When I visited Whole Foods Grocery last week, I was planning to purchase a carton or two of soups from Pacific Natural Foods. They were on sale for $2.79 and Whole Foods was offering a $1 coupon.
Personally, I like Pacific Natural Foods as a company. They are independently owned, unlike Imagine Foods, which is owned by Hain. I try to choose chicken broth from Pacific, but I have purchased Imagine brand when it’s a better bargain.
So, I thought this will be a great opportunity to try another soup flavor, and I thought the creamy tomato would be a good choice. When I saw the stack at the Whole Foods store, I casually glanced at the list of ingredients and was shocked to see evaporated cane juice was added, making the total sugar 12 grams.
List of Ingredients:
Organic Reduced fat milk
Filtered water
Organic tomato paste
Organic evaporated cane juice
Sodium citrate
Sea salt
Organic rice flour
Organic cheese flavor
Organic garlic powder
Organic onion powder
Organic white pepper
I initially thought it was only that particular soup, but nope, I checked every single blend, and they ALL had evaporated cane juice.
Why?
Aren’t tomatoes and/or butternut squash sweet enough without adding more sugar to their recipe? Even the French Onion had added sugar!
Are we THAT addicted to sugar, that we can’t even get away from it in our natural soups? Do we really need extra sugar and salt to make our food taste better? sigh. :(
The worst part is that a lot of healthy eaters probably trust Pacific to produce a quality healthy product, and probably don’t even bother to check the list of ingredients. I know I don’t always check, but I’m glad I did this time!
Needless to say, I was very disappointed and did not buy any Pacific Natural soups. Bummer.