Do you think canned soup and canned vegetables are really that nutritious?

Question

I have heard that canned foods lose a lot of their nutrients through their preservation process. I also wonder how many preservatives or chemicals are not good for you in there. Does anybody know?
It sure its easier though to pop open a can of vegetable soup as opposed to using fresh vegetables to make something from scratch. Any knowledge about this?

Answer 1

Yes and has too much salt and preservatives too.

Answer 2

There's a great book out there called "Preserving the Harvest". You should read it. The generalities are that the least nutritious way to preserve is canning, then freezing and then dry. The most nutritious is cold preservation (not frozen). However, some types of food are just better suited to certain types of preservation. Foods start losing nutrients as soon as they are picked so flash freezing would seem to be the best, but the freezing process itself can cause loss of nutrition.

The trade-off seems to be that the longer the shelflife for the food, the less nutritious it will be. If you can use cold storage to preserve your food (root cellar etc.) that is the most nutritious, but least effective preservation...next would be dry preservation (good for 2-4 months), next freezing (6-8 months) and canning (up to a year....longer in some cases). Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Canned vegetables maintain their nutrients but some are high in sodium unless you get the kind that say "no salt". It is the same with canned fruits in this case you can get light fructose or heavy syrup. The best bet is frozen vegetables that do maintain their nutrients because they are frozen right after they are picked. Vegetables that have been sitting out a while lose their values and especially more after they are boiled. Canned soup are extremely high in sodium.

Answer 4

They lose some of their nutrients as canned food is preserved by heating. However, they don't contain any chemical preservatives. Some soups may also contain quite a lot of salt.

So, although they are not quite as good as fresh, they are better than nothing!

Answer 5

Canned fruit and veg and soup probably arent as good as eating fresh fruit because lots use lots of salt id imagine (same with things like readymeals and processed foods) and definately lots of additives to preserve them. Recently had lots of colds/ infections and i asked the doc what things i could do to build up my immune system again and he told me to eat fresh (or frozen is often just as good) not tinned food cos of all the additives etc. If ur worried why not just go for the healthier options, with less salt, or natural thingies (lazy persons way...). I am sure that it is still fairly good for u in comparison to some other foods, why not just get some frozen veg and cook that as opposed to using soups all the time? They dont have as many additives etc and wud be fairly easy to cook.

Answer 6

Dear Ronald R,
Canned veggies are nutritional but they are packed in heavy doses of salt, so I recommend that whenever you open a can of veggies, you put them into a collander and thouroughly rinse them to get off all the salt. Another positive about canned veggies is that they are properly cooked but to a minimun time while still maintaining tenderness. This saves you a lot of time and energy.
About canned soups, you need to CAREFULLY read the labels and watch out for(MSG) Monosodium Glutamate, the poison preservative that most companies use. Avoid MSG soups, because MSG is detrimental to your health, especially it raises your blood pressure and numerous other bad things. I use Campbells Healthy Request which have less sodium and NO MSG! Hope these tips help!

Answer 7

I think that if you are not going to be getting you veggi's any other way, you should be ok. Granted, fresh will be better for you but we live in a fast paced culture and not everyone has time to chop veggi's and make soup. Just watch the fat and salt in the soups.

Answer 8

1. they're better than no vegetables at all.
2. they usually have lots of sodium in them, so if you are watching your salt intake, you need to limit the canned foods (all canned foods)
3. sometimes it's just not worth it to make, for example, chicken noodle soup "from scratch"...but as far as vegetables go, I prefer fresh or frozen to canned anyday!

Answer 9

Ya hey Ronald.Hows it going?Yes your right about the loosing nutrients through the cooking process.
O.k. listen this is what I do.
COOK LIPTONS CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP THE 1 THAT TAKES 4 CUPS OF WATER,and ADD AN EXTRA CUP OF WATER.
5 MINUTES BEFORE IT'S COOKED OPEN YOUR MIXED FROZEN VEGIES FROM FREEZER TOSS A CUP OF THOSE IN; AND YOUR GOOD TO GO.
IF, FEELING AMBITIOUS,PEEL AND DICE 1OR 2 POTATOS AND ADD TO THE SOUP DURRING COOKING TIME.
IF YOUR FEELING REAL AMBITIOUS ADD REAL CHICKEN.
If it's not too much work try it and see if you think it's healthier,or tastes better than canned soup.
Well happy cooking...

Answer 10

Belive it or not they can be more nutricious than fresh in that the crops sold to canneries are usually left in the ground to ripen much longer because they don't need to have a shelf life since they are usually canned within hours of being picked, instead of being sold and trucked to a wholesaler who then sells them and ships them to a retailer who then distributes and ships them to his many stores where they often end up sitting on the shelves for days on end! Fully ripened crops are more nutricious and usually tastier than the ones picked while still green.

Answer 11

Considering the alternative, doing all that work yourself, it's a fair trade. By law the contents and nutritional value are printed on the containers, so no mystery about if it's good for you. Of the MILLIONS of people that have survived on canned food there are relatively few complaints.