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

More Albany Gluten Free Goods!

A couple of weeks ago I was surfing around online and came across the Metroland's "Best of 2008" issue. Of course, I was gratified to see that Mari's Japanese Cuisine on Van Vranken Ave, Schenectady won the "Best sushi" category - I've known Mari and Jiro for years and they're not only extremely talented at what they do, they're wonderful people and most definitely deserve this recognition. Congratulations to Mari's, and if you haven't tried their sushi it's well worth the trek to Schenectady!

I also noticed that Paradise Natural Foods, on Western Ave in Albany, was listed as the best health food shop and gluten free was specifically mentioned in the blurb. They're located about half a mile west of Crossgates Mall, in the same plaza as the Runi hair salon.

We walked into this store and were blown away by their selection. Of course, they have a lot of standard fare - the popular grains, flours, and pasta products that we've all come to know and love. They carry Tinkyada pasta at a significantly better price than our local Price Chopper, and they have more varieties of other well-known brands like Mrs. Leepers, Glutino and Glutano just to name a few. We were impressed to see that they carried the Glutano soda crackers that Vince loves and we usually purchase online. We ended up picking up cereal, quite a few different types of gluten free pasta, gluten free bagels (hopefully they'll be much better than the Enjoy Life bagels we tried), pretzels, chicken noodle soup, new england clam chowder, frozen mac and cheese, a frozen ravioli dish, and quite a few other new things to try. I'll definitely note the winners on the blog at a later date.

The woman I talked to behind the counter was very nice - and while she was ringing me up she informed me that they run bulk discount specials if you prefer to order goods by the case. Unfortunately we can't take advantage of that now due to space, but anyone with a chest freezer or a large pantry should duly take note - especially with food prices what they are these days!

Paradise Natural Foods is certainly worth a look in your gluten free travels - we plan on coming back and stocking up in the future!