Friday, January 15, 2010

Progresso Plunder

A curious package arrived on my doorstep this week. Can you guess what it was? Well, I'll tell you -- it was a box of soupy plunder from Progresso! In December the fine folks at Progresso contacted me, asking if I would be interested in trying out some of their soups. Of course I was interested, since I already enjoy such varieties as their Light Southwestern Style Veggie and Light Pot Roast soups.

I did not imagine that they would send me such a variety of soups, however! The package contained not only selections of Progresso's light soups, but also some of their no-MSG-added items as well as their regular soups. They even sent me a perfect soup-serving mug (along with a nifty digital jump rope that my apparently old-fashioned brain has yet to figure out)! I can't wait to use the mug week when I pack a Progresso soup for lunch.

Even before this opportunity crossed my path, I have considered Progresso's soups to be solid products. The calories per can are usually quite reasonably, and tend to run between 150 and 250 calories per can, even on the non-light varieties. Add in the fact that the soups are very portable (obviously), sneak in a nice serving of veggies, and are quite tasty. Even the Best Husband Ever enjoys Progresso's chicken noodle and chicken rotini soups. The only downside to these products is that the sodium content can be quite high, but this is true for most if not all canned soups.

Which brings us to our first taste test. I knew that I would be fairly easy to please with these new cans of soupy goodness, but the Best Husband Ever is more particular. I decided to serve him a can of Light Chicken Vegetable Rotini and see if he noticed the difference between it and the regular chicken rotini version.

When the Best Husband Ever encountered his bowl of steaming dinner soup, he noticed a difference immediately. It was not, however, a difference in taste. Instead, he pointed out that his bowl appeared to contained pieces of green beans and red peppers, which either do not appear in the non-light version of the chicken rotini soup, or do but he never noticed them before. Knowing my husband, I'm going with the former, because he's very observant. I shrugged it off, and he (seemingly, anyway), ate up the soup without complaint.

When he finished, I asked the Best Husband Ever what he thought of the soup. He said that it was fine, although he thought that Progresso may have changed their recipe for that flavor of soup. At that point I confessed my little regular-for-light swap, which he in turn shrugged off. Apparently the difference in the two kinds of chicken rotini soups was not enough to affect my husband, who usually staunchly avoids any food categorized as light, outside of slow churned ice cream. Again, since he is usually quite particular about his eats (and we all know that I am, too, so this is not a criticism), I'm going to give Progresso's light rendition of their chicken rotini soup a thumb's up!

Like I have already mentioned, I'm quite excited to crack open some more of my new cans of Progresso soup. You can bet that they'll be following me into work to serve as lunch next week, and that I'll be posting some more thoughts on as yet untasted varieties. Here are a few kinds that I'm most eager to try:

Thanks, Progresso! I'll be enjoying these soups for some time.

People in Haiti, however, are going to be struggling for far longer. Care to help?

And, while you're link-clicking, win a Vita-Mix!

4 comments:

  1. It's always fun to get stuff like that in the mail! I hope you enjoy them :)

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  2. oooh soup! i always loved the progresso soups until i went gluten-free. actually just cleaned out my pantry of 2 bags of these very soups! my local food shelf is the recipient of this progresso goodness.enjoy beth!

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  3. How I love free things!! I do eat the occasional Progresso soup.. not too bad! :)

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  4. Great package and review!

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