Can I count soup as fluid intake?

This week, Jill answers a listener question about soup and whether it counts toward our fluid intake.

Jeff Sarris
Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast the show about reducing your kidney stone risk and living your best life. I’m your host and fellow student Jeff Sarris.

Jill Harris
I’m Jill Harris, your kidney stone prevention nurse. You know what I was thinking? What’s that? So the last episode, the caller also asked about poppy seeds and calcium and oxalate, and I didn’t. So I didn’t reply to her. Hopefully, she watches all the podcast, or you know what the next one, we can just do poppy seed and we could Why not grant? Alright, so definitely.

Jeff Sarris
And I feel like it ties into because you did talk about it was sort of if I’m having this in distributing my calcium throughout the day, or all at once. So yeah, it all sort of fits together. But yeah, we could definitely do exactly like, directly. Poppy Seed one next. Yeah. Stay tuned next week. But today, we have a listener question once again, who just so happens to also be named Joyce.

Jill Harris
Okay.

Listener Voicemail
Joyce, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I’d like to know if I can count my cream of broccoli soup as a liquid, because I use chicken broth. And it would be helpful. Over the winter. I eat probably more soup than usual. Thank you.

Jill Harris
Good question. Yeah. It’s a good question. So Joyce, from Pennsylvania wants to know, listen, I’m eating some cream of broccoli soup. And I like soup in general. And I’m using chicken broth for that. So can I count that as a liquid? Absolutely. You can? Absolutely you can. Absolutely. How much? Precisely? Well, you’d have to weigh out the liquid as opposed to what else is in that? Right. So you know, I don’t know precisely how much. But there’s a couple of things I would say. So fruits, vegetables, that’s going to increase my vegetarians tend to have a little bit more fluid than my non vegetarians, because they’re eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. So that has a higher fluid content in those foods. So you will pee more. Absolutely. Now, now, and a lot of people are like Jill, I’d rather suck down some fruit and vegetables and drink water. I hate it so much. It’s gross. People hate water. So there’s no flavor to it. People learn to love it because they also hate stents. But it can be very difficult for some people to drink a lot of water. So yes, food can be hydrating, depending on the food you’re picking. Now. Joyce said cream of broccoli soup, I think I think Joyce is making her own. But I’m not sure. The reason I think that is because she said you know she leaves in chicken broth. So I don’t know if she’s making it her own. So. But for people who have more soup in the winter, a lot of people do. Is it a low salt soup. Because soups tend to be very high in sodium. And that’s going to make you not pay as much. So one of the best things about lowering your sodium is you are going to urinate more just because your body’s not holding on to all that fluid. Sodium will make you retain fluids. That’s why people who eat high sodium diets are also on blood pressure medications. Okay, your body is retaining that fluid. It’s harder for your kidneys to filter all that harder for your heart to pump all that. And so lowering sodium is going to help. So if you’re having a lot of soups, I think that’s awesome. Who doesn’t love soup? It’s comforting, it’s filling. Please make watch the sodium in those soups. It’s very, very important. But overall, it should as long as they’re low sodium, increase your urine output and you can certainly count them as fluids. You would have to see, okay, this much of my bowl is fluid as opposed to chicken and rice in there. Right? So you’re gonna have to figure that out on your own, obviously. But yes, it would help hydrate you as long as it’s lower in sugar and salt. Plain and simple. Fruits and vegetables are going to increase fluids urine most likely. Now I also have a lot of vegetarian vegans that are eating high sodium products. So just because you’re a vegan doesn’t mean you’re on a healthy diet. A lot of my vegans came to me overweight, very high sodium, high blood pressure, a lot of things just because you’re not eating meat, or dairy doesn’t mean you’re eating a healthy diet. So I just want to put that out there too. But otherwise, in general, soups are going to increase daily urine output as long as they’re low sodium. What else? Jeff? I mean, fruits and vegetables, of course, you know, that’s going to increase fluids. That’s about it. So yes, you can chew and eat your water. Yes, you can count like that.

Jeff Sarris
Yeah, I mean, it goes along the lines with all fluids count, like water is best, but all fluids count. So even when the fluids come from our foods, and how much fluid do we need a day?

Jill Harris
We need to urinate 2.5 to three liters a day, how you get there may be different than how I get there is a very low sodium diet. So if it just say somebody my size, everything else, we’re eating different, we’re drinking the same amount of fluids. But I eat a very low salt diet, and they do not, I’m going to pee more than them. If I exercise more than my partner, I make pee less because I sweat more. Maybe I’m going through menopause. I’m drinking the same amount to somebody else. But I’m having tons of night sweats. I’m going to pee less, I may have to drink more. So people will say, Well, Jill, how much should I drink in order to get two and a half liters out? Everybody’s different? Are you on a low sugar, low salt diet? Great. You know, you may drink a little bit less than the average person that isn’t. But I always tell people to measure your urine take a day and measure your urine if you’ve done a 24 hour urine collection, which is if you are listening to me, I hope to God, you will have done a 24 hour urine collection. And I say that because that’s the only way you’re going to know what’s causing your kidney stones. There’s many things that you don’t know that are only going to show up on a 24 hour urine collection that could be increasing your stone with get it done. If your doctor doesn’t want to do one, find a doctor that will order your your OBGYN can your PCP can your endocrinologist can doesn’t have to be your urologist or nephrologist, get a doctor to order it for you then find out why you’re making them. But if you have done a 24 hour urine collection, save that brown jug. And once in a while just to make sure you’re on point collect your urine for the day, see where you fall, you’ll be surprised a lot of people are like I collected my urine the other day, Jill Wow. I thought I was still drinking enough fluids. But I came out really short freaked me out, I’m back on it, you know, because the fluids are hard. fluids are hard. I always have a cup next to me. I’m pretty good at drinking, because I’m talking about it all day long. So that’s my reminder. But it’s really easy to do when you’re not busy or you’re at home. But once we’re out and it’s holiday season, as we record, people are doing fro traveling, they’re not drinking as they normally do. So it can be very difficult for people to get enough fluids. And that’s why Joyce is saying I hope soup counts. Because and also if it’s when it gets colder, people drink less. Okay, lots of times in the winter, I will heat my water up. I’ll keep it warm. And you know, I just drink a plane sometimes put a little lemon in there or lime or whatever. Gin, whatever gets me through the day. Kidding. But I’ll warm it up because it’s easier for me to get down. It’s cold here in Chicago. So there’s different ways to do it. And there’s all kinds of information on this podcast on fluids also at kidney stone diet.com. But it’s a great question. Joyce, I loved it.

Jeff Sarris
Yeah, that is a great question. I like thinking about it that way too, especially when it’s more of a cream soup. And just just you might not think about it. Innately. So we really appreciate you sending in that question. And I for anyone else out there with a question. The number again is 773-789-8763. Or you can send a voice memo to podcast at kidney stone diet.com. So thank you, everyone, everyone, once again for tuning in sharing a little bit of your week with us. If you got value out of this episode, leave a comment down below, just sort of tell us what you find most interesting or if you have any other questions related to the topic of fluids and whatnot. And if you want to dive deeper, go to kidney stone diet.com where you get the weekly email newsletter, you can sign up for the join the Prevention Center for the Prevention course during the prevention group on Facebook, we have all these resources all over the place. You can find everything at kidney stone diet.com. So with that, we’ll wrap up. Thanks again everyone, and we’ll see you next week.

Jill Harris
Thank you Joyce from Pennsylvania. Have a great day everybody.