I made my usual fatfree split pea soup. However, my spouse is watching how
much he eats and needed to know the calories, fat etc. (This is driving me
crazy). So I got the nutritional info from MasterCook and I couldn't believe
it. It was 384 calories and 1188mg sodium. I started eliminating ingredients
that I thought might be a problem till I found the culprit. I bought a big
bag of sun-dried tomatoes halves (not in oil - just those small dried up
things) and have been using them in all sorts of recipes. Without the
tomatoes the calories dropped to 245 cal. and the sodium dropped to 56mg.
(These figures are for about 1 1/2 to 2 cups soup.) (I used 2 cups of dried
split peas, 16 dried tomato halves and 7 cups water plus veggies etc. for 8
servings). That's about 150 calories and 1100 mg sodium less without the
tomatoes per serving. The only way I can explain all this is if the
nutritional analysis is based on sun-dried tomatoes in oil and I don't know
how to find this out. Yet - that wouldn't account for the sodium. I get
organic dried tomato halves from Jaffe Bros. and there is no salt added to
them. Does anyone have an explanation?
Patty in AZ