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Food

Marks & Spencer green Thai spiced chicken soup review

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Description: “A blend of British chicken, Jasmine rice and water chestnuts in an aromatic Thai spiced broth.” Poor show on the chicken, and wish I’d noticed that it was described as “broth” when I bought it, which is an euphemism for “watery gunk.”

Health: OK-ish at 390 calories for the pot, but low on protein and fibre and relatively high on sat fat. Damnit.

Taste: Meh. Watery soup, absent chicken and the inexplicable presence of water chestnuts (which should not be present in anything, as far as I’m concerned) makes this pretty mediocre. Yes, it tastes of “green Thai spice” (whatever that is) but its correlation to green curry is as a McDonald’s chicken McNugget is to a whole roast chicken – distant and only recognisable once someone’s told you.

Full-o-meter: I suspect its going to be WEAK, given the poor textures and nutritional value.

Verdict: 1/5. My lowest rating ever. Seriously, M&S, even the ‘1’ is being charitable. You can do better.

Food

Marks & Spencer chicken, barley & root vegetable soup review – simply fuller longer

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Description: “A light broth of chicken of chicken, vegetables, pearl barley and smoked bacon.” Other than the bacon, which was missing, this is about right. Emphasis on the carrots and potatoes.

Health: 200 calories for a 400g pot, which is good, but not particularly high on protein or fibre, so… meh.

Taste: Meh. Vegetables suspended in light, heavily spiced broth. Cabbage in broth does taste pretty good but when that’s the height of praise… it’s basically standard chicken soup and therefore totally uninspired.

Full-o-meter: Rubbish. 200 calories, low fibre, low protein… needed toast to top me up to 400 calories AND I broke and had a cookie too, which is my own damn fault, but not helped by the meagreness of the soup.

Verdict: 2/5. Not having this one again. It didn’t taste actively unpleasant, but wasn’t good in any substantive way.

Food

Marks & Spencer meatball minestrone review – simply fuller longer

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Walked into M&S today to find some new soups and discovered a new line, Simply fuller longer, they’ve launched to capitalise on people’s New Year’s Resolutions, and sucker that I am, I bought a couple. Actually, they fall into the category of ‘thought through food’ that my diet is based on so was happy to see them, especially on promotional purchase price of £1.49.

Description: Meatballs, green beans, cabbage, carrots & other assorted veg in a light but well-seasoned tomato-based broth.

Health: Awesome, as you can imagine, at 260 calories for the pot (sorry, can’t find details online so you’ll have to trust me to recite the pack values). Low on sodium, fat, sat fat, highish in fibre for the pot.

Taste: Really, surprisingly good. As someone who last ate minestrone age 14 by mistake when I bought a can of Heinz soup thinking it was Oxtail, the meaty, tomato-y moreishness of this was a pleasant surprise. The slight aniseed flavour to the spicing was surprising but not unpleasant and the veg was chunky and well cooked. Meaty meatballs also a big plus.

Full-o-meter: Not great. It’s only a 400g pot (most of these store soups are 600g for the pot) and as I’m forgoing bread with my soup I got a weird Vietnamese style chicken salad to top me up to my 400 calorie lunchtime ration.

Verdict: 4/5. Would score another half point if it came in a bigger pot, but then M&S wouldn’t have got the extra cash out of me for the salad.