From classic chicken noodle and tomato to exotic mulligatawny and Mexican minestrone, all the soup prepared at Butler Memorial Hospital is made from scratch.

Prep cook Mike Heitzer has spent his 28-year career at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he began as a dietary assistant.

“From the time I come in, I usually have three big pots on the stove at one time,” he said.

Two versions of each recipe exists: one for the cafeteria and one for the patients.

The cafeteria soup is reduced-fat and low-sodium when possible, and the patient recipes are further modified to limit fat and salt.

Heitzer makes about 20 gallons of soup for the cafeteria and about nine gallons daily for hospital patients.

“We have a lot of visitors, plus we have a lot of students come here, so we sell a lot of soup especially this time of year because it's colder,” Heitzer said.

The cafeteria has always been heavily trafficked but seems to be on the upswing due to a growing number of hospital employees and the growing reputation of the food, Heitzer said.

Two years ago, Heitzer even won first prize for his chili con carne in the annual chili cook-off at Saint Andrews United Presbyterian Church in Butler.

“It's a passion, it's in my blood,” Heitzer said of his interest in the culinary arts. “My mother was a caterer. She inspired me.”

The cafeteria is patronized by hospital visitors as well as those who live nearby, said Joe Landolina, the hospital's general manager of food and nutrition.

“We sell a lot of soups,” said Landolina. “We actually added a quart (container) to our menu since people like to take it home.”

The cafeteria rotates through a five-week menu cycle and offers two soups per day, Heitzer said.

More than 25 recipes exist in the hospital's database, though patrons tend to favor more traditional varieties.

Stuffed pepper and wedding soup are the cafeteria's biggest sellers, Landolina said.

As for the patients, low-sodium recipes are a priority.

Sodium is used as a preservative and can be found in high amounts in items such as canned soups and vegetables, frozen prepared meals, cheese and luncheon meats, said the hospital's clinical dietitian Sandy Bowser.

One way to cut sodium is to eat more fresh foods and fewer processed prepared foods, Bowser said.

“Fresh tastes better, of course, and we can control what's in them better than if they're in a can,” Bowser said of the soups. “We can use fresh broth from meat instead of high sodium canned soup.”

Many patients come into the hospital with heart issues, so their fluid intake must be limited, Bowser said, and this is typically done by limiting sodium intake.

A healthy adult should ingest no more than 4 grams of sodium per day, she added.

“In the hospital, it's not uncommon for someone to be on a two-gram sodium diet,” Bowser said. “We really have to watch the sodium, the salt, in foods.”

Soup is always a popular choice in the hospital setting, especially when patients are feeling under the weather.

“People like soup. It's warm, it's comforting,” she said, mentioning many folks have fond memories of soups made by mothers or grandmothers.

Serving healthy, appetizing food also can impact a patient's health.

“They eat better, which is important. It's hard to get nutrition into people when they're in the hospital,” Bowser said. “Their needs are higher and they're not feeling well, so that's always a challenge.”