Rumford's Soup was designed to provide a high degree of nutrition at a minimal expense.[1] It has been estimated that the soup provided one-third of a person's minimal (daily) nutritional requirements.[12] Rumford's soup is naturally low-fat, with high protein content from the dried peas, and both complex carbohydrates from the potato and barley and simple carbohydrates from the beer. Given the knowledge of the day, it was close to an optimum solution to the problem of creating cheap, nutritious food. Unfortunately, the need for vitamins and trace elements was unknown, but Rumford's soup was sometimes supplemented with corn or herring[5] which supplied adequate vitamin C and vitamin D.