Campbell's Select Harvest Chicken w/Egg Noodles Soup Review

I have fallen into the habit of making my soup which means that I pretty much know what goes into what I have been eating.  Perhaps this is why I got a little careless about label information.  At any rate, I haven't totally given up on commercially prepared and canned soups and had become interested in the new Campbell soups I had been hearing about.  When Peapod put them on sale for $1.67 each, I went for them faster than a dog lunging for a Pupperoni snack.  In my haste and exuberance, I didn't even spare a glance at the nutritional information which Peapod conscientiously posts for all the products they sell. 

Yesterday for lunch I tried Campbell's Select Harvest Chicken with Egg Noodles Soup.  With no small difficulty, I pried the metal lid back, replaced the plastic cover, and microwaved for two popping, banging minutes.  I don't know what other eager soup-eaters' experience has been like, but I enjoyed this soup.  In my bowl at least, there were impressive chunks of carrots, celery, chicken white meat and nice densely textured egg noodles which weren't soggy as they usually are in canned soup.  My cup ranneth over with delicious ingredients and just enough broth to hold them all together.  Although it seemed a tad bland to me, I figured this was a good sign -- in fact, I was so confident that I was eating something healthy that after I was done, I wouldn't have looked at the label information at all if I hadn't been ready to do this review.  OH BOY!

STATS:

Most important here is that Campbell's wants us to believe that one of these bowls contains TWO servings.  That may technically be true -- I think that two cups would fit in a 15 oz. microwave container -- but let's be realistic.  Most people are going to want to eat the whole bowl and not save the rest for later or share with a friend.  So I'm going to share the stats for the whole container.  Each microwaveable soup bowl contains 240 calories with 80 calories from fat.  There are 8 grams Total Fat, 2 grams Saturated Fat, zero Trans Fat, 50 mg. Cholesterol, 960 mg. Sodium, 24 grams Total Carbs, 2 grams Dietary Fiber, 4 grams Sugars, and 16 grams Protein in addition to a very respectable 80% (D.V.) Vitamin A and 4% Calcium. 

Most of this is actually okay.  This soup that I ate at 11 a.m. for "brunch" was enough to satisfy me until 6:30 p.m.  Campbell's Select Harvest Chicken with Egg Noodles Soup does the job that soup like this was invented for centuries ago -- 240 calories isn't actually bad for such a substantial meal that really delivers in the protein and Vitamin A departments.  A bowl of this kind of thing can make a big difference on one of those frosty winter days which will be here soon. 

My outrage here is with the SODIUM which is 40% of an average adult's daily values.  There is just no reason that this soup had to be THAT salty.  Oh yah, and that sea salt you keep hearing about Campbell's using?  Well, according to the label, less than 2% of all this is sea salt which you get along with a massive dose of the REGULAR salt too.

TASTE TIP:

Because Campbell's Select Harvest Chicken with Egg Noodles Soup seemed a little bland to me at first (compared to my experience with homemade soups), I added a couple good shakes of coarse ground black pepper which served to enhance the taste of the soup's ingredients.  (Whatever you do, don't add more SALT!)