When I need a quick meal I often turn to the old stalwart - a tin of soup.

For me it has to be Heinz soup and my favourite happens to be their classic vegetable soup. I have tried the various other vegetable soups they make such as winter vegetable and spring vegetable but they just don't taste as good to me.

A 400g tin of Heinz Vegetable Soup will currently set you back 60p in Tesco's so the price is good then.

The label round the tin has the instantly recognisable green Heinz logo on the front with the words Heinz Vegetable Soup written inside it and pictures of the various vegetables contained in the soup beneath it. There are also three little green labels announcing '89 calories per serving', 'low fat' and suitable for vegetarians'.

The vegetable soup is made 'starting with delicious rich tomatoes and adding as blend of selected vegetables and pasta'.

So which vegetables can you find in the soup? Actually there is quite a variety in there - carrots, potatoes, swede, onions, peas and haricot beans. In fact 29% of the contents of the tin are made up of vegetables.

The tin has a ring pull top making it very easy to open and pour into the saucepan for heating The first thing you notice is the rich reddish brown colour of the soup together with lots of recognisable pieces of vegetables. How many times have you opened a tin only to find pieces of things that are unidentifiable?

I heat my soup in a saucepan on the hob stirring continuously. You are advised not to let it boil as this can impair the flavour although I do let it begin to bubble and have never noticed a problem with the taste.

It can also be heated in the microwave if you prefer - heat on full power for 2 minutes, stir then heat for a further minute.

Once my soup is hot I pour it into a bowl and eat with a chunk of bread for a tasty, quick and reasonably healthy meal.

The soup tastes lovely. The basic liquid has a light tomato taste and the vegetable pieces are plentiful and tasty and you can identify each by taste and look.

The information on the tin refers to a portion as 200g which is half a tin but I always have the whole tin and make a main meal of it.

The nutritional information for the whole tin is as follows:
Calories 178
Protein 4g
Carbohydrate 33g
Of which sugars 12.6g
Fat 3.4g
Of which saturates 0.2g
Fibre 3.6g
Salt 2.6g

This information is shown on the label as per 100g and per serving of 200g.

Having looked more closely at the nutritional information a
I am surprised to see the amount of salt in this soup. When you consider that the recommended daily intake is only 6g and this tin of soup contains 2.6g which is almost half of that intake it begs the question is that much salt really necessary?

Having said that I do find this a quick tasty meal when eaten with a chunk of crusty bread and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a nice vegetable soup.

Once empty the tin can be washed and recycled with your fortnightly can and glass collection so that's another plus point too!

www.heinz.co.uk

H J Heinz Co Ltd
Hayes
Middlesex
UB4 8AL