WTF is up with Weight Watchers recipes!?

A friend of mine on FB posted she was making tomato soup ... I 'liked' this .... then she went on to post photos. I was some what flummoxed by what I saw, never have I seen the process of homemade tomato soup look the way her photos looked!

A tin of beans, a tin of carrots, a tin of chopped Tomatoes, a pickled onion and stock!

How ODD! Is it just me or is this odd!??

Why not roast tomatoes with herbs, red onions and garlic, then blend with stock?! add lentils/split peas or butter beans for protein .... What is with all the tinned food and the pickled onion?! just makes no sense to me! It doesnt seem healthy.

Replies

  • InForBacon
    InForBacon Posts: 1,508 Member
    A friend of mine on FB posted she was making tomato soup ... I 'liked' this .... then she went on to post photos. I was some what flummoxed by what I saw, never have I seen the process of homemade tomato soup look the way her photos looked!

    A tin of beans, a tin of carrots, a tin of chopped Tomatoes, a pickled onion and stock!

    How ODD! Is it just me or is this odd!??

    Why not roast tomatoes with herbs, red onions and garlic, then blend with stock?! add lentils/split peas or butter beans for protein .... What is with all the tinned food and the pickled onion?! just makes no sense to me! It doesnt seem healthy.
    Define healthy.
  • gk03ub
    gk03ub Posts: 99 Member
    Well, Weight Watchers is not about eating "healthy" per se, its more about portion control.
  • SashleyA
    SashleyA Posts: 122 Member
    It is quicker than roasting the tomatoes and this time of year, I tend to get canned tomatoes anyway because the "fresh" ones are not so good. The biggest thing that wouldn't be so healthy about this recipe is if you were watching your sodium intake, because all of the canned foods do have a bunch of salt.

    It doesn't sound like my type of recipe, but it doesn't seem horribly unhealthy either.
  • ElusivePete
    ElusivePete Posts: 50 Member
    Plain tinned vegetables aren't unhealthy in the slightest. Obviously fresh tends to be a little more nutritious, but there's certainly nothing unhealthy about most tinned ones in my experience. You can always check the label to make sure.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    I don't know if it's unhealthy, but it sure sounds nasty. :sick:
  • allergictodiets
    allergictodiets Posts: 233 Member
    A friend of mine on FB posted she was making tomato soup ... I 'liked' this .... then she went on to post photos. I was some what flummoxed by what I saw, never have I seen the process of homemade tomato soup look the way her photos looked!

    A tin of beans, a tin of carrots, a tin of chopped Tomatoes, a pickled onion and stock!

    How ODD! Is it just me or is this odd!??

    Why not roast tomatoes with herbs, red onions and garlic, then blend with stock?! add lentils/split peas or butter beans for protein .... What is with all the tinned food and the pickled onion?! just makes no sense to me! It doesnt seem healthy.
    Define healthy.
    Not so super healthy if you consider all the BPA in the tin lining. But very quick to make and still better than buying a powdered soup...
  • shining_light
    shining_light Posts: 384 Member
    The vast majority of our cans here are BPA free now. Same with our plastics.

    Also, our canned food tends to have a higher nutritional value(this is based on my location, remember; I'm in Canada where it's winter half the time) because we're not having fresh food flown/trucked in from places having been harvested long before and losing benefits every day. Canned/frozen food here is canned or frozen the day pretty much immediately after it's harvested and I always buy no-salt varieties. No complaints about canned vegetables here. Often our fresh veggies look pretty sickly anyway... especially our organic veggies, oddly enough. I know they haven't been sprayed with anything to keep them looking fresh, which is why they look sickly, but, you know... our "fresh" vegetables look really unappetizing here most of the year.
  • Athijade
    Athijade Posts: 3,300 Member
    And, you can get no salt added versions of all of that to keep sodium down.

    Nothing wrong with canned vegetables. Sometimes, that is what you have on hand.
  • shining_light
    shining_light Posts: 384 Member
    I should also mention that it's our tomatoes that look the worst of all vegetables and really don't taste that great for most of the year. They're this weird patchy orange color. They really do not look like my mother's greenhouse-fresh tomatoes. Blech.
  • Ohnoes
    Ohnoes Posts: 98 Member
    Would not use fresh tomato this time of year...tomatoes are seasonal. I was not aware that carrots come in a can.
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
    I don't know if it's unhealthy, but it sure sounds nasty. :sick:
    tumblr_m35jlhpnHI1r1onmy.gif

    I'm right there with ya....it doesn't sound very appetizing :blushing: as far as 'healthy', well...it doesn't sound inherently UNHEALTHY, just kind of convenience-y which seems to have become taboo these days. Meh. I think it has it's place & while my kids were small & we were working 50 & 60 hours a week each respectively, it was well, convenient to cook that way. :blushing: :laugh:

    Now that I can take the time & effort, I've found my tastes have changed.

    OP: Hand pats for you dear, :blushing: your friend will be ok, we all will :drinker:
  • ksy1969
    ksy1969 Posts: 700 Member
    Well, Weight Watchers is not about eating "healthy" per se, its more about portion control.

    I had to reread this a couple times to make sure I read it right. You are so wrong. WW is where I lost all my weight. The only reason I am not doing WW any more is I didn't want to have to keep paying for it and I didn't see how points could work long term. I needed to learn how to use what the manufacturers provide us, CALORIES. However, to say it is not about eating healthy is bull***t. I learned a lot from Weight Watchers on what foods are healthy and what are not.
  • nytrifisoul
    nytrifisoul Posts: 499 Member
    I never met a can of tinned green beans that was unhealthy.
  • SoDamnHungry
    SoDamnHungry Posts: 6,998 Member
    Maybe it tastes good.
  • AllonsYtotheTardis
    AllonsYtotheTardis Posts: 16,947 Member
    it doesn't sound all than unhealthy.


    it also doesn't sound like it tastes good, either.
  • SailorKnightWing
    SailorKnightWing Posts: 875 Member
    Because maybe she likes it? Please don't freak out that people like different things than you.

    ETA:
    The beans make it creamy, assuming they're cannellini beans, with less fat and fewer calories than cream.
    The carrots make it sweet.
    The tomatoes make it... tomato...
    The onions make it briny.
    The stock makes it soup.
  • MayaSPapaya
    MayaSPapaya Posts: 735 Member
    It doesn't sound unhealthy, even if the vegetables are in cans, they're still vegetables.
    Like everyone else said, it just sounds like it would taste gross. :sick:
  • gk03ub
    gk03ub Posts: 99 Member
    Well, Weight Watchers is not about eating "healthy" per se, its more about portion control.

    I had to reread this a couple times to make sure I read it right. You are so wrong. WW is where I lost all my weight. The only reason I am not doing WW any more is I didn't want to have to keep paying for it and I didn't see how points could work long term. I needed to learn how to use what the manufacturers provide us, CALORIES. However, to say it is not about eating healthy is bull***t. I learned a lot from Weight Watchers on what foods are healthy and what are not.

    I mean that you can still do Weight Watchers and eat "unhealthy" foods by counting points if you wanted to. I did not say that all people on Weight Watchers do not care about the quality of their food. Counting points is the Weight Watcher equivalent to portion control. That's all I meant, so please take a deep breath and tame your language.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    WW recipes do tend to be odd, in my experience. That one sounds like one someone shared at a meeting. It's probably filling and very low points, which excites the masses.

    I haven't done WW officially in many years but I still use the 'taco soup' recipe that circulated, and it's like 95% canned food. Nothing wrong with canned beans, tomatoes, chilis and corn!

    The actual WW cookbooks never work for me, either. Too bland. I guess I like my food ethnic and spicy.
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
    WW recipes do tend to be odd, in my experience. That one sounds like one someone shared at a meeting. It's probably filling and very low points, which excites the masses.

    I haven't done WW officially in many years but I still use the 'taco soup' recipe that circulated, and it's like 95% canned food. Nothing wrong with canned beans, tomatoes, chilis and corn!

    The actual WW cookbooks never work for me, either. Too bland. I guess I like my food ethnic and spicy.

    Exactly!! :drinker:
  • quiltlovinlisa
    quiltlovinlisa Posts: 1,710 Member
    You really want odd WW recipes, you should find a WW's cookbook from the 70's.

    Mutant weird food, like jello with shredded cabbage.
  • TigerBite
    TigerBite Posts: 611 Member
    Most cans have BPA in the lining ... Eden Organic brand cans do not ... Just sayin'
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    A friend of mine on FB posted she was making tomato soup ... I 'liked' this .... then she went on to post photos. I was some what flummoxed by what I saw, never have I seen the process of homemade tomato soup look the way her photos looked!

    A tin of beans, a tin of carrots, a tin of chopped Tomatoes, a pickled onion and stock!

    How ODD! Is it just me or is this odd!??

    Why not roast tomatoes with herbs, red onions and garlic, then blend with stock?! add lentils/split peas or butter beans for protein .... What is with all the tinned food and the pickled onion?! just makes no sense to me! It doesnt seem healthy.
    It's winter. Canned tomatoes are infinitely healthier than "fresh" tomatoes, seeing as tomatoes are highly seasonal SUMMER fruit. Any tomatoes you can buy fresh would be shipped from the Southern Hemisphere; produce tends to become much less nutritious the longer it has to travel. Canning avoids that problem.