Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

Amy’s Organic Light in Sodium Lentil Soup (Gluten Free)

Readers of this column will know that we have consistently found Amy's foods inconsistent. You can put two of their frozen meals side by side and one will be great and one not any good at all. This occurs across the spectrum of their offerings and while their food is generally too salty when it is good, it's really good.

However, when their food is bad, it's really, really bad (really).

There were two soups on the shelf that we've not put to our testers yet. The first was a Lentil soup and it smelled really good while heating up. Unfortunately, this is not how it tasted. "Like warm, bland, salty brown water with carrots" was one description. For myself, it just tasted like nothing much of anything. No discernable texture, no flavor... just aroma. This soup comes in at 180 calories and 290 mg of sodium per one cup serving and, while you can taste every bit of the salt, it's hard to know where the calories come from.

I will admit to having low expectations of the Low Fat Split Pea soup. Not because it's split pea. I love split pea soup. It's simply that in this day and age we know that low fat foods aren't necessarily good for you but, hey, it was split pea. Worth a try.

Coming out of the can it was promising. Thick and green like a split pea soup should be. Shame that (like the Lentil soup) this was so awful. Well, not really like the Lentil which just had no flavor. This was perfectly offensive. There's a big hit of celery and a strong mixed dried herb taste followed by a metallic aftertaste.

There's only 100 calories in a cup of soup and I think that this is the sort of thing that 15 years ago people thought of when someone said "health food." If you've ever had a Pritikin product, this soup fits that prototype. The soup says to you, "Eating healthy should be painful, shut up and deal with it." This soup is EVERYTHING that is bad about the healthy convenience food industry and it's a shame because there's so much good that is available now.

Dear Amy's, time to bring this soup up to date. We now have healthy foods that taste great.