Bag soups are already practical: Simply mix the powder from the packaging with hot water and a creamy tomato soup or a spicy broth is ready. The bags are cheap and have a long shelf life. What more do you want? It may come as little surprise that soups like this contain not the very best ingredients, but all sorts of aids and additives. But what exactly is in sachet soup and ready-made sauce?
The ZDF sent the food expert Sebastian Lege to research. The product developer knows what’s behind the great variety of flavors on the supermarket shelf: “Whether asparagus, mushrooms or gravy, I can lump them all together. Because: It’s the same everywhere.”
This is how bag soup is made
If you freshly prepare a soup or sauce, you need a lot of time in addition to a few fresh ingredients and spices. The smoothness or creamy taste is boiled out. You can’t do that in a few minutes.
The industry cannot completely imitate this taste, but it can imitate it: with potato starch. This white powder thickens water to a creamy consistency. Without bringing along a noteworthy taste of its own. And potato starch has another plus point, which the industry likes: It is very cheap to produce.
In our photo series, we explain how the industry tricks sauces for roasts and bag soup.
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