Do people REALLY only eat half a carton of fresh soup?

[sprigatito]

I’m struggling to get my head around this! I’ve seen on MN several times lately that people eat half of a carton for a meal, and I know the calories are given that way on the packaging, so officially it’s a serving…but I’ve never met anyone in real life who doesn’t eat the whole carton! I’ve lost 4.5 stone this year and I eat soup most evenings for dinner. I don’t overeat generally. My soups are mostly homemade, but I do use fresh supermarket ones sometimes, and half a carton really would be a miserable little puddle in the bottom of the bowl! Is it really, honestly normal? And…why?

YABU: half a carton is ample. You’ve lost sight of what a normal bowl of soup looks like
YANBU: nobody actually does that. It’s soup, not golden syrup with extra chunks of pork fat.

YABU to think a bowl of soup is an evening meal which is why you are confused about half a bowl being listed as a portion.

Half a carton with a couple of slices of bread is fine for lunch, or half a carton a s a starter before an evening meal.

A whole carton of soup just leaves you with a belly full of liquid which sloshes around and then gets absorbed quickly leaving you peckish later on. Not enough protein in many soups to be a meal for me.

Just gone back and changed my vote, a normal can of Heinz that’s considered two servings is 400g - I’d smash that with bread on top and that barely fits in a bowl.

600g you’re going back for seconds as standard breakfast style bowls aren’t big enough to take that in one go.

It’s like those pouches of rice, one is too much for one person yet half is not enough.

1/2 plus bread and butter.

Urgh exactly my point on that other thread, the sloshing around, too much wet.

I cant even take in a lot of liquid overall, I struggle to drink enough during the day for the same reason, just cant stand the amount of wet

Having said that, we still have xmas chicken to get through, so its soup all the way for days on end still. Tomorrows is with a red wine gravy base, not sure how that one is going to turn out.

I can't comment on the fresh cartons but the the fact that a standard tin of soup apparently contains two portions is amusing!

Dishing out half a tin of soup would absolutely be a tiny sad puddle in the bowl. But maybe I'm just a greedy, gluttonous, soup-guzzling pig.

I don’t serve soup in breakfast bowls, I have earthenware soup bowls that fit 600ml pretty much exactly. I don’t have bread and butter or cheese with it, though.

I am a massive porker and I have half a carton covent garden soup for lunch with a slice of bread and some fruit. It fills me up until I go home from work.

I have half but with croutons or crackers.

No no no, a tin is one serving.

I do only eat half, but because it’s so expensive and I want it to do 2 meals.

I voted YABU for calling a carton of soup "fresh soup".

Half a carton isn’t quite enough but as per pps a full one is a bit too much with bread. It also doesn’t fit comfortably in my bowls so I have to have a gravy boat on the side to top up. This issue has largely stopped me from buying them though so that’s a plus! I try to freeze a couple of portions whenever I make a batch of soup and this seems to work well

I’m on Mounjaro and I would eat a whole carton of Covent Garden.

We have small soup bowls, don't want to get too greedy, everyone would just fill those big bowls up here, they hold maybe 2-3 table spoons of soup, I can feed the whole family for 2 days with one carton. Wouldn't have bread, that's just gluttony and those calories 😧😧😧

I agree that the tubs are an annoying size. They should be 400g or 800g.

I would have the whole carton/tin. The ones I buy are 400g.

One carton of soup as your whole evening meal?!

Bloody hell, Ive learned something tonight

So I was looking at soups at Tesco online for this thread

Firstly of course theres a massive difference between the fresh soups and how filling they would be, you cant compare some lacklustre carrot and coriander with the sweet potato and coconut, the latter would be more filling.

Same as the tomato and basil (a total cop out of a soup if you ask me, I hate seeing that on a menu), compare that one to the chicken and mushroom, the latter again being far more filling

But I see the covent garden ones are 560g, I thought they were 400g. 560g is an odd size to me, neither here nor there

I also see that Tesco do a Cully and Sully brand (never heard of them) and they do a smoked fish soup, that would be gorgeous

But I am verily shocked, really shocked that a PP is right, the tins of Hienz, say they serve 2 people!!!!!

I eat half a Covent Garden soup carton with two buttered ryvita for lunch quite a lot. DH has the other half with a couple of slices of buttered bread. It would never occur to me to eat a whole one.

I’ve never seen a carton of soup. But I know that on a tin, the serving suggestion is half a tin. I have one skinny friend who says she only eats half a tin, but I think half a tin of soup would need about 10 slices of bread with it to make it filling enough.

Remember a lot of 'serving suggestions' are so that they can claim a particular proportion or level of salt and fat and calories in a product. Its not borne out of an acutal expectation of what fills someone up.

The cartons of soup people are referring to are things like this

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/265287542

I remember as a child, a tin of Heinz soup fed two adults with sides of bread and a cuppa at weekends. Manual jobs. Why isn't it the same now? I make my own so no idea on quantity.

I really recommend a soup maker as an alternative. Lovely fresh soup in less than half an hour. I was definitely a skeptic at first but it's fab.
I set mine before going for a shower then pour it in a flask and take it to the office for lunch.

It’s two portions but not huge calories so you need lots of cheese butties to make a meal with half a pot