Most canned soups sold in grocery stores are ultra-processed foods. Under the NOVA food classification system, the most widely used framework for categorizing foods by processing level, the majority of commercial canned soups fall into Group 4, the highest processing category. The key factor isn’t the can itself but what’s inside: industrial ingredients you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen.
What Makes a Food “Ultra-Processed”
The NOVA system sorts all foods into four groups. Group 1 is unprocessed or minimally processed (fresh vegetables, plain grains, raw meat). Group 2 is culinary ingredients like oil, butter, and salt. Group 3 is processed foods, made by combining Group 1 and Group 2 items using straightforward methods like canning, fermenting, or curing. Group 3 includes things like canned vegetables, canned fish, cheese, and freshly made bread. These typically have two or three ingredients and are still recognizable as modified versions of whole foods.
Group 4, ultra-processed foods, is different. These are industrial formulations manufactured from substances derived from foods or synthesized from other sources. They contain ingredients like hydrolyzed proteins, modified starches, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, and thickeners. The NOVA system explicitly lists “powdered and packaged instant soups” as ultra-processed, and most ready-to-heat canned soups share those same industrial ingredients.
Why Most Canned Soups Qualify
Pick up a can of a major brand like Campbell’s Condensed or Progresso and read the ingredient list. Beyond the vegetables, broth, and salt you’d expect, you’ll typically find modified food starch, monosodium glutamate, soy protein isolate, maltodextrin, or yeast extract. These are hallmarks of ultra-processing. They aren’t ingredients a home cook would use; they’re industrial additives designed to extend shelf life, improve texture, or boost flavor cheaply.
A simple canned soup with only recognizable ingredients (tomatoes, water, salt, olive oil) would actually fall into NOVA Group 3, processed but not ultra-processed. These products do exist, but they’re a small fraction of what’s on the shelf. The distinction comes down to the ingredient list, not the packaging.
The Sodium Problem
Salt content is one of the most practical concerns with canned soup. A survey by Action on Salt found the average serving of commercial soup contained 1.6 grams of salt, which translates to roughly 640 milligrams of sodium. Some products hit much higher: the saltiest soup in their survey packed 3.94 grams of salt in a single serving, well over half the recommended daily limit. The lowest came in at just 0.42 grams per serving, showing how wide the range is between brands.
If you’re comparing options on the shelf, the nutrition label matters more than the brand name. “Reduced sodium” versions often still contain substantial amounts, so checking the actual milligrams per serving is worth the few extra seconds.
Health Concerns With Ultra-Processed Foods
The concern with ultra-processed foods goes beyond any single nutrient like sodium. A systematic review and meta-analysis published in Frontiers in Nutrition found that people who ate the most ultra-processed foods had a 25% higher risk of metabolic syndrome compared to those who ate the least. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions (high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, excess belly fat, abnormal cholesterol) that together raise the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
Several factors drive this association. Ultra-processed foods tend to be energy-dense with high levels of saturated fat, added sugar, and salt. They’re also typically low in fiber, vitamins, and minerals. But the concern extends beyond poor nutrition. Additives commonly found in ultra-processed products, including emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners, have been linked to changes in gut bacteria, glucose intolerance, and insulin resistance in preliminary research. This suggests that the processing itself, not just the nutrient profile, may play a role.
Canned Soup vs. Homemade
Homemade soup made from whole vegetables, beans, grains, and unprocessed proteins sidesteps most of these issues entirely. You control the salt, you skip the industrial additives, and you retain more of the nutrients. Water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C and some B vitamins degrade during the high-heat commercial canning process. The skins of vegetables, which are naturally high in fiber, are often removed during manufacturing as well.
That said, canned soup still contains some fiber and some vitamins. It’s not nutritionally empty. If you rely on canned soup for convenience, adding fresh or frozen vegetables to the pot is a simple way to boost the fiber, vitamin, and mineral content significantly. This also dilutes the sodium concentration per bowl.
What About the Can Itself
For years, the epoxy linings inside food cans contained BPA, an industrial chemical that acts as an endocrine disruptor. The industry has largely moved away from it. According to the Can Manufacturers Institute, about 95% of food cans are now made without BPA-based linings, using alternatives like acrylic or polyester epoxies and olefin polymers. Testing by the Center for Environmental Health confirmed this shift: by 2019, 96% of cans tested were BPA-free, a dramatic improvement from 2016 when 67% of cans still contained BPA-based epoxy.
The alternatives aren’t without questions. PVC-based resins were found in roughly 19 to 25% of cans in earlier testing, and acrylic resins carry their own environmental toxicity concerns. Still, the BPA situation has improved substantially. One notable gap: testing in 2017 found BPA in more than 90% of cans purchased at ethnic grocery stores, suggesting the transition hasn’t been uniform across all markets.
How to Choose a Better Canned Soup
Not every canned soup is equally processed. To find one that falls closer to Group 3 than Group 4, focus on the ingredient list rather than front-of-package claims. Look for soups where you can identify every ingredient as something you’d recognize in a kitchen: vegetables, beans, water or broth, salt, olive oil, spices. If the list includes modified food starch, hydrolyzed soy protein, maltodextrin, or ingredients you can’t pronounce, that’s a Group 4 product.
Brands marketed as “organic” or “natural” sometimes still contain ultra-processed ingredients, so the label on the back is more reliable than the marketing on the front. Soups sold in cartons or glass jars follow the same rules: it’s the ingredients, not the container, that determine the processing level. A carton of soup loaded with flavor enhancers and thickeners is just as ultra-processed as its canned equivalent.