Campbell’s has announced that it will be reducing the sodium content in its SpaghettiOs line of products by 35%. The change will take place by the upcoming spring.

“Offering healthier versions of our products for kids is a major priority for Campbell,” said Sean Connolly, President, Campbell’s US soups, sauces and beverages. “Changing the recipe of SpaghettiOs comes on the heels of reducing sodium in our condensed kids soups to healthy levels. It’s also consistent with our commitment to advertise only sound food choices to children.”

Indeed?

We decided to take a look inside the label at SpaghettiOs Original, a minute before the sodium reduction.

What you need to know:

A can of SpaghettiOs contains two 1 cup servings, each with 180 calories. Nice.

Here is the ingredient list:

Water, Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Enriched Macaroni Product (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Contains Less than 2 % of: Salt, Enzyme Modified Cheddar Cheese (Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Water, Disodium Phosphate), Vegetable Oil (Corn, Cottonseed, Canola and/or Soybean), Enzyme Modified Butter, Oleoresin Paprika, Spice Extract, Citric Acid, Nonfat Dry Milk.

Not so nice.

Notice the first ingredient is WATER. And that tomato puree is also made from WATER, and a bit of tomato paste. Is it any wonder that Campbell’s needs to add a lot of salt to give this any flavor? Into this soup, more than sauce, they throw in the pasta rings, and add High Fructose Corn Syrup and salt as ingredient number four and five.

If you look at the nutrition facts panel, you’ll see that a serving contains 13 grams of sugar. That’s more than 3 teaspoons worth! No wonder kids are crazy about SpaghettiOs, it’s like using ketchup as your pasta sauce. Now every cook knows that to counter the acidic flavor of the tomatoes, a bit of sugar is required, but 3 teaspoons is taking it a bit overboard.

The fifth ingredient, as we see, is salt. lots of salt, apparently, as each serving contains 2 grams of salt which equals 850 milligrams of sodium, or 35% of the maximum recommended daily value. That’s plenty, and this is AFTER a previous reduction last year. The newly formulated product will have less than 600 mg, the threshold that allows the product to be considered “healthy” by the FDA.

While Campbell’s should be commended for lowering the sodium in this sauce, it’s still full of unnecessary sweetener, and very little tomato. Definitely not a “sound food choice”.

What to do at the supermarket:

While this canned product is very cheap, it really has limited nutritional benefits and too much sugar. We would skip this product and look for something with much fewer grams of sugar, more consistency, and less water.

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