# Help! Soup is so high in sodium! Source: https://kidneystonediet.com/ep/help-soup-is-so-high-in-sodium/ Published: 2021-04-06 --- [![Kidney Stone Diet Podcast](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Podcast-1-1024x1024.jpg)](https://kidneystonediet.com/podcast/) [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bwW9pAAfNA)[Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/help-soup-is-so-high-in-sodium/id1528474326?i=1000515988571&uo=4)[Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/4py3XC3Pr5VPSlhXtVVLzs)[Amazon Music](https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/0868148d-adfd-411d-b3f2-71a0ad1461ec) April 6, 2021 --- ![Jeff Sarris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Jeff-Sarris-150x150.jpg) Jeff Sarris Host ![Jill Harris](https://kidneystonediet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Kidney-Stone-Diet-Jill-Harris-150x150.jpg) Jill Harris Host In this episode of the Kidney Stone Diet Podcast Jill Harris answers a listener question about sodium, canned soup, and options for making broth with more than carrots, celery, and potatoes.\ \ Have a question? Leave us a voicemail at (773) 789-8763.\ \ • [Kidney Stone Diet](https://kidneystonediet.com/)\ • [Kidney Stone Prevention Program](https://kidneystonediet.com/kidney-stone-prevention)\ • [Oxalate Food List](https://kidneystonediet.com/oxalate-list/)\ • [Free KSD Resources](https://kidneystonediet.com/resources/)\ \ Find the full transcript at [BYLT.co/show/kidney-stone-diet](https://bylt.co/show/kidney-stone-diet) ## Chapters - 00:00:00 High Sodium and Oxalate in Canned Soups - 00:02:16 Portion Control for High-Oxalate Soup Vegetables - 00:04:04 Finding Low-Sodium Broth and Natural Flavors - 00:06:01 Low-Sodium Homemade Rotisserie Chicken Soup Recipe - 00:10:20 Daily Sodium Limits for Kidney Stone Prevention ## Transcript ### High Sodium and Oxalate in Canned Soups 00:00:00 Jeff Sarris Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your risk for kidney stones and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris. 00:00:22 Jill Harris And hi, I'm Jill. Good to be here. And they're like, "Who the hell is Jill, and why do we care about her?" Who's Jill? Who is Jill and Jeff? Okay, go ahead. They know. They know who it is. 00:00:37 Jeff Sarris Well, for anyone new, who is Jill? 00:00:40 Jill Harris Well, I'm a nurse that's been blabbing and screaming and hooting and hollering about kidney stone prevention for a couple decades, so that's who I am. 00:00:48 Jeff Sarris Yeah, and we're here just to help you reduce your risk for stones and figure out, yeah, just how to navigate this awful, awful condition that you may be facing, or, yeah, trying to avoid facing. So, what we've been doing lately is we're taking a lot of voicemails. This has been, it's been great. You guys have really been calling in with all your questions, so we're going to dive right, right into that again this week. So, let's get started. 00:01:17 Jill Harris Hey, Jill. Love soup, but canned soups are so salty, so heavy sodium. How can I do a homemade soup and get my vegetables in that aren't carrots, celery, potatoes? That's my question. 00:01:38 Jeff Sarris And that's Kathy from Virginia Beach. 00:01:40 Jill Harris Oh, hello Kathy. I'm so happy you called us. So, well, Kathy is specifically talking about, well, you know, soup stock or how we how we, the vegetables we always use in soup is celery, onions, carrots, potatoes, a lot of people like those. And forget about the onions, because that's not part of this conversation. But all the other things that Kath mess says, talks about, are higher in oxalate. So, you know, people who have been hanging around me in the stone world for a, a while know exactly what I'm going to say. ### Portion Control for High-Oxalate Soup Vegetables 00:02:16 Jill Harris Here is the deal. This is a portion game. So even though you may see on the Harvard list that carrots and celery and potatoes are high, it doesn't mean you can never have them in your beloved soup. That's not what it means. I will tell you what, people, that when I'm making my homemade soup, I do use I use exactly those things. I don't use potatoes because I eat a lower-carb diet, but I definitely carrots and celery in soup. And so, you're not putting a bunch of celery in there. You're not putting 15 carrots in there. You're chopping up, so it gets some flavor in there. It's It's a portion game. So if you're making a big batch of soup, you can certainly have those things. Nobody formed a stone because they had soup with some carrots and celery in it, I promise you. Even a potato, yes, I know they're very high, but you are going to make a big batch, and everybody's going to have a bowl. You're not eating the whole thing on the same day, or I hope not, Kathy. Let's not do that. Now, The reason people love soup, I suspect it's because they're so beautiful and salty and delicious and comforting, and I think they conjure up feelings of childhood. Little did we know, our mothers were choking us with salt. Little did we know. I mean, listen, I've eaten a low-salt diet for so many years that if I did go to a restaurant and have a soup, I wouldn't even be able to drink it. I wouldn't be able to. It'd be so salty. And I'd wake up in the middle of the night like I had sweaters in my mouth. I mean, it would be disgusting to me. But, listen, when you are trying to go from A to Z, well, don't do that, okay, because you need to acclimate. So, here's what I would say. ### Finding Low-Sodium Broth and Natural Flavors 00:04:04 Jill Harris I have, in my meal plan service, it could even be on my website. I'm not sure, a free one. I have, I think it's in my meal plan service. But, anyway, I have a chicken soup that I stand, that always, that's always frozen in my fridge for days that I don't feel my best, so I don't have to make it. And so, I always freeze it. And, guess what? I don't use salt. So, you may say, "Well, that's disgusting. You need some salt." I don't use any salt, but I use a lot of rosemary, I use a lot of lemon. So, I'm using other things in there to flavor it. Now, for somebody who's just starting out, use the stock you want to use, but I use very low-salt chicken broth or chicken stock, okay. I'll get it at I'll get it in the in the container. But, when you go to the store, ya'll know what I'm going to say, "Turn it around, Buster Brown." Because when you're looking at chicken stock, it's going to say, "low sodium." This one's going to say "lower sodium." And when you turn it around, it's still hundreds of milligrams of sodium, hundreds! So, you got to keep looking. Yes, I know it's a pain in the tush, so what? Kidney stones are worse. Keep on looking, and find the one that you can even get 50 mg per cup of sodium. So, keep looking around. I'll tell you what, too, I tend to find that the ones in the store, the generic brand, typically when it says lower sodium, it's the lowest sodium. Whether it's cheese, or stock, or just look around. Black beans, beans, can I have them on a low-oxalate diet? Yeah, you can, girl, you can have them. You can. It's a portion game, okay? My vegans, they come to me, "Jill, my oxalate is so high." Yeah, because you were eating bean bowls, bean bowls as big as my fuzzy head, 5 cups of beans, 7 cups of beans, 10 cups of beans a day! You can't do that and get no calcium and think you're going to have lower oxalate. So, this is a portion game. ### Low-Sodium Homemade Rotisserie Chicken Soup Recipe 00:06:01 Jill Harris So, for your stock, you can get So, here's how I make my chicken soup. No one's asking, but I'm going to tell you. So, I'll get super easy, too, Kath. You're going to love it. So, I'll get a plain rotisserie chicken From the grocery store. It's already made. "Well, mine has salt on it, Jill." Ask Brenda behind the counter, "Hey, Brenda, while you're cooking up all those chickens back there for us, can you make one with no seasoning?" She'll do it. So, sometimes I go in the store and they're like, "Oh, shit. Here she comes. Get the rotisserie chicken with the no salt for the broad that's coming." And they get it for me now. They get it for me. So, I always have one. I There's a couple stores I go to and each of those stores now make the plain. And guess what? One of the stores tells me everybody now wants the plain. So, if you ask for it, they may make it when they're preparing all those rotisserie chickens. Anyway, so I get that, so that's going to save me time. I take all the chicken. I take I take the white meat off the chicken, because I don't like the dark meat. Then, I take the skin off, too. I don't want the extra fat. You may love it. God bless, have it. Your kitchen, your rules, do what you need to do. Then, I put the carcass and no skin and the dark meat in the pot of mostly water, and then a couple cups of the low-sodium chicken broth. I let that and then I put my carrots and my onions, just like, "Jill, you forgot the carrots and onions." I know, Jeff, shut up. Shut up. So, before I put the chicken in this, I will I will get some oil, and I will, you know, let those veggies soften up a little, okay? Then, I put the water in there. Then, I put a little chicken stock in there. Then, I put the rotisserie chicken in there. My mother's watching this, going, "Jill, that's the worst video you've ever done." Shut up, Ma! I know. I just screwed it up. No one cares. They'll They'll be patient. So, anyway, Then I let that simmer down maybe 1 hour, maybe 4 hours, whatever I want. I boil it up and then let it simmer for hours, and I have chicken soup. I will put a lot of lemon in there. I will squeeze lemon in there at the end. And like I said, I'll use different herbs, whether one time it may be basil and mint. The next time, it may be rosemary, thyme, and sage, who knows, whatever I feel like. If it's spring, I'll do dill. I mean, so, that's what I use instead of extra salt. Now, when you're first starting to go on a low-salt diet, that may sound absolutely disgusting to you. So, put a little salt in there. But when once you're cognizant of doing it lower, You'll get the lower sodium, you put maybe put a little so- soup a little salt when it gets to your table. But at least you are controlling it. You go from 500 mg a cup to 50, that's a big difference. So, maybe you'll use a little salt that's at your table. And you may say, "Well, what's the point here?" Because it is going to be hundreds less than had you not noticed or took the time to get the lower-sodium stock or everything I just said. And once you get used to a low-sodium diet, most of my patients say within as short a time as two weeks, they start saying, "Jill, I can't believe it. I can't eat all these salts anymore." It goes that quickly. But give yourself a minute. Most people come here, Kathy, and they want to change everything overnight, because they were so terribly scared when they got their kidney stone. And it makes sense to me. But remember, you did not make them overnight, and you cannot change your whole lifestyle overnight. And so I say that, because I'm very cognizant when people start trying to change everything all at once, they get very overwhelmed, and quickly, people quit. And that's what I don't want. I want compliance for the long haul, because these are healthy lifestyle changes I want you to make for the rest of your life. You know, and this is more helpful than just preventing stones, it's just a healthy diet. 00:10:04 Jeff Sarris Absolutely. 00:10:04 Jill Harris Jeff, that was Jeff, Jeff, wake up! I finished! 00:10:11 Jeff Sarris No, that was perfect. 00:10:12 Jill Harris I don't even know where I was going. It's been a long day, I guess. We're recording this We're recording this at night, so you know, tick tock, Nanna's got to go to bed. ### Daily Sodium Limits for Kidney Stone Prevention 00:10:20 Jeff Sarris Yeah, we don't normally record at night, but that was a perfect That was a perfectly response. When it comes to sodium on the Kidney Stone Diet, what are the What's the general goals? 00:10:30 Jill Harris Okay, so you'll see I have a handout at kidneystonediet.com, the start page. All free things there. All free things when you're first starting your kidney stone prevention journey. And so, I have a little handout that will give you the perimeter of the Kidney Stone Diet, and that will say 1,500 mg of sodium a day. When I'm verbally talking to patients about that, most patients when I'm looking at their 24-hour urine collections for kidney stone for kidney stones, their sodium is 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. So, you know, you can't go, again, from 5,000 to 1,500. So, verbally, I tell people, "Look, The goal is to get to 1,500, but let's just go to 2,300 right now, or 2,000. Let's go Let's go there. And know," this is very important, too, "know," and I'll say this throughout the episodes of the podcast, "no day is perfect. You're You're never going to You will have some perfect days, but that's also not the goal. The goal is to do better than you have been doing. If you fell off the wagon, get back on the wagon. And you're always going to be practicing your lifestyle. So, the diet industry wants you to think this is a black and white notion. It is not. You're not on or off a diet. I am constantly practicing my healthy lifestyle. Some days, you may fall off a little bit. Look, when COVID ends, people are going to go back out to eat. So, what can you do? And that will be another episode, but there are things you can do, and guess what? There may be some days that you're like, 'I don't care what that fuzzy-headed broad says, I'm having soup. My husband and I are going out. We're going to kick up our heels, and I don't give a damn.' That's fine! Kathy, go ahead, do it. But then, when you have the next meal choice or when you wake up the next day, you don't say, 'Oh, I screwed up. I'll start next Monday.' Why are you going to wait seven more days? You're going to start right now, and that's how you practice a healthy lifestyle, right? 00:12:24 Jeff Sarris Oh, yeah. Yeah, and it's like, it's our diet, not a diet. I think I think there's a distinction there. Like, no matter what we're eating or consuming, it's part of our diet. But as long as we're trying to improve with each with each meal, or at least moving to the next meal and looking forward, and never really, vilifying ourselves for what we've done maybe in this last meal. Like, no and moving forward, I'm going to get stay on the stay on this train and keep going. 00:12:52 Jill Harris Absolutely. I think it's so important, and so many people just get, you know, they feel so hopeless and defeated with lifestyle changes. And again, I want everyone to think of this as your lifestyle is something you practice, just like yoga, or, you know, working on your relationship, whatever. It's always a work in progress, and that's what this is as well. 00:13:14 Jeff Sarris Yeah, well, I think that was a perfect answer to that question. So, thanks again, Kathy for calling in. And if you want to have your question answered on another episode of the podcast, the phone number is 773-789-8763. And yeah, we get all those voicemails, and, yeah, hopefully, we'll be able to play yours in a future episode. And if you want to If you want to learn more about the Kidney Stone Diet, be sure to head over to kidneystonediet.com. You can join the Kidney Stone Prevention group on Facebook, and you can also get on the email list where Jill sends out an inspirational email every Saturday, where it's It's just keeping you on track and helping you along your journey. So, I think that'll do it for this week. 00:13:54 Jill Harris Thank you, Jeff. And thank you, Kathy. Kathy, I loved your question. It was brilliant. Thank you very much for asking. Appreciate it. 00:14:02 Jeff Sarris Yeah, it was perfect. So, yeah, thank you, everyone, for listening, and we will talk to you again next week. 00:14:08 Jill Harris Thanks, everybody!