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.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    49 minutes 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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        9 minutes 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 😁

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      1 hour ago

      I don’t think you can make tomato sauce without any sugar… Tomatoes have a fair amount.

      Which kind of begs the question is this added sugar or?

      (Please god stop adding sugar to your red sauces people. Fruits/vegetables bring their own)

    • phorq@lemmy.ml
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      2 hours ago

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

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

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

      • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 hours 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
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      3 hours 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).

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Oh yeah - I’ve had to start watching my carbohydrate intake for health reasons and it’s amazing just how much of that stuff is in processed food: for example “American Style Onion Rings (frozen)” from Lidl is over 40% carbohydrates - so basically the 450g pack of it has 180g of sugars and the kind of stuff your digestive system will turn into sugars.

    One would think it would be only starchy foods (like bread, pasta, rice and such) and cakes and sweets that have lots of it, but no, most processed food is loaded with carbohydrates, often already directly as sugars, probably because the cheapest ingredient to bulk it up is flour.

    Mind you, lots of natural or lightly processed foods have quite a bit of it - for example natural yoghurt with nothing added has maybe 6% of carbohydrates (tough yoghurt with fruit is way worse, since the adding of fruit is generally mixing it with fruit jam which has a lot of sugar) and most fruits have quite a bit of sugar (for example, common varieties of apple have about 14% of sugar - so your run of the mill apple comes with 1 spoonful of sugar included - and some varieties have a lot more) which is why there’s this funny paradox that natural fruit juice has a lot more sugar in it than the same amount of Coca-Cola (since when you make the fruit juice you throw away the fiber and most of the protein leaving a much higher percentage of sugar than originally).

    Generally, the kind of stuff that has almost no carbohydrates are veggies, like lettuce or broccoli.

    • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
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      3 hours ago

      It’s great that you found a diet that helps with your health and works for you!

      You probably know this anyway and most likely implied it, but I just want to stress that carbohydrates per se are not bad. Yes, eventually everything is being broken down to sugar, but you should not reduce carbohydrates to this function only. Oats are mostly carbohydrates, but they are whole grain with a lot of fiber and are a great source for iron (if not eaten with dairy). Their GI is in the 50s but you would have to take the whole dish into account, as rarely you’ll just sit there munching oats like a horse. Buckwheat and quinoa are often praised for their high protein content (and it’s true, they have like 10-12g of protein per 100g) but they still consist mostly of carbohydrates. A slow breakdown of complex carbohydrates gives you long term energy without raising blood sugars too much.

  • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Both yogurt and pasta sauce are extremely easy to make from scratch, and sugar doesn’t belong as an ingredient in either. Yogurt literally makes itself. Stop buying processed foods that are designed by teams of people to be addictive?

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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      3 hours ago

      A bit of brown sugar really helps bring a red sauce together and yogurt is good sweet or savory (granted I like my sweet yogurt to just be sweetened with fruit and no pure sugar added but that’s a preference thing)

      As per usual in my responses to comments like this, just because it is easy for you to make these things doesn’t mean it is easy or practical for everyone to. From scratch takes longer, requires more knowledge which takes time to acquire, makes more dishes, requires more types of equipment, and in the case of yogurt can be a safety thing

      It is on the companies making these products to do better not on the individual seeking to make a part of their life easier

    • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Anything that exceeds the difficulty of a assembling a sandwich or put something on and off a grill, is something I’m gonna leave to the pros.

      • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        I love a biscuit breakfast Sammy. I can buy one for 3 bucks, or spend 20 dollars and 2 hours making a less good one

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Fruit yoghurt is pretty much yoghurt with fruit jam added, so it ends up with quite a lot more sugar than the natural stuff which has no added sugar, so ever since I’ve had to start watching out for my sugar intake I’ve started only eating the natural one and adding cinnamon or vanilla extract for flavour.

      It’s amazing how after a while of cutting sugars from your food you get used to it, don’t feel the need for it anymore and even start finding the most sugary stuff (like certain kinds of sweets) unpleasantly sweet.

      • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Buy a yoghurt maker. You add milk, 5% of already existing yoghurt and whole fruit (berries are best). Leave overnight and now you have yoghurt with fruit and no added sugar. The fruits are whole so they have fiber and any natural sugar in them isnt going straight to your blood now.

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    7 hours 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.

    • comador @lemmy.world
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      1 hour 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.

    • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
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      4 hours ago

      Add me to the team that at least almost never adds sugar to any pasta sauce. In very rare occasions, I might add a tiny bit of honey, but I can’t remember the last time I did that.

    • thenextguy@lemmy.world
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      7 hours 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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        6 hours 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.

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          6 hours ago

          I don’t pit 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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            5 hours 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 :)

        • KurtVonnegut@mander.xyz
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          3 hours ago

          But is the sugar of broken down (caramelized) onions the same sugar? As in, would the jar with sugar next to my meal to show me how much sugar I’m eating fill up as the onions caramelize?

        • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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          5 hours 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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            3 hours 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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              3 hours 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.

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      6 hours ago

      If you let the sauce simmer for long enough, 4-5 hours, or pressure cook it the starches of the tomatoes will break down and you won’t need to add sugar. The acidity will also go down the longer it’s simmered too.

    • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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      5 hours 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…

  • Mercuri@lemmy.world
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    6 hours 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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      3 hours 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

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Always spend the extra buck or two for the better sauces. Actually I’ve started making a mean meat sauce as I found a fantastic place to get red bell peppers (for a dollar more but huge difference); their sweetmess easily offsets the acidity of the tomatoes (although better sauces use better tomatoes or cook longer). Also don’t overcook your garlic, it’s sweetest when it’s less cooked.

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    7 hours 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!

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    6 hours ago

    Kinda misrepresentative using granulated sugar. Not all sugar is the same, nor does it have the same effect in your body.

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        5 hours ago

        Most added sugars are going to be HFCS these days. But also, that’s under the assumption of added sugars, which the image doesn’t make any specifications about; a lot of ingredients used in pasta sauces, for example, are going to have natural sugars already.

        I just take issue with the misleading image, which would have you believe that a cup of Yoplait is 45% sugar, even though you can read the label and do the math, yourself. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a lot of sugar, but not “nearly half the product” levels.

        • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          That’s the “worse”!

          Also 45%? Are we looking at the same image? If you dumped those shot glasses of sugar into those yogurt cups empty, the cups would still be close to empty, not half full…

  • BlueLineBae@midwest.social
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    6 hours ago

    This is why I started making a lot of my own things. There are lots of options in the store for some items where you can get something without sugar that didn’t need it. But then there’s things like mayonnaise… Let me tell you that mayonnaise doesn’t need any sugar and most brands that don’t have sugar are like $11 for an 8oz jar. So I started making it myself at home. I also started making bread which later turned into a hobby, but now I can’t eat the store bread because it’s too sweet. I even make my own jam now and I know what you’re gonna say “but jam is like… mostly sugar”, but I’ll have you know that jam tastes WAY better with half the sugar that it’s typically made with. It’s an art form to get it thick without adding more sugar, but it’s worth it. Looking back, I know most people can’t make all this shit and it’s really sad that people can’t buy things with less sugar at the store without paying an arm and a leg. It really says a lot about our society that this is true.

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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      I made blackberry jam for the first time this year. I saw the suggested sugar to put in and was blown away, used 1/3 of that, it’s still quite sweet