Gluten Free Soup and Campbell's Gluten Free List

In the past week or so the weather has changed -- all of a sudden it's freezing in Albany, we're breaking out the wool sweaters and winter coats, running our cars in the morning before we leave for work, and everyone seems to be coming down with some sort of cold, flu, or bug. This is the time of year that I traditionally go into pack-rat mode, stocking up on canned goods in the event of bad weather - and with all the germs flying around the major staples to have on hand include ginger ale and chicken soup.

I've been looking for some good, gluten free canned soups - especially chicken soup - to have on hand. The last time I went to the grocery store I was very excited to see some promising-looking Campbell's soups - I picked them up, noted the ingredients, and called the company with the UPC. Well, I have (sort of) good news and bad news. The bad news is that the soups I called up about were not on their gluten free list.

Now, OK. I understand that there are certain additives in some soups. I'm not asking for a mainstream, gluten free chicken noodle soup, but chicken and rice soup is not gluten free? Seriously?? I purchased a can of Campbell's Select Harvest Healthy Request Savory Chicken and Long Grain Rice soup. It looked like a decent chicken soup, and these ingredients looked promising:

Chicken stock, roasted natural white meat chicken, carrots, rice, celery, contains less than 2% of: lower sodium natural sea salt, garlic, onions, modified potato starch, flavoring [milk], yeast extract, chicken fat, potassium chloride, carrot juice concentrate, salt, sugar, natural flavoring (salt, onion juice concentrate), rice starch, chicken flavor, citric acid, parsley, spice.

Now, none of these ingredients look particularly damning to me, but according to Campbell's neither this soup nor their condensed chicken and rice soup are gluten free - in fact none of their soups are listed on their official list of gluten free items! I'm sorry, but how hard would it be to make that soup above gluten free? Or if it is safe, then stop with the CYA answers?

Anyway, since it doesn't look like Campbell's is going to get their act together any time soon, there are a couple of good chicken soup options that have been verified as gluten free.

They include Hannaford brand Chicken and Rice condensed soup (last verified this summer), as well as Kettle Cuisine All Natural Chicken Soup with Rice Noodles (seen in Paradise Natural Foods in the frozen section). If anyone else has verified gluten free soups (especially chicken) I would love to hear about them!

That said, Campbell's did send me a list of their gluten free products (current as of October 2008). So for what it's worth, here goes the list:

Swanson Broth & Stock Aseptic

• Natural Goodness Chicken Broth
• Chicken Stock
• Chicken Broth
• Beef Stock

Swanson Broth Canned

• Natural Goodness Chicken Broth
• Chicken Broth
• Vegetarian Broth
• Chicken Broth with Garlic

Campbell's Tomato Juice

• Tomato Juice
• Low Sodium Tomato Juice
• Organic Tomato Juice
• Healthy Request Tomato Juice

V8 Splash Smoothies

• V8 Splash Smoothie Strawberry Banana
• V8 Splash Smoothie Tropical Colada

V8 Vegetable Juice

• V8 Vegetable Juice
• Low Sodium V8 Vegetable Juice
• V8 Spicy Hot Vegetable Juice
• A-C-E Vitamin Rich V8
• V8 Fiber Vegetable Juice
• Organic V8 Vegetable Juice

V8 Splash & Diet V8 Splash Juice Blends

• V8 Splash Tropical Blend
• V8 Splash Strawberry Kiwi Blend
• V8 Splash Berry Blend
• V8 Splash Fruit Medley
• V8 Splash Mango Peach
• V8 Splash Diet Tropical Blend
• V8 Splash Diet Berry Blend

V8 V-Fusion Blends

• V8 V-Fusion Strawberry Banana
• V8 V-Fusion Tropical Orange
• V8 V-Fusion Peach Mango
• V8 V-Fusion Pomegranate Blueberry
• V8 V-Fusion Acai Berry
• V8 V-Fusion Light Strawberry Banana
• V8 V-Fusion Light Peach Mango
• V8 V-Fusion Light Pomegranate Blueberry