4 ms·

I think part of the problems is people don't realize how much sugar is in non sweet food. Cheaper spaghetti sauce often has hi fructose corn syrup but one might

by bruceb 10y ago

I think part of the problems is people don't realize how much sugar is in non sweet food. Cheaper spaghetti sauce often has hi fructose corn syrup but one might never guess it. I have starting reading the label of any packaged food more frequently and have been surprised how much sugar is lurking in many non obvious items.

kyriakos 10y ago
I am a bit obsessed with food ingredients so I always read the labels. I noticed there's sugar in most ready made sauces and ready made meals. Indian sauces, pasta sauces, and salad dressings all have a lot of sugar. Surprisingly you can find added sugar in mexican spice mixes and most bread types (probably not a lot but I never understood why).
- headShrinker 10y ago
  American Indian, American Chinese, and American Thai food are all cooked with huge amounts of sugar. It's kind of gross when you realize how much sugar is in curry or general Tao's chicken, chicken tamarin, volcano chicken...
  - mikeash 10y ago
    My Chinese in-laws cook some dishes using an insane amount of ketchup, while telling me to eat less sugary foods. They were rather shocked when I pointed out that ketchup is basically sugar syrup with some tomato added.
    - kyriakos 10y ago
      There's a lot of people who have misconceptions about sugar unfortunately. E.g. my mother in law made a cake she, told me there's no sugar in it, i tried it was very sweet. She then said "yes i only used honey and sweet canned milk but no sugar". Technically she didn't cane sugar directly but if all the ingredients contain it..
      - derefr 10y ago
        A lot of people assume there's something uniquely bad for you in the structure of granulated table-sugar crystals, I think. Maybe it's because they're often found as a white powder. ;) Of course, what's "bad for you" is just that humans can metabolize sugars as easily and fully as they do. To get away from that, you either need non-sugars (aspartame et al), or sugar alcohols. Personally, I kind of wish everything with HFCS just replaced it all with xylitol or somesuch, but apparently people really like feeding leftovers to their dogs.
coldtea 10y ago
>I think part of the problems is people don't realize how much sugar is in non sweet food. Or rather that non-sweet food is actually hella sweet -- it's just not labelled "candy" but e.g. pasta sauce.
lsh 10y ago
> non sweet food 'savoury'?
- magic_beans 10y ago
  I think OP means foods that aren't classified as "sweets" (candies, cookies, cake, etc) also have sugar. High carbohydrate foods like pasta, bread, tomato sauce, all metabolize quickly to sugar, which acts on insulin levels in the same way "sweets" do.
yomly 10y ago
Probably unhelpful sounding and possibly verging on overzealous but my general rule now is if it's in a packet and tastes good, it's probably over-indexed in any combination of fat, salt and sugar. We have evolved to seek out these flavours as some time in our biological history, food and energy were scarce and we needed a means to efficiently target energy and nutrient-rich foods. Nowadays R&D labs in food companies are testing the optimum combination of these flavours to exploit our most base of instincts tied to survival to keep us addicted to their products.[0] As long as food companies measure their performance with profit (which depends on volumes) they have a vested interest in getting us to eat more and not act out responsibly. For them not only is injecting fat/sugar/salt extremely effective - it's also extremely cheap. Until we have even stronger guidelines from government and more encouragement for companies to sell healthy food, I don't see this problem going away - we regulate gambling, tobacco and alcohol yet food seems to have so far passed-by under the radar. For now, cooking seems to be the safest way to stay healthy. For people who are looking to cut out fat and sugar from their cooking, spices and herbs are a great way to get great taste - chilli, garlic, onions, ginger, basil, lemongrass, lime and lemons are great sources of flavour that are pretty good for you! [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)

by bruceb 10y ago

kyriakos 10y ago

I am a bit obsessed with food ingredients so I always read the labels. I noticed there's sugar in most ready made sauces and ready made meals. Indian sauces, pasta sauces, and salad dressings all have a lot of sugar. Surprisingly you can find added sugar in mexican spice mixes and most bread types (probably not a lot but I never understood why).

headShrinker 10y ago
American Indian, American Chinese, and American Thai food are all cooked with huge amounts of sugar. It's kind of gross when you realize how much sugar is in curry or general Tao's chicken, chicken tamarin, volcano chicken...
- mikeash 10y ago
  My Chinese in-laws cook some dishes using an insane amount of ketchup, while telling me to eat less sugary foods. They were rather shocked when I pointed out that ketchup is basically sugar syrup with some tomato added.
  - kyriakos 10y ago
    There's a lot of people who have misconceptions about sugar unfortunately. E.g. my mother in law made a cake she, told me there's no sugar in it, i tried it was very sweet. She then said "yes i only used honey and sweet canned milk but no sugar". Technically she didn't cane sugar directly but if all the ingredients contain it..
    - derefr 10y ago
      A lot of people assume there's something uniquely bad for you in the structure of granulated table-sugar crystals, I think. Maybe it's because they're often found as a white powder. ;) Of course, what's "bad for you" is just that humans can metabolize sugars as easily and fully as they do. To get away from that, you either need non-sugars (aspartame et al), or sugar alcohols. Personally, I kind of wish everything with HFCS just replaced it all with xylitol or somesuch, but apparently people really like feeding leftovers to their dogs.

coldtea 10y ago

>I think part of the problems is people don't realize how much sugar is in non sweet food. Or rather that non-sweet food is actually hella sweet -- it's just not labelled "candy" but e.g. pasta sauce.

lsh 10y ago

> non sweet food 'savoury'?

magic_beans 10y ago
I think OP means foods that aren't classified as "sweets" (candies, cookies, cake, etc) also have sugar. High carbohydrate foods like pasta, bread, tomato sauce, all metabolize quickly to sugar, which acts on insulin levels in the same way "sweets" do.

yomly 10y ago

Probably unhelpful sounding and possibly verging on overzealous but my general rule now is if it's in a packet and tastes good, it's probably over-indexed in any combination of fat, salt and sugar. We have evolved to seek out these flavours as some time in our biological history, food and energy were scarce and we needed a means to efficiently target energy and nutrient-rich foods. Nowadays R&D labs in food companies are testing the optimum combination of these flavours to exploit our most base of instincts tied to survival to keep us addicted to their products.[0] As long as food companies measure their performance with profit (which depends on volumes) they have a vested interest in getting us to eat more and not act out responsibly. For them not only is injecting fat/sugar/salt extremely effective - it's also extremely cheap. Until we have even stronger guidelines from government and more encouragement for companies to sell healthy food, I don't see this problem going away - we regulate gambling, tobacco and alcohol yet food seems to have so far passed-by under the radar. For now, cooking seems to be the safest way to stay healthy. For people who are looking to cut out fat and sugar from their cooking, spices and herbs are a great way to get great taste - chilli, garlic, onions, ginger, basil, lemongrass, lime and lemons are great sources of flavour that are pretty good for you! [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)