Panera Bakery Café serves breads and other baked goods, salads, sandwiches and soups. The Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup has corn, beans, chilies and spices, and it comes with tortilla strips. The regular size soup is 12.75 oz., but if you order the Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup from Panera's You Pick Two menu, you will get an 8.75 oz. serving of soup with your choice of a half-salad or half-sandwich.
Overall Nutrition
The Regular Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup has 190 calories, 10 g protein and 24 g carbohydrates. It has between 6 and 10 percent of the daily value for vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. The soup from the You Pick Two menu has 140 calories, 7 g protein and 18 g carbohydrates. It has between 4 and 8 percent of the daily value for vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. Both soups have about 1 g fiber and 1 g sugar.
Fat
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates the nutrient claims that manufacturers can make for a given food. To be low-fat, a food must have less than 30 percent of its total calories from fat and may not have more than 3 g fat per 100 g. The Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup has 6 g fat per 350 g serving, which means it has less than 2 g fat per 100 g. The regular size gets 50 out of its 190 calories from fat, and the smaller size gets about 40 of its 140 calories from fat, so Panera's Low Fat Chicken Tortilla soup gets about 28 percent of its calories from fat.
Sodium
Although you need some sodium from the foods you eat, the 2005 Dietary Guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services state that most Americans eat too much sodium, leading to high blood pressure and coronary heart disease or kidney disease. Some foods naturally provide sodium, and you can also get it from table salt, but the most dietary sodium comes from processed and prepared foods. Panera's Regular Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup has 1,110 mg sodium, and the smaller size has 750 mg sodium.
Bread
When you order a soup from Panera, you can choose whether to have it with a slice of bread or in a bread bowl. A serving of Panera's Whole-Grain Baguette is 2 oz., and it has 140 calories and 300 mg sodium. A higher-calorie option is the 8 oz. Sourdough Bread Bowl, with 890 calories and 1,210 mg sodium. This choice has 118 g carbohydrates, or about half of the total amount of carbohydrates that someone on a 2,000-calorie diet should get in a day, according to MayoClinic.com.
You Pick Two
If you are ordering the Low Fat Chicken Tortilla Soup as part of the You Pick Two menu, the half-salad or half-sandwich that you order with it will affect the overall nutritional value of your meal. A Half Italian Combo sandwich on Ciabatta adds 520 calories, 22 g fat and 1,540 mg sodium. If you choose a Half Classic Café salad that comes with Reduced Fat Balsamic Vinaigrette, you add only 80 calories, 5 g fat and 135 mg sodium. You also get an extra 30 percent of the daily value for vitamin A and 40 percent of the daily value for vitamin C.
References
- PaneraBread: Our Café Menu: Soups And More
- PaneraBread: Nutrition Calculator
- United States Department of Health And Human Services: Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005
- MayoClinic.com: Nutrition And Healthy Eating: Healthy Diet: End The Guesswork With These Nutrition Guidelines
- Food And Drug Administration: IX: Appendix A: Definitions of Nutrient Content Claims
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