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.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    I might advise not downing an entire pound-and-a-half jar of spaghetti sauce in one go.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      The actual spaghetti you add it to has an even higher percentage of carbohydrates - in the form of starch which the human body easily turns into sugars - than the sauce so paradoxically you’ll end up with less sugar in your blood stream by downing that sauce by itself than if you eat it with spaghetti.

      (That said, this is for uncooked spaghetti: when you cook it it grows by absorbing water which reduces the fraction of carbohydrates in the final product, so depending on the type of spaghetti it might or not end up with more carbohydrates than the sauce).

    • phorq@lemmy.ml
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      18 days ago

      Yeah, you’ve probably grown accustomed to most memes using high fructose corn syrup which is clear and easier to hide.

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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    18 days ago

    To be fair, if you make pasta sauce from scratch you’re going to be using a fair amount of sugar to balance the acidity of your tomatoes, so I don’t find pasta sauce a useful demonstration.

    But you’re still making a good point. Once you start making stuff yourself, you really see what isn’t required.

    • thenextguy@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      I have never put any sugar in my from scratch sauce. But that’s probably why I don’t like jar sauce.

      • BreadOven@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        You get it from different sources. Breakdown of onions and as someone else mentioned, carrots. Balsamic vinegar has some. There’s other sources as well, I’m just blanking on them.

        But agreed, I rarely add actual plain sugar to my pasta sauces.

        • thenextguy@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          I don’t put anything like that in my sauce. Tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, herbs and spices.

          I think cooking it for hours tends to lower the acidity a bit.

          But I think I just like it that way.

          • Cris@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            Your sauce will still have less sugar than others, but if I understand correctly, simmering for hours will break down the more complex sugars in tomatoes into simpler sugars resulting in a somewhat sweeter taste

            I think cooking does also dull the percieved acidity of food though, hence lemon juice or other acids often being added at the end so as to keep the brightness. But I’m not actually sure if the pH changes or if it’s just a change in the tartness we associate with acidity, maybe someone can chime in with more information :)

        • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          Yes, but aren’t those sugars much different (read: better) than refined cane sugar (or worse: HFCS)?

          • RonnieB@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            Sugar is sugar, but it’s better that you’re getting vitamins and fiber from those plants as fiber will slow the rate of absorption.

            • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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              18 days ago

              Fair and excellent point.

              What I failed to articulate originally was that a lot of food already naturally contains sugar in some form, so adding in more sugar (like cane sugar or HFCS) is what makes it bad for you.

    • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      My pasta sauce doesn’t have any sugar in it, but it does have tomatoes, browned onions and wine, all of which contain natural sugar.

    • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      I have literally never once added a single granule of sugar to a pasta sauce. Heat and time on the stove are the only 2 things required to balance tomato acidity, and even this can be cheated with tomato paste. If you are putting sugar in pasta sauce, you don’t now how to cook pasta sauce. It’s shocking that your comment has upvotes…

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      17 days ago

      the amount of sugar i put in my from scratch sauce doesnt compare to what usually comes with these premade satchets

    • comador @lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      If you can grow your own tomatoes, give Amish Paste Heirlooms a try.

      They grow small, but a single plant can produce hundreds of low acidity balanced tomato fruits that are perfect for pasta sauce.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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        16 days ago

        Ooh, thanks, that sounds Intriguiging! Will try them next cycle (I have a couple small hydroponic setups).

        • comador @lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          Issue with these Amish Heirlooms in hydroponic setups is that unlike other tomatoes they grow LONG, like up to 16 foot branches that produce tomatoes then the entire branch dies off. It’ll then grow more long branches and repeat.

  • ManaBuilt@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    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.

  • Mercuri@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Fage is definitely my favorite yogurt. I’m always like “how the fuck is this so God damn good? It has virtually no sugar or anything added”

    Also in case you didnt know, for many reduced fat items they just end up adding more sugar.

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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      18 days ago

      I love fage, mixed with some roughly chopped cherries is so good. I’ve switched to making my own yogurt recently but the original starter I used was fage and it hasn’t let me down

  • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    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.

    • droans@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      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.

    • Scolding7300@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      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

    • kat_angstrom@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      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

      • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        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.

  • BigMikeInAustin@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Instead of sweet cereals, I switched to plain cereals and then add packets of sugar. Yes, it costs more for sugar packets than a bag of sugar, but I would end up rounding over a spoonful.

    Anyway, each sugar packet is 2.5 g. At 3 packets, on a bad day when I’m eating my frustration, that’s way plenty. And that’s only 7.5 g of sugar. The sweet cereals have at least 20 extra g of sugar. Yikes!

  • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    I wouldn’t recommend consuming an entire jar of pasta sauce regardless of sugar content, it’s just not economical.

      • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Not when you factor in the money spent on toilet paper needed to clean up the nasty shits you’ll get from chugging a jar of tomato sauce.

        Edit: Not to mention how many meals you could have gotten out of it by eating it on pasta. $5 bucks can get you 5 meals, your way you gotta spend $15 for 5 meals and you don’t get any pasta.

        • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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          16 days ago

          But you save on the need for needing detergent since the tomato acid will decalcify the bowl (I don’t understand chemistry)

  • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml
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    17 days ago

    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

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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      17 days ago

      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.

      It’s definitely true that eating fruit is a very healthy way to consume sugar. But the amount of actual fruit in those fruit yogurts is pitifully small. Advertising aside, it’s not like eating an fresh piece of fruit; and it is not why the yogurt has so much sugar it in.

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      17 days ago

      It’s not necessarily the companies in this case at least not for the tomato sauce.

      It’s deceiving how much sugar is also in natural, unprocessed and healthy foods.

      According to Google there’s about 2.6g of sugar in a 100g tomato, and it takes roughly 2200g of tomato’s to make a jar of sauce the size of a 680g jar of ragu, which according to their nutritional facts has about 43g of sugar in the jar, whereas the raw tomato’s themselves would have contained about 56g of sugar.

      It takes a lot of tomatos to make pasta sauce. Even a little sugar in one tomato adds up quick.

    • finestnothing@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      They are regulated - their nutrition label tells you exactly how much added sugars there are. You can’t really regulate how much sugar can be in “sauce” before it’s no longer considered a sauce (like subways bread being legally cake) because sauce is incredibly broad and already includes dessert sauces anyway.

      • SugarSnack@lemm.ee
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        17 days ago

        Candy is incredibly broad, make them call it that when it’s over a threshold percentage.

  • bluewing@lemm.ee
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    17 days ago

    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…

    • finestnothing@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      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

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        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.

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
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        17 days ago

        Been there made that. The flavors are dulled a noticeable amount compared to a sauce made with fresh ripe tomatoes.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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      17 days ago

      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.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    stares in European

    I’ve heard of one of those brands but have never tried it myself (Chobani) and who impregnated the tomato sauce? 🤨

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        Fair. Still not available in my particular part of Europe, though.

        Here in Denmark we have so many domestic variants of yoghurt (big dairy producer per capita) that most grocery stores simply don’t have room for/incentive to offer any imported ones, except for Greek yoghurt for the purists 😄

        In fact, there’s a great Scandinavia and the World comic about how much we love yoghurt 😁

        • Deway@lemmy.world
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          17 days ago

          Makes sense. The only reason I know Yoplait is because I live in a neighboring country and speak French.

  • Frostbeard@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    Pretty much any fruit flavoured food that is not artificial will contain sugar from the fruit juice. But most companies add sugar anyway.

  • Bongles@lemm.ee
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    17 days ago

    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.