BUT…. not only do glorious homemade soups taste so, so much better than canned, pouched, cartoned or take-away soups (well, that’s MY view anyway), but generally-speaking, there is a deal less sugar, salt and on occasions, saturated fat therein!

In an effort to prove my theory, I pitched my Chicken and Barley Broth against a number of other ‘offerings’ and to be totally fair to all those soups in the frame, I included a few blind-tasters who rather-relish a good soup!

It was slightly stressful I have to confess but eventually my recipe won hands down! Yes, it takes a little longer to make your own soup and there is the shopping for ingredients involved but there is also the fact that there are scant levels of sugar and salt and the only fats involved are fats that aid nerve, bone, heart, brain and muscle health.

The New Covent Garden Chicken & Barley Nutri Soup came in second (deemed by my tasters to be the best when time is not on your side) but perhaps we should have a quick look at the list of ingredients: Water, Tomato (15%), Onion, Butternut Squash, Carrot, Chicken (5%), Haricot Beans (4%), Tomato Paste, Barley (3%), Celery, Garlic, Salt, Chicken Stock, Sage, Lemon Juice, Thyme, Black Pepper, Chicken Stock contains: Chicken, Yeast Extract, Chicken Fat, Salt, Sugar, Dried Onion, Lemon Juice from Concentrate, Black Pepper, Sage Extract, Rosemary Extract

Not too shabby actually but sugar and salt feature here and there a little too often and there is only 5% chicken - the blind-tasters were more than happy with my goodly amount of chicken!

NOTE TO SELF AND OTHERS: get the soup pot out as often as you can and if time is an issue, keep an eagle eye on the ingredients of ready-made soups. And remember, they are generally listed as ‘most to last’ so if sugar and salt are anywhere in the fist half dozen ingredients, walk away!