Del Monte Fresh Cut French Style Green Beans: Labelgrade B- (73/100)

Yes — canned vegetables are a genuinely smart, cheap pantry staple, and green beans are about the most innocent thing in the aisle. Canning keeps most of the nutrients of fresh produce, the cans never spoil, and they cost almost nothing, which makes it easy to actually hit your daily veg servings. These French-style green beans are nearly calorie-free — just 20 calories per 1/2 cup — with a three-ingredient label of beans, water, and salt. The one real catch is the sodium that comes with the brine, and on this product it's the highest of our canned vegetables (380mg). The fix is simple: drain and rinse before eating to wash a big chunk of it away.

Because they're an almost perfectly clean vegetable that gets dinged on exactly one dimension. Saturated fat is a perfect A+, sugar is an A+ (just 1g), and the three-ingredient list earns a B+. Protein density and fiber both grade low — structural, since the scorecard measures against high-protein, high-fiber foods and green beans are a light, low-calorie vegetable, not either. The single thing pulling these below the peas and corn is **sodium**: at 380mg per serving it grades C+, the highest of our canned veg. That one number is the whole reason for the B- instead of a B — and it's the one number you can cut yourself by draining and rinsing.

Yes, and on these green beans it matters most. Studies of canned vegetables find that draining off the liquid and giving the contents a quick rinse removes roughly 40% of the sodium. For these beans that takes the 380mg per serving down toward 230mg — turning the one weak spot on the label into something quite manageable. It costs nothing but a colander and a few seconds under the tap, and it's the single most worthwhile thing you can do with any can of vegetables, these especially.

Close. Canning preserves most of the fiber and minerals; the main losses are some heat-sensitive vitamin C and a little that leaches into the liquid. Frozen green beans hold onto slightly more vitamins because they're frozen near harvest, and fresh has the most — but both cost more and spoil. Since green beans are already a low-calorie, low-vitamin-density vegetable, those differences are small in absolute terms. The meaningful gap is the added sodium in the can, which fresh and frozen don't carry — and which a rinse mostly closes.

A serving is 1/2 cup — about 20 calories, so you can be generous. Drain, rinse, and warm them through (they're already cooked, so don't boil them soft); finish with a little butter, garlic, lemon, or black pepper. They're a near-free way to add volume and crunch to a plate, fold into a casserole, or round out a quick dinner. Because they bring so few calories, they're an easy 'fill half your plate with vegetables' move — just season them yourself after rinsing so you control the salt rather than the can.

2026-06-05, against USDA FoodData Central FDC 2658702. We re-verify top-traffic pages monthly and update within 7 days of a reformulation.