Soup is Underrated

This has been, arguably, one of the worst days, ever. It started with a fever and chills, and kinda went down from there.

No need to whine about it. It’s just an incredibly bad cold, which has been knocking on my door for about three days now. The mistake I made was leaving my meds at work, which have been suppressing my symptoms and the fever. Sure, I was a little fogged in, but functional.

Until this morning. You know how it is: You swear you’ll feel better if you just get out of bed and get upright. Oh, I got upright all right – and fell right back down onto the bed until the room stopped spinning. Pretty sure this isn’t the flu, because that seems to come on pretty quickly. But my chest really hurts, and my eyes are all froggy, and . . . I need to stop whining.

Life is good. And I have soup.

It’s been a long time since I opened up a can of Campbell’s, and now I’m trying to figure out why I haven’t been eating more canned soup. It’s certainly less fattening than all the homemade soups in my repertoire – potato, turkey and wild rice, chicken noodle – and perhaps cheaper.

Despite my illness, I did tip out to Wal-mart around noon to lay in some supplies. Not the smartest move I could have made, but I wasn’t there long. I was after soup, crackers and orange juice.

Have you seen the soup aisle lately? I am impressed.

Now that I have to either carry my lunch or buy my lunch out – so far, that’s never been a really good idea – I think from this point on, at least through the rest of the fall and winter, I’m going to pack soup for lunch. There are all kinds of healthy options mixed among the high-fat options. Even the high-fat ones aren’t any more fat than some of the diet meals, and I have to believe, more satisfying.

I’m almost embarrassed to say what soup flavors I bought. Well, I will admit to one, a favorite since I was a skinny, little, loudmouthed tomboy.

Tomato.

My greatest strength is common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.  ~  Katharine Hepburn

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Leslie J. Ansley is an award-winning journalist and entrepreneur who blogs daily for TheRoot. She lives in Raleigh, NC.