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It’s been used here before.  It’s still extremely good.

204 hours (8.5 days) without solid food.

Better Than Bouillon is just plain good.  It’s been used here before in recipes; Spicy Vegetarian Risotto, Mexican (Spanish) Rice, and Hamburger Stew, adding some nice flavors.  It’s used again for this diet of necessity as a straight up broth.  Compare the ingredients in Better Than Bouillon with other soup bases or bouillon.  Most of the time the first ingredient in the others is salt.  In these three examples, the first Better Than Bouillon ingredient is not salt.  The first ingredient is; vegetables or chicken or lobster.  That doesn’t mean that these bases are necessarily low sodium.  It just means there’s more of the flavorful stuff in them than most of the competitors.

Chicken

This is my favorite.  It’s extremely chickeny.  In fact, even as just a broth, it tastes more like chicken soup than chicken soup.   Once over this medical problem, chicken soup is going to be the next recipe I try.  My only caveat with this is a slightly salty taste if too much is used to make a cup.   I must have really big teaspoons.  Here are some nutrition items from the label, per teaspoon of base:  680 mg sodium, 15 calories, 1 g protein.

Lobster

Yes, lobster base.  And as noted above, the first ingredient is cooked lobster.  Take a walk along the seashore or past a fish store, especially one where the fish are kept in the open on ice, and you’ll get a whiff of how this smells.  While that sounds romantic, in fact those types of smells are not always the most pleasant.  However for those who like a mildly strong seafood flavor, you should like this.    Here are some nutrition items from the label, per teaspoon of base:  680 mg sodium, 10 calories, 1 g protein.

Vegetable

As you might expect, this is the most bland tasting of the three.  But it still packs a nice flavorful punch.  The flavor is no doubt helped by the “concentrated vegetables” listed on the label.  Since spring is coming up shortly, I’ll have to look for some concentrated vegetable seeds in the garden shop.  No matter how they do it, this is a tasty and pleasant broth to sip.  The jar I picked up is also a “low sodium” variety of the vegetable base.  It has about 25% less sodium than the two above.  So for those needing to watch their salt consumption, Better Than Bouillon is trying.   Here are some nutrition items from the label, per teaspoon of base:  500 mg sodium, 15 calories, 1 g protein.

All three come packed in a jar with about 38 servings, at one teaspoon of base to 8 ounces of water.  All 3 require refrigeration after opening.  All three stocks are in the form of a thick paste.  All three dissolve very quickly in hot water. Depending on the store and whether they’re on sale, the cost per jar is going to be in the $5 to $6 dollar range.  That may seem like a lot, but when considering that each jar can make up to 9.5 quarts of very flavorful broth, it’s a bargain compared to liquid broths.

The chicken and lobster broth leave a small  residue of undissolved bits at the bottom of the cup.  As you sip these, you’ll want to keep the broth stirred up to minimize what settles out.  None of these are really completely clear.  Remember, I was told to drink only clear liquids for two weeks, plus Ensure.  You might want to ask your dietician or physician if the small amount of solids in these broths are going to be a problem.  I didn’t think about asking at the time.  If so, running these through a coffee filter would probably remove just about all of the few solids in the broths.

Things I’m missing day eight, pizza, either Papa John’s or Domino’s – with anchovies.

Six days to go.

Tags: better than bouillon, broth, calories, chicken, diet, diets, food, lobster, medical, price, review, reviews, sodium, soup base, vegetable

This entry was posted on 03/08/2012 at 09:01 and is filed under Recipes, food, cooking and related items. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.