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.

I couldn't eat a whole one, usually I have half and sometimes I'll split it into thirds. DH will usually have two thirds of a carton.

I would normally have bread, toast or a cheese sandwich with my soup.

Half for me , as much as I love soup too much makes me feel like my stomach is swilling

I do have a whole but often think I should have half. I eat it with some pitta bread.

A whole one is too much soup for me. Ideally I’d probably eat about 2/3 of the carton, but as I don’t want a piddly 1/3 left the next day, I eat half each day with some oatcakes.

Me too - my DH will have a whole one of the ‘fresh’ packaged soups but I honestly don’t want that much, nor a big bowl of my homemade soup. I’m not tiny and I don’t diet, I like all kinds of foods, just get put off by what is to me a large portion. I accept that others don’t feel that way - we are all different.

Half and some bread.

My feeling exactly!

I have soup bowls from when I first left home in the 1970s, and half a carton fills one, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s a serving. It’s how much I make for my own soup too.

If it was a starter, I’d do about half of that, or a little less.

A half one is ok if you also have a chunky sandwich. Otherwise it’s a full one with some bread.

Which one do you have?

Half for me, same with cans. I can’t have a whole one, it’s too much. Not a big soup person really, so I’m bored and feel fatigued if I try to get through a whole one! Liquids are very filling to me, makes my stomach feel full and tight.

I would add that soup would be lunch for me, not evening meal. That would be extra miserable! I’d rather eat a bowl of veg than have endless soup.

yanbu

see also people who can eat half a packet of biscuits and put the rest away (before mounjaro)

I absolutely adore soup! It’s filling, warming, comforting and just feels nutritious. I make about 12 different ones regularly and freeze in portions (of 600ml 😆)

Batch cooking for the rest of January this week (because we’re skint), today I made lentil and bacon, turkey, split pea and root vegetables, leek and potato and broccoli and Stilton (it has other odds and ends of blue cheeses in it, and is mostly for DH). I’ve frozen about 60 pots of soup, and will be eating it for dinner pretty much every night.

Well that's pretty key, isn't it ?

I'd never eat more than half of one of those cartons, but I'd never eat soup without bread. So that probably should have been made clear in your OP.

Also, a bowl of soup, for me, tends to be a lunch thing, when I'm having a fuller meal later in the day.

I do eat half of one but I have it with a roll with cheese usually- also for lunch. If it was my main dinner meal then I would probably eat a whole one as 240-300 calories for a whole tub is not much for that.

DP and I have soup for lunch and we’ll share the carton but have half a baguette each with it.

if I were having it for my dinner I’d go for the full carton.

I only really eat it for lunch it's convenient for work, I get the m&s ones with veg and rice etc and have a crusty roll or similar with it and only have half a pot. There's only so much liquid I can eat tbh before I get bored.

600ml is more than a pint, no one can enjoy a full pint of shop bought soup with nothing else with it surely.

Why would you just have soup for dinner? I have soup for lunch and yes half a carton!

I eat a whole one and also need something more than bread with it if it's for dinner - eg cream cheese on the bread, or a ham sandwich.

If it was for lunch I could make do with half a carton and some bread, but I would be ravenous again a couple of hours later. Soup is quick to digest, so if you're only eating that and some carby bread, where's the protein to keep you going any longer?

Don’t you get bored.. surely it’s not healthy to live on soup

I do, genuinely, eat half a carton of soup. Usually with a slice of bread etc but I definitely couldn’t eat a whole pint of soup in one go.

I’d never finish a whole carton of soup. Or a tin. If I’m really hungry I might finish one of those smaller, individual tins that Heinz do.

This is not because I have a small appetite but because I don’t consider soup to be a meal. I consider it to be something to dip bread into, and a massive chunk of soupy baguette fills you up quite nicely.

Do you have a recipe book or site you’d recommend? DH has just bought a soup maker and neither of us have a clue. He doesn’t even like soup unless it’s a tin of Oxtail 🤦‍♀️

No way could I eat a whole carton of soup. I would throw up. I guess your stomach stretches when you overeat!