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 would share a carton with my DH. We would also have some bread with it for lunch.

I haven't bought one for years though as I can make much better soup at home with very little effort just using a big pan and a stick blender.

Allegedly a tin of Heinz soup of serving two. Nope.

To be fair my fave soups are not very light so there is a massive difference between liquid soups or the ones with proper meat amd potatoes and other vegetables

I’m definitely no undereater, I am trying to avoid eating too much bread though so soup would be a bread avoiding lunch.

I'm frequently amazed at how many servings that foods say they provide. Last night I opened a pack of 6 cauliflower sausages,it said on the pack 'Serves 6'. I ate 3 last night (with chips and veg) and will have the other 3 tonight. I cannot imagine serving anyone just one of these sausages! And I certainly wouldn't eat only half a carton of soup. And I say this as someone who doesn't have a massive appetite.

Serving sizes are often skewed to fit with the traffic light system and recommended amounts of sugar / salt / fat. You pick something up that’s mostly green and don’t realise that’s for a potion for an anorexic gnome.

in the past people ate half a can of soup for lunch. Not in our house they didn't. Back in the 60s and 70s my Mum would probably have made one tin of condensed soup stretch to four small servings but that would have been to serve as a first course at a main meal, with a substantial main course and pudding to follow, and there would have been bread on the table to have with the soup. If we'd had soup for lunch it would have been her home-made broth or lentil soup, both of which were so thick you could stand the spoon up in it, and there would also have been bread available, and probably the fixings to turn the bread or roll into a sandwich (cheese, cold meat).

I love soup. The only soups I would even consider eating without bread are the ones that are full of very filling starchy things like rice, barley, pasta, potatoes and beans. However, a large part of the joy of eating soup for me is dunking good bread in the bowl, so soup is not a slimming option for me. I made minestrone with the stock from the turkey carcas and it was excellent. Beans, celery, carrot, onion, courgette, cabbage, tin of tomatoes, tomato puree, turkey stock, orzo, salt, pepper, basil, oregano, bayleaf, sage, thyme, pesto, olive oil, garlic. Several tubs in the freezer. They are not small portions.

Cauliflower sausages? Were they nice? I've had mushroom sausages from M&S via Ocado, and they've been fine.

People saying they eat a normal size meal is NOT being a 'competitive under eater'.

I'm sitting here munching Quality Street whilst drinking a hot chocolate with cream. I've never calorie counted in my life. I've never been on a diet in my life. So I don't think anyone would call me a 'competitive under eater'. But a full carton of soup, alongside bread and cheese, is an excessive amount of food for a typical person (so I'm ruling our a power lifter in peak training or a swimmer in training for the Olympics).

“In the past”?

when in the past? And why is the inference that “the past” was somehow better.

30-40 years ago in the 80’s and early 90’s when thin was the ideal, maybe. But it wasn’t healthy.

my lunch then would be a small tin of weight watchers chicken noodle soup for 51 calories. Half the size of a normal tin.

no it wasn’t enough. Yes I did have an eating disorder.

so no, I don’t think half a tin of soup is a normal portion size. I don’t think portions sizes should be based on mls/g anyway, it should be calories. Yes calories is a clumsy measure, but a healthy lunch will be around 400-600 calories, how it’s made up is irrelevant. My lunch is a 300 calorie full carton of fresh soup. That’s one portion. Half a tin at 150 calories is not a big enough portion to provide enough energy for the rest of the afternoon.

You think a full carton of soup is excessive calories? It’s about 300 calories, depending on the type of soup. Far from excessive. Soup is mostly water. The cheese could add a lot if portions are excessive but a normal portion would still be fine if it’s dinner.

The soup is 300 calories, up to 50% of your salt for the day. If you just had the soup fine, but if you add a cheese sandwich that’s 350 calories maybe? 6-700 calories is a decent dinner and to me a large lunch. It adds up quickly and for most people 700 calories for a lunch is too much.

Its a stupid phrase that people think they're really clever and funny using

In the same way people would never tolerate people being made fun of for perceived or apparent 'overeating', its offensive which of course is why people say it, they sound like arseholes of course.