![This is how much sugar you are [possibly] eating.](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9694cd80-f133-4b02-80e3-1e937a78ea83.png){kind=link}
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.
Is that added sugar, or sugar from the other ingredients?
The Ragu one has 0g added sugar, so for that one it’s just the tomato sugar, so it’s misleading.
When you juice it, the natural sugar has the same effect as added sugar.
It’s only better when it’s locked in with the fruit solids because then it’s a slow release rather than a fast sugar shock to your system, which can fuck with your insulin tolerance because that also needs to spike for your body to do anything with all that sugar.
It doesn’t ultimately matter, but it looks like total sugar. I don’t believe fage has added sugar, but it has some left from the milk.
But it does matter a great deal. The sugars innately in most fruits usually have a low glycemic index, so generally aren’t really that bad for you.
So presenting granulated sugar to represent the innate sugars in a tomato is misleading.
Fruits healthfulness is commonly exaggerated. Consuming the fiber in whole fruit along with the sugar is better than just straight sugar, but it’s still something that should be moderated. Most fruits have way more sugar than fiber as well. Also that really only applies to whole uncooked fruit, using heat and mashing up fruit removes pretty much any of the benefit from the fiber.
The “other” ingredients is tomato puree, salt, and herbs like oregano. There isn’t any sugar except the processed sugar that they add to the sauce.
Tomato sauce is surprisingly easy to make. There’s virtually no need to buy sauce from a jar unless you just can’t be bothered to do anything yourself.
For example, the Ragu ‘Simply’ is only your “other ingredients”. The only sugar in that sauce is innate to the Tomatoes used in the puree.
Sugars exist in all sorts of foods and when it’s incidental to the fruit and/or vegetable content it’s mostly fine.
Tomatoes have plenty of sugar in them… most fruits do.
Or you have a busy life?
I hate this mindset of, if you don’t make all these things yourself you just can’t be bothered to do anything yourself. Guy, I have a super busy day to day, I’m struggling to find time to work out every day, I’m not making all my food from scratch.
I feel exactly the same way, but I have to find time as often as I can. Most prepared food is garbage, and I’m cooking for people I care about.
Tomato puree has a lot of sugar, because tomatoes contain a lot of sugar. Pure 3-times concentrated tomato puree is 18% sugar.