting into your body is as good for you as you were thinking.  And then let me know what you think at scottsaidso@yahoo.com.  I'll be here, slurping up a bowl of hot tea. 

9 of the Worst Soups in America

Soup may be the ultimate comfort food. It’s warm, it’s nourishing, and you don’t even have to chew it. No wonder Mom made it whenever you were sad, cold, or just plain under the weather.

But here’s a dirty little secret: A lot of soups out there aren’t comfort food at all. They’re discomfort food. That’s because they can make for a lot of discomfort every time you step on the scale, test your blood pressure, or try to squeeze into last year’s swimsuit. Everybody likes a nice, rich broth, but some soups are the Donald Trumps of food: too rich, too thick, and ultimately, full of nonsense.

So whether you’re watching your weight, your blood pressure, or just your general health, take a second look at what’s in your bowl. Here’s how to spot a bad bisque, quick!

#9: WORST SUPERMARKET SOUP
Campbell's Chunky New England Clam Chowder (1 cup)
230 calories
13 g fat (2 g saturated)
890 mg sodium

Each can contains two servings, so the net damage of a full bowl is 460 calories and 1,780 milligrams of sodium. Eat that alongside a sandwich—even a simple ham and cheese—and you're facing an energy tariff of nearly 1,000 calories. The good news? Campbell’s offers a Healthy Request collection of highly improved, updated versions of classic favorites. Make the swap here and you cut an effortless 200 calories from this can and slash the sodium by more than 50 percent.

Eat This Instead!Campbell’s Healthy Request New England Clam Chowder (1 cup)
130 calories
3 g fat (1 g saturated)
410 mg sodium

#8: WORST ASIAN SOUP
P.F. Chang’s Hot and Sour Soup (Bowl)
400 calories
15 g fat (5 g saturated)
5,000 mg sodium

Soup is notorious for being loaded with sodium, but no other bowl on this page comes anywhere close to the 5,000 milligrams in Chang's Hot and Sour. Sure the mineral is necessary for normal bodily functioning, but no person should take in more than 2,300 milligrams per day. Most people would be better maxing out at about 1,500 milligrams. At current rates, Americans consume roughly double their recommended daily intake, which is perhaps why one in three—that's more than 100 million Americans—lives with high blood pressure. Unfortunately there's not a safe bowl on Chang's menu, so if you want soup, you'll have to downgrade to the starter size. Egg Drop is the best choice, but if you slip up and order a full bowl, expect the sodium to skyrocket to 2,410 milligrams.

Eat This Instead!PF Chang’s Egg Drop Soup (Cup)
60 calories
3 g fat
640 mg sodium

Bonus Tip: Many people never look past the calorie and fat counts on food labels, but sodium is every bit as important to monitor. To learn more about which sodium-packed foods to avoid, check out the 30 Saltiest Foods in America.

#7: WORST POTATO SOUP
Applebee’s Baked Potato Soup (Bowl)
440 calories
31 g fat (14 g saturated)
1,270 mg sodium

Starting your meal with this bowl of soup is like swinging through the McDonald's drive-thru for a Double Cheeseburger on the way to dinner. Of course, the cheeseburger is healthier—it won't saddle you with as much sodium or saturated fat. If you're looking for a starter soup, think broth. It whets your appetite without pumping you full of cream or butter.

Eat This Instead!Applebee’s Chicken Noodle Soup (Bowl)
160 calories
4 g fat (1 g saturated)
1,120 mg sodium

#6: WORST SOUTHWESTERN SOUP
Chili’s Sweet Corn Soup (Bowl)
450 calories
36 g fat (20 g saturated)
960 mg sodium

Unprocessed corn is a great source of fiber, folate, phosphorus, and manganese. But this bowl? It's just a great source of saturated fat. In fact, one serving contains 20 grams, which is your entired day's allotment. Instead, opt for the Chicken and Green Chile soup. It’s garnished with heart-healthy avocado, and the heat from the peppers will jumpstart your metabolism. The sodium is a little higher, but in this case it's worth it—you shed 250 calories and cut the saturated fat by 85 percent.

Eat This Instead!Chili’s Chicken and Green Chile Soup (Bowl)
200 calories
7 g fat (3 g saturated)
1,240 mg sodium

#5: WORST VEGETABLE SOUP
Einstein Bros. Broccoli Cheese Soup (Bowl)
470 calories
33 g fat (19 g saturated, 1 g trans)
1,910 mg sodium

Most iterations of broccoli cheese soup are made up of very little broccoli and a whole lot of cheese, and no bowl exemplifies that problem better than this one from Einstein Bros. These florets amount to little more than flotsam in a sea of highly saturated dairy fat. Opt for the Chicken Noodle instead and you'll win every nutritional matchup as well as earn 80 percent of your vitamin A for the day.

Eat This Instead!Einstein Bros. Chicken Noodle Soup (Bowl)
180 calories
6 g fat (1.5 g saturated)
1,210 mg sodium

DID YOU KNOW? Smart snacking can work wonders on your waistline. Curb your cravings between meals with any of these great 50 Best Snack Foods in America—they'll help keep you lean and full all day long!    

#4: WORST CHOWDER
Red Lobster’s New England Clam Chowder (Bowl)
480 calories
34 g fat (20 g saturated)
1,390 mg sodium

Notice something here? This is the second clam chowder on this list. That's because the New England version of the soup is made with a thick and fatty base of oil and cream. But don't worry; you don't have to give up chowder entirely. Just swtich to Manhattan style. It swaps out the cream for tomato, eliminating virtually all the dangerous fats. If you make this switch just three times a week, you'll drop 9 pounds over the course of a year. The sodium's still culpable though, so make an effort to go low-sodium for the rest of the day.

Eat This Instead!Red Lobster’s Manhattan Clam Chowder (Bowl)
160 calories
2 g fat (1 g saturated)
1,420 mg sodium 

#3: WORST BISQUE
Au Bon Pain’s Lobster Bisque (Large)
540 calories
39 g fat (24 g saturated, 1.5 g trans)
1,830 mg sodium

Lobster on its own has a number of merits: it’s tasty, low-fat, and loaded with protein. Too bad those merits don't hold up when it's drowning in a viscous puddle of fat. This bowl comes with the usightly blemish of trans fat plus 20 percent more saturated fat than you should consume in an entire day. And in terms of overall energy, you would have to run five miles to undo the damage. Better choice: Switch to the Tomato Rice soup. It keeps the calories commendably low and carries one of the lowest sodium counts you're likely to ever encounter in a commercially prepared soup.

Eat This Instead!Au Bon Pain’s Tomato Rice Soup (Large)
170 calories
2 g fat (0 g saturated)
390 mg sodium

#2: WORST CHILI
Panera’s All-Natural Steak Chili with Cornbread (Large)
580 calories
26 g fat (8 g saturated)
1,330 mg sodium

Chili has a lot going for it: protein from the meat, fiber from the beans, and plenty of phytonutrients from the tomato base. This bowl might actually pass muster if it weren't for the 200-calorie hunk of cornbread that comes with it. If you must order the chili, opt out of the cornbread. Otherwise, you're better off with the soup-and-salad combo below.

Eat This Instead!Panera’s Low-Fat Garden Vegetable Soup with Pesto and Classic Café Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette (You Pick Two combo)
190 calories
8 g fat (1 g saturated)
960 mg sodium

#1: WORST “HEALTHY” SOUP
Cosi’s Tomato & Basil Aurora Soup (Large)597 calories
54 g fat (33 g saturated)
1,701 mg sodium

In terms of saturated fat, this bowl trounces every other soup on this page. That's nothing to be proud of. What's most frightening here is that one would expect a tomato-based soup to be relatively safe. Guess it's true what they say: You can't judge a soup by its vegetables. (They do say that, right?) Switch to the Chicken Queso Tortilla Soup for a low-calorie, high protein alternative.

Eat This Instead!Cosi’s Chicken Queso Tortilla Soup (Large)
300 calories
13 g fat (7 g saturated)
1,200 mg sodium

BONUS TIP: Desserts are like soup. Some rev up your metabolism and provide nutrients that push the junk out of your diet—and the fat out of your body! Others contain more than an entire day's worth of calories, fat, sugar and salt! This is why you need this handy (and certainly eye-popping) list of the The 24 Best (and Worst) Desserts in America.

Let Scott know what you think! Email him at scottsaidso@yahoo.com.

5 Foods That Help You Sleep

Here's some timely information from Yahoo! Health that I stumbled upon during a night of restless sleep.  I've always heard that "warm milk" was a soothing way to induce sleep if you were up late and not able to get to sleep on your own.  That got me thinking as to why, and what other types of foods might get us to feel sleepy.  Like Thanksgiving, right?  Eating that big turkey dinner always put half of my family into some kind of food-induced comas half way into the football game.  And I know that if I eat any breads in the morning, I need a nap!

So take a look at these 5 Foods That Make You Sleepy, and see if you have any of these are better than counting sheep for you.

Five Foods That Make You Sleepy

Should you let yourself have that midnight snack if you're having trouble sleeping and you think hunger might be part of the problem? Here are five foods that can actually help you drift off:
Can't Get a Good Night's Sleep? 5 Surprising Reasons

1. Cherries. Fresh and dried cherries are one of the only natural food sources of melatonin, the chemical that controls the body's internal clock to regulate sleep. Researchers who tested tart cherries and found high levels of melatonin recommend eating them an hour before bedtime or before a trip when you want to sleep on the plane.

2. Bananas. Potassium and magnesium are natural muscle relaxants, and bananas are a good source of both. They also contain the amino acid L-tryptophan, which gets converted to 5-HTP in the brain. The 5-HTP in turn is converted to serotonin (a relaxing neurotransmitter) and melatonin.

3. Toast. Carbohydrate-rich foods trigger insulin production, which induces sleep by speeding up the release of tryptophan and serotonin, two brain chemicals that relax you and send you to sleep.

4. Oatmeal. Like toast, a bowl of oatmeal triggers a rise in blood sugar, which in turn triggers insulin production and the release of sleep-inducing brain chemicals. Oats are also rich in melatonin, which many people take as a sleep aid.

5. Warm milk. Like bananas, milk contains the amino acid L-tryptophan, which turns to 5-HTP and releases relaxing serotonin. It's also high in calcium, which promotes sleep.

I would be interested to hear what you think about these foods and if they've had any affect on you. Feel free to contact me at the email scottsaidso@yahoo.com.   For more information and to see the actual article, please clink on the link below.

5 Foods That Help You Sleep

National Nutrition Month and More!

While it has been said it often comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, the Month of March is famous for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Spring! New life, full of promise, and a great time to make important changes in our lives.  If you're considering making any improvements in your life, consider your diet. What you eat plays a tremendous role in every aspect of your life, and is a great way to look towards increasing energy and vitality.  March is the perfect month for things nutritious, as it just happens to be National Nutrition Month!  It's loaded with events and activities, including Physical Activity Week, National School Gardening Week, and even National School Breakfast Week!  And March is also known as:
•National Caffeine Awareness Month

•National Flour Month
•National Frozen Food Month
•National Noodle Month
•National Peanut Month
•National Sauce Month
•UK: National Veggie Month

Of the many events crammed into the month of March, here are just a few:
•American Chocolate Week (3rd week)
•Bubble Gum Week
•Egg Salad Week
•Florida Strawberry Festivals
•Garden Book Week
•Great American Meatout - Don’t eat meat today.
•Shrove Tuesday - International Pancake Day (can be in Feb or March)
•Maple Festivals at various locations
•National Agriculture Week
•National Poison Prevention Week
•National School Breakfast Week
•Pancake Week
•UK: National SPAM Appreciation Week
•Daylight Savings Time begins on the last Sunday in March and ends the last Sunday of October

Any way you slice it, March is one tasty month.  Punch any of these into your web browser and see what's happening in your area!  If you know of anything in particular you feel our readers could benefit from knowing about, please don't hesitate to let me know!  I look forward to hearing from you.

Burger Beware!

Here's a scary little story, just in time for Halloween: If you have young children at home, you are more likely to spend a larger percentage of your household income each year on Fast Food than on books, educational materials, DVDs, CDs, music downloads, trips to the movies, and video games combined.
And it gets even scarier! Remember, restaurants and fast food franchises are no more interested in our children's health than they are in your own. Consider, for example, that the average burger, soda, and fries that we ate when we were kids had an average of 214 less calories in the 1970s than that same meal has today! And that means that's enough calories to add at least 3 pounds of weight a year to your child's body, even if your child only eats that fast-food meal once a week.
When you examine the evidence, or look at one of those "Nutrition Facts" guides that all fast food places BY LAW must make available to customers, some of the nutritional stats in the foods they sell under the title "kids' meals" are simply terrifying. A grilled cheese with as much fat as 25 strips of bacon? A child-size dessert with more than half a day's worth of calories? Is it any wonder that childhood obesity rates in America have tripled since 1980 — today, 16 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight or obese. An additional 15 percent of kids are "at risk of becoming overweight or obese." 41% of children 9 to 11 years of age in California are overweight or at-risk of obesity. And still more frightening is the fact that 70% percent of overweight adolescents end up as overweight or obese adults. And since obesity increases your odds of heart attack, stroke, and early death, think about the impact of an entire generation of overweight children on our country's already troubled health care system. And the effect on families, loved-ones, children. It's a chilling thought, especially if one of those children is your own.
My advice? Know everything that goes into your child's mouth, onto their plate, and what they are eating when you aren't around. Yes, it is extra work for you. But that's why they call it "Parenting". You never get a day off. Check the facts provided by restaurants when you go out to eat. Look into your child's school's lunch and snack program. Read the cereal boxes in the morning, and stay away from "pre-packaged" lunch and snack items. They are usually loaded with extra sugar, sodium, and fats. Make sure your kids eat something green at least once in a while. It is a rarity if they will get anything other than shredded lettuce or deep-fried potatoes in their systems without your diligent intervention. Do what you can, and remember that what they eat now will have direct impact on how they live, and how long they live, in the future.

Surprising Facts About Veggies

Eat Your Veggies -- and wash them down with some Fat!

No, it's true. Many of the nutrients the human body gets from eating vegetables are fat soluable, and thus, are better absorbed into the body when accompanied by a small amount of fat. Which means that you will actually get more out of that salad you're eating for lunch if you go with something other than the fat-free ranch dressing.

Some information on absorption of minerals and benefits from the veggies we eat caught my attention recently. Please click on the link to get the original story and first-hand information. I found some of the information surprising, and would like to know what your thoughts are.


Get The Most Nutrition From Your Veggies : NPR

Negative Calories: Lose Weight While You Eat?

"Is it true that celery burns more calories to eat than the food itself contains? I've heard the same thing about Pineapple. Is it true?"

I recently received this question from a reader, and I felt I should take some time and get to the bottom of the often misunderstood nutritional Catch-22 called "The Negative Calorie Diet."

I think we've all heard this claim, but is it true, or is it an Urban Myth? And if it is true, does that mean that other foods, besides celery, take more energy to eat than they contain?

In order to answer this, we have to consider that a "calorie" is identified as a unit of energy, basically the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celcius. And, it is important to remember also that if the foods you eat contain more calories than you are using, you start to store up that un-used energy in the form of fat.

Nothing wrong with fat! Every body needs it. It gives our bodies flexibility; makes our skin soft and supple; allows our organs to operate efficiently. However, too much fat can lead to problems. It's hard for the organs of the body to do their jobs efficiently when surrounded by fat. It's tough for our blood to course correctly through our veins and arteries when they are clogged with fat and plaque. It's difficult for our muscles to support us when they are marble-ized with fat like a 12-ounce Rib Eye steak.

So how do we get rid of the fat? We burn the calories!
How do we burn the calories?
Well, we could excersize...or we could eat more.

Yes, that's right. According to the "Urban Myth," and to recent research, Eating more of the right types of foods can actually help us lose fat! It all goes back to the idea of calories. As we stated, if the foods we eat contain more calories than our bodies are using, we gain weight. Inversely, if the body uses more calories to chew and digest foods than the foods that are being chewed and digested actually contain, the extra energy it takes to process those foods will have to come from the stored fat in our bodies!

This is genius!
or...
It's completely nuts.

To figure it out, check out the link below that will take you to a website where you can judge for yourself. It will point out a variety of foods that contain less calories than the body uses to chew and digest them, making them Fat Reducing Foods! Aside from Celery, there's Garlic, Asparagus, Watermelon, Mango and a host of other summer-time yummies that, according to research, claim to burn away fat while you eat them!

So, go look them up and see if your favorite food is listed. After you check them out, come on back and tell me what you think about this whole idea. I'll be here, burning fat and eating my own words. Yum!

http://www.fatfreekitchen.com/negative-calorie-foods.html

What You Don't Know About the Foods You Eat: Secret Ingredients!

Each day I research more and more into the foods we as Americans eat, and each day I find surprising information that I never knew, or more facts to back up my original ideas. I recently was involved in a discussion with co-workers about "Hidden Ingredients," or substances used in the creation of some of our most popular foods which most of us would never even guess would be found in them. Ingesting most of these "secret" ingredients may not necessarily be dangerous to the majority of our population, but not knowing about them even being there is, to me, even more dangerous. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The importance of understanding the way food is grown, harvested, processed, and packaged is one of the smartest things you can do to keep yourself healthy. And today, it has also become big business.

Companies spend billions of dollars designing foods, processing foods, and wrapping it all up in neat and attractive packages. But what's inside those colorful wrappers can be deceiving. We've already talked about how important it is to read the Nutrition Information Label on packaged foods in some of my earlier Blogs, but it's shocking to realize that even the ingredient lists don't always give you the full story on the chemicals, additives, and fillers that may be included in the food you eat.

For instance, McDonald's dips its french fries in sugar to give them that crispy, golden-brown appearance. Now, is that included in a list of ingredients plastered on the side of the fry box? Nope. It's strictly "eater beware!"

Here is more information that highlights the importance of knowing what we are eating. Click on the following link to read all about what they put in the food you put into you.

HowStuffWorks "10 Quirky Facts About Mass-produced Food"