3 ms·

The fact it's not uncommon does not make it a good thing.

dpark 8y ago
You turned up your nose at "common" without even acknowledging or addressing the reason the sugar is added. fatnoah claimed it's added to counter unripe tomatoes. js2 pointed out that it's added even for properly ripened tomatoes. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion of why sugar is added or if it should be. It's just virtue signalling for snobs.
- sametmax 8y ago
  You can add sugar in anything, to make it taste batter. That's the point of sugar. That doesn't make the product good. Ice cream taste great, but it's not base for a healthy society. We need product that stand on their own if we want that children chose them over industrial junk good. It's not being a snob. I don't think I'm a better person because I happen to live in an area where you still get good tomatoes. It's random luck. But I do think that adding sugar in things is only legitimate when you are limited in the quality of things you get. It makes sense if the food supply is limited for example: you have to do with what you have, so let's make it taste good. But in our western society we have an abundance of food. Our problem now is obesity. And having affordable fresh tomatoes somebody would choose over frozen lasagna would be great to have. I say that because I honestly believed, until I became an adult, that cooked carrots tasted bad. The reason ? I only ate them at school, where it was the most horrible dish you could imagine. Avoiding healthy products because of experience of industrial crap is pretty sad.
  - dpark 8y ago
    Adding sugar to things makes them taste sweeter. Sweeter does not always mean tasting better. However, in cases where sugar actually makes things taste better, I have no problem using it. If I were making sauce with overly acidic tomatoes, I'd probably add a bit of sugar. I'm not interested in creating "healthy food" that tastes terrible. The insistence on making "health food" bland is a major reason people go for junk food.
    - dragontamer 8y ago
      It should be emphasized that "unsweet" simply means that I want to add my own sweetener. If the sugar is already added, then I rarely can add it to my taste. Ex: Starbucks coffee can be pre-sweetened, or taken black. I'll take it black, and then head over to the side and add cream + sugar myself. Its very normal, and I think most people don't see any problem with this. ----------- Where people get confused is... practically any situation outside of coffee. Super-bland and plain Cereal can taste better if you add some sugar on the top, or raisins yourself. Yogurt can be sugar'd up to taste. Then you get to meats, and it gets a bit confusing. BBQ Sauce is basically Ketchup + Sugar, and adding it before cooking allows for caramelization. But you can also add BBQ Sauce afterwards and allow meats to taste sweeter. Once you realize how adding sugar helps bland foods taste better, you'll start to add sugar yourself. And that's perfectly fine and normal! Chances are, you'll add less sugar if you do it manually, than what the stores will do. A spoonful of sugar helps the Yogurt go down. Just because you bought plain yogurt doesn't mean you have to eat it plain. It means that you can add condiments to your preferred taste.
  - Guest10928391 8y ago
    > But I do think that adding sugar in things is only legitimate when you are limited in the quality of things you get. It makes sense if the food supply is limited for example: you have to do with what you have, so let's make it taste good. Walk into any michelin star restaurant, and I can guarantee you they'll be using sugar in a variety of ways. It's not because they're lacking quality ingredients. I don't care where you buy or grow your tomatoes, if you're making a sauce or soup, it's going to require seasoning. What about if I'm caramelizing onions for a dish? I shouldn't be using sugar, I just need better quality onions? And using this logic I'm also wrong to salt a steak, right? I should instead find better quality meat? We season food to make it taste better, and we also buy better quality ingredients because they taste better. And, if we want the best tasting good, we use both quality ingredients and appropriate seasoning, which may include sugar.
    - phonypc 8y ago
      >What about if I'm caramelizing onions for a dish? I shouldn't be using sugar, I just need better quality onions? Not to detract from your broader point, but no you should not be using sugar in caramelized onions. Add it at the end if you want them sweeter perhaps, but cook with it and you've got onions in caramel, not 'caramelized' onions. Which should probably be called Maillardized onions.
      - js2 8y ago
        A fantastic post on Maillard vs carmelization for anyone curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/4b4dw5/what_is_the_chemistry_behind_caramelizing_onions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/4b4dw5/what_is_the...

You turned up your nose at "common" without even acknowledging or addressing the reason the sugar is added. fatnoah claimed it's added to counter unripe tomatoes. js2 pointed out that it's added even for properly ripened tomatoes. Your comment adds nothing to the discussion of why sugar is added or if it should be. It's just virtue signalling for snobs.

sametmax 8y ago
You can add sugar in anything, to make it taste batter. That's the point of sugar. That doesn't make the product good. Ice cream taste great, but it's not base for a healthy society. We need product that stand on their own if we want that children chose them over industrial junk good. It's not being a snob. I don't think I'm a better person because I happen to live in an area where you still get good tomatoes. It's random luck. But I do think that adding sugar in things is only legitimate when you are limited in the quality of things you get. It makes sense if the food supply is limited for example: you have to do with what you have, so let's make it taste good. But in our western society we have an abundance of food. Our problem now is obesity. And having affordable fresh tomatoes somebody would choose over frozen lasagna would be great to have. I say that because I honestly believed, until I became an adult, that cooked carrots tasted bad. The reason ? I only ate them at school, where it was the most horrible dish you could imagine. Avoiding healthy products because of experience of industrial crap is pretty sad.
- dpark 8y ago
  Adding sugar to things makes them taste sweeter. Sweeter does not always mean tasting better. However, in cases where sugar actually makes things taste better, I have no problem using it. If I were making sauce with overly acidic tomatoes, I'd probably add a bit of sugar. I'm not interested in creating "healthy food" that tastes terrible. The insistence on making "health food" bland is a major reason people go for junk food.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    It should be emphasized that "unsweet" simply means that I want to add my own sweetener. If the sugar is already added, then I rarely can add it to my taste. Ex: Starbucks coffee can be pre-sweetened, or taken black. I'll take it black, and then head over to the side and add cream + sugar myself. Its very normal, and I think most people don't see any problem with this. ----------- Where people get confused is... practically any situation outside of coffee. Super-bland and plain Cereal can taste better if you add some sugar on the top, or raisins yourself. Yogurt can be sugar'd up to taste. Then you get to meats, and it gets a bit confusing. BBQ Sauce is basically Ketchup + Sugar, and adding it before cooking allows for caramelization. But you can also add BBQ Sauce afterwards and allow meats to taste sweeter. Once you realize how adding sugar helps bland foods taste better, you'll start to add sugar yourself. And that's perfectly fine and normal! Chances are, you'll add less sugar if you do it manually, than what the stores will do. A spoonful of sugar helps the Yogurt go down. Just because you bought plain yogurt doesn't mean you have to eat it plain. It means that you can add condiments to your preferred taste.
- Guest10928391 8y ago
  > But I do think that adding sugar in things is only legitimate when you are limited in the quality of things you get. It makes sense if the food supply is limited for example: you have to do with what you have, so let's make it taste good. Walk into any michelin star restaurant, and I can guarantee you they'll be using sugar in a variety of ways. It's not because they're lacking quality ingredients. I don't care where you buy or grow your tomatoes, if you're making a sauce or soup, it's going to require seasoning. What about if I'm caramelizing onions for a dish? I shouldn't be using sugar, I just need better quality onions? And using this logic I'm also wrong to salt a steak, right? I should instead find better quality meat? We season food to make it taste better, and we also buy better quality ingredients because they taste better. And, if we want the best tasting good, we use both quality ingredients and appropriate seasoning, which may include sugar.
  - phonypc 8y ago
    >What about if I'm caramelizing onions for a dish? I shouldn't be using sugar, I just need better quality onions? Not to detract from your broader point, but no you should not be using sugar in caramelized onions. Add it at the end if you want them sweeter perhaps, but cook with it and you've got onions in caramel, not 'caramelized' onions. Which should probably be called Maillardized onions.
    - js2 8y ago
      A fantastic post on Maillard vs carmelization for anyone curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/4b4dw5/what_is_the_chemistry_behind_caramelizing_onions/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/4b4dw5/what_is_the...