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.

    • Victor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      30 minutes ago

      Evolving back to not having this inborn acquired taste?

      No but seriously, just sheer will and keeping an eye on what we eat. Buy raw ingredients and cook for yourself. Make high quality food with what you can afford. (Basic ingredients are cheaper anyway.)

  • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    13 hours ago

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

  • VantaBrandon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    14 hours ago

    Always check the labels for the ingredient list. The order of ingredients corresponds to how much of each ingredient there is.

    When your “diet yogurt” has more sugar than milk ingredients, its not diet yogurt.

  • Sunshine @lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    23 hours ago

    These companies want to load every packaged food with sugar. They need to be regulated.

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      16 hours 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
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      20 hours 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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        20 hours ago

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

    • shastaxc@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Sugar in many products such as yogurt is not very useful and just added for flavor. In pasta sauce though, the sugar is added in order to cut the acidity. No one buys pasta sauce for its sweetness.

  • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 day 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
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      21 hours 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.

      • sin_free_for_00_days
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        19 hours ago

        Modern fruit isn’t especially healthy:

        At the Melbourne Zoo, the monkeys are no longer allowed to eat bananas. And the pandas are getting pellets instead of plums. In fact, fruit has been phased out completely. That’s because the fruit that humans have selectively bred over the years has become so full of sugar the zoo’s fruitarian animals were becoming obese and losing teeth. -source

    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      24 hours ago

      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.

  • JATth@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    14 hours ago

    Sugar is half bad, half good: the glucose part causes no harm and whole body can use it. The fructose part on otherhand is bad and has to/can only be processed by the liver first.

  • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    1 day 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
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 day 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.

      • sushibowl@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 day ago

        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.

    • Scolding7300@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 day 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
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 day 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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 day 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.

  • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    14 hours ago

    I don’t eat any of those. I definitely eat a lot of stuff that’s bad for me, but I’ve been eating less on purpose and walking more with my dog. I’ve lost a lot of weight because of it

  • supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    22 hours ago

    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.

    • finestnothing@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      20 hours ago

      It’s added sugar - and yoplait/chobani add a lot of sugar. Yogurt with no added sugar has no more sugar than the milk used to make it does and it is mouth-puckeringly tangy. I make my own yogurt and you pretty much need honey with it to make it palatable with fruit (some people eat unsweetened yogurt without the honey… Those people scare me)

      • supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        7 hours ago

        Greek yoghurt (first picture) tastes fine with out added sugar but only the normal fat one 5%, if you remove fat then yes you need to add something…

      • dendrichor@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 hours ago

        I de-sweetened my palate over time. I don’t add any sweetener to my yogurt (made in an Instant Pot) . That said, I ferment it for 8 hours because I don’t want it too tart. It’s perfect for raita or tzaziki. For breakfast uses, I add cheap vanilla flavoring with fresh fruit. Not scary at all!

  • ManaBuilt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    1 day 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.

  • Bongles@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 day 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.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    190
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

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

      • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        52
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        gf is prego

        we like to get kinky anyways

        one night things get particularly saucy

        i’m sticking my noodle in her when I notice weird fucking chunks coming out, so I turn on the lights

        wtf it’s red everywhere and she’s obviously not on her period

        i look up at her, she’s got a glassy, jarred look on her face and she’s not answering

        ohshitohshitohshitohshit

        i rush her into my car and speed all the way to the hospital

        she’s still bleeding everywhere

        by the time we get there, she’s not bleeding much anymore, but all the color has drained and she looks colorless and almost transparent

        oh shit, she looks like she’s in a vegetative state

        storm into to the emergency room, cary her to the nearest doctor and explain eveything

        he takes one look at ther and says

        “sir, i’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do”

        “WHY THE FUCK NOT???”

        “we don’t operate on empty jars of spaghetti sauce”

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      2 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).

  • bluewing@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 day 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…

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day 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.

    • finestnothing@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 day 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

      • bluewing@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        19 hours ago

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

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 day 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.