published on May 15, 2024 in blog

RANKED: These are the soups with the least sodium

Ready for the apocalypse. Rebecca Harrington/Tech Insider

Prepared soups are a fantastic option to have in your cupboard if you are ever too busy or too sick to make soup from scratch.

They last a really long time, too, so they'll probably be a main food staple if we ever have an apocalypse.

But many of these canned soups contain about a third of your daily recommended sodium intake in a 1 cup serving, which is 767 mg for adults. If you slurp down a whole can, you'll often get double that. "Light" soups don't fare any better — they tend to have just as much sodium as the original versions.

In fact, most of the sodium we consume doesn't come from the salt shaker; it comes from processed foods.

While recommendations about how much salt each person should eat vary and are somewhat controversial, the USDA recommends eating fewer than 2,300 mg a day. The American Heart Association says people who want to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke should try to cut back even more, to 1,500 mg. (People with heart conditions should follow the advice of their doctors.)

To compare the amount of sodium in soups, I went to the grocery store and photographed all the different brands I could. There are a lot of flavors, though, so I stuck with just chicken noodle and tomato for a base comparison.

Here are how 24 soups rank from most to least sodium in a 1 cup serving (which was the most common).

Campbell's Condensed Tomato: 960 mg

Campbell's lists the serving size as 1/2 cup, but the directions say to mix one can of soup with one can of water or milk. Rebecca Harrington/Tech Insider