Kitchen Basics Unsalted Vegetable Stock

Ahhhhh, Kitchen Basics (parent company is McCormick), don't you love this brand?  Unsalted Vegetable Stock is one of the many products they sell . Now, when you go to the supermarket and see this product you would think that "unsalted" means NO SALT! Am I right or am I right?

But wait, there's more. 

Take a look at the ingredients listed below: carrot, mushroom, tomato, onion, celery, and several others. As a consumer shopping at a supermarket, I would think that this product is wholesome.

In the Nutrition Facts area they claim that ONE CUP of the vegetable stock contains 210 mg of salt! The % Daily Value shows 9%. Ouch! What happened to the UNSALTED claim?
Well, since they don't add salt the salt comes from the vegetables. According to the FDA, the Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 milligrams (mg) per day. Also, FDA states that "as a general guide: 5% Daily Value or less of sodium per serving is considered low." If I were to use the whole container of this wholesome product I would ingest 36% of my allotted daily salt intake. At this point I have to mention that I have high blood pressure and I take medication daily to keep it under control.

Their claim of 210 Mg sodium is misleading because this is just for one cup.

Below is a clipping from the package. What is Genetic Engineering? According to the University of Nebraska, genetic engineering is the process of manually adding new DNA to an organism. Another term for genetic engineering is GMO, genetically Modified Organisms. Ouch, again.

I learned from listening to friends and watching Jacques Pepin's online videos that having a small ziplock bag near while you are preparing a meal is a great idea. As you cut and/or peel vegetables you save the peelings and keep adding them to a ziplock bag. When the bag is full, add them to a pot full with water bring the mixture to boil and then reduce to a low simmer for 1 1/2 hours and BAM! You have beautiful, delicious and healthy vegetable stock. After the stock cools, I split it into small containers and I freeze them.

Once my Ziplock bag is full and if I already have several containers with stock in the freezer, I add the clippings to my compost heap. That way, every spring I have lots and lots of beautiful and free soil for my garden. There will be a separate post on this soon.