I was explaining this to my daughter in quite simplified terms the other day- we evolved to taste sugar and enjoy it because finding a sweet edible plant meant we had a source of energy to help us hunt that day. Pretty useful if you’re a hunter-gatherer.
So we seek out sugar. Now we can get it whenever we want it, in much more massive quantities than we are supposed to be processing. Most of us are addicted. I’m not an exception.
These companies want to load every packaged food with sugar. They need to be regulated.
Hmm that’s super interesting.
What is this referring to Natural sugar or added sugar? Normally the yoghurt doesn’t have added sugars beyond what were presswnt are in the milk originally.
For sauces you can easily read the labels and find which ones contain added sugar, at least in europ it’s mandatory listing that.
I love how none of these comments account for fiber, something you won’t get from granulated sugar but which you will absolutely get from any actual fruit, which at least one of these yogurts actually references in its label.
Fiber is not only good for you on its own for your gut health but will slow the rate of absorption of sugars, preventing sugar crashes and allowing your body to make use of the carbohydrates over time. It affects the glycemic index and is why real whole wheat/grain bread doesn’t give you a sugar crash.
Source: The ability to read and the knowledge of the existence of diabetes
I have a few pizza dough recipies specifically tailored around carb:fiber ratios for those reasons. Next step is better ingredients because currently I can make up to 6:1 but it doesn’t really taste right until about 8:1. Hand picking the flours I used instead of on hand ingredients and whats avaliable at typical grocers should help me progress it.
This is why I make my pasta sauce from scratch. Plus it tastes way better letting the natural sugars in the tomato get all roasty toasty.
Not only it tastes better every time, the flavors in the homemade sauce are way more pronounced than the ones that are supposed to be in the bought one
I don’t even get why sugar is added. Tomato sauce is already sweet on its own.
My wife and I like to get a local brand because it’s honestly the best I’ve ever had. Each serving (3oz, 85g) is 15 calories.
Removes acidic flavours
It sorta depends on the ingredients you’re working with, some tomatoes are sweeter or more acidic than others. Where I live tomatoes tend to be somewhat watery and lack a bit of intensity of flavour. If I’m making sauce at home I’ll taste a bit and add some sugar and/or red wine vinegar to balance out the flavour.
It honestly isn’t that card to take a can of diced tomatoes and throw it on the frying pan, add some garlic, olive oil, salt, and herbs of your choosing, reduce to a suitable volume, good to go. I’m surprised more people don’t do that.
Feel free to share your recipe though, I’d be curious how others do it
even just a heap of “Italian seasoning” thrown in there makes a passable sauce. A can of crushed tomatoes and a can of tomato paste and a handful of Italian seasoning (with salt to taste) and you’ve got a decent college-kid budget sauce.
Interesting, Rao’s became my favorite brand of jar sauce once I tried them. I wonder if the difference is mostly the sugar content. Expensive though.
Damn, that’s a lot!
takes another swig of Prego
Shout-out to Rao’s for actually not having a whole lot of sugar and being genuinely one of the best pasta sauces you can get in a jar. Add a little Tabasco sauce and red wine and let that simmer for an hour or so and it’s perfection.
And this applies to salt as well to a lesser extent.
You’re perfectly right. And it’s not just about energy, which there is a lot of in oils and proteins too. In nature, the sweetest things you’ll get are different kinds of fruit - all packed full of vitamins, antioxidants, fiber and whatnot. And they’re seasonal, so if you don’t eat them right away, you’re going to have to wait another year. So our taste makes us eat as much as we can. Sugar, of cours, is cheating.
(I just happen to be on my way to buy some pastries.)
The sweetest thing in nature is honey, nearly pure sugar that doesn’t spoil. Honey tends to be available year round in Africa where our taste buds evolved.
This is why I make my own fresh tomato sauce. A single pound/half kilo of ripe tomatoes and about 15 minutes, you can have a fresh pasta sauce at home.
Them little old Italian Grandmothers ain’t wasting all day to slow cook a tomato sauce. Unless they want to show off. They got lemoncello to make and drink…
Tomatoes are about 95% water, 1% fibre, and 4% other carbs (sugars and starches). Even with no added sugar, any tomato sauce is basically all carbs and sugar (if you ignore the water).
Even though we think of tomatoes as a vegetable they’re actually a fruit. Eating a whole bunch of tomato sauce is not much different from eating a bunch of pureed strawberries. Tomatoes just don’t taste as sweet as the strawberries because because they’re more acidic.
If you want a sauce that adds a lot to anything you put it on, I recommend Alton Brown’s tomato sauce, adding a decent amount of fresh basil to the recipe if it’s in season near you makes it even better but isn’t necessary https://altonbrown.com/recipes/pantry-friendly-tomato-sauce/
It’s more work than just cooking down tomatoes, but it’s so worth it. I do double, triple, or quadruple batches and freeze it in 32 oz mason jars. Great on eggs, pizza, pasta, base for soups, burgers, and anything else you want tomato flavor added to really
I did that once and while it was great it took forever to process the tomatoes. Now I just brown some onions in a pan, deglaze with some wine, and dump the tomatoes in and simmer them while I work on the pasta. Way fewer dishes, too.
I don’t have any basil or oregano in my garden (yet) but the amount I get at the store is enough for five or six jars of sauce. So I portion out the rest and then wrap them in plastic wrap and store it in my freezer. That way as long as I’ve got tomatoes, onions, and garlic I can make sauce.
Oh that’s why yoplait is so fucking good
Pretty much any fruit flavoured food that is not artificial will contain sugar from the fruit juice. But most companies add sugar anyway.
If you eat Siggis yogurt, there is a full-fat option with barely any sugar that is way, way, better. I don’t typically like yogurt, but like it. Add honey if needed.
I happen to be eating it right now.
And don’t forget bread. So much sugar in the US…
Subway bread is considered cake in Ireland.
I think some years back there was a lawsuit in New York about whether it should be classified as cake
You can make yogurt in an instantpot with very little work (heat up milk, leave on the yogurt setting for 8-12 hours, done) in about 12 hours, highly recommend it. Only ingredients are milk and yogurt with live cultures (which you can buy once, then just freeze a few oz of your homemade yogurt to use for making more yogurt in the future), you can add as much or little sugar, honey, etc as you want. To make it into Greek yogurt or cheese, just strain through cheesecloth for different amounts of time. Can even use the drained whey for protein shakes if that’s your thing.
Kefir is also an option. It incubates at room temperature. Just need a scoby, container and milk.
The oats and honey you add makes up for the lower carb count.
I was going to say there’s a lot of variation within brands.
Most yoghurts have a “greek” variant with about 5g per 100g carbohydrates.
Honey is more or less flavoured sugar IMO.
Berries are a great combo with yoghurt, also chopped nuts.
Make your own yogurt! It’s the best
I’ve never done that, but I’ve made cheese out of yogurt by putting it in cheesecloth and letting all the liquid drain out of it over a day or so. Mix it with some chives and it’s amazing on crackers.
Making your own everything isn’t feasible for most people, but if you are at home more than not it’s doable. My 4 siblings and I grew up with a mother that insisted that we make bread, pasta, and everything else from scratch. Thankfully we had an automatic bread maker, and waking up to a fresh baked ¼ or ½ loaf of bread, daily, is amazing. The pasta maker wasn’t as fun, but it wasn’t the work that we went through at Grandma’s house, with her manual pasta maker.
We all are relatively tall and skinny, though we all have some form of a “beer belly, love handles, etc.” I can tell you from experience that the other kids knew we were getting “the good stuff,” even though it was all healthy food. Apparently this saved them a lot of money when all three of us boys joined the swim team, and they had absolutely ravenous
locustsswimmers in the house for a total of a decade.It also led me to being able to get jobs as a line cook, and eventually a chef, when I needed a second or third job.
Edit: sorry, my point was that this is an excellent way to limit the added artificial sugars in all your food, and it will help create healthy eating habits that stick with your kids, even if they have to eat cheap junk for a few years.
![This is how much sugar you are [possibly] eating.](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9694cd80-f133-4b02-80e3-1e937a78ea83.png){kind=link}