Buy this, not that: pasta sauce

A nice pasta dinner…

Imagine for a moment, you’re sitting down for a fancy Italian dinner. The wine is flowing, the bread is still hot and mouth watering, and you begin to sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on your towering pla

te of marinara sauce and favorite pasta noodles.

The smell of Italian spices has you ready to dive in until suddenly, the cook runs from the kitchen and says, “I almost forgot an ingredient” and he begins to sprinkle white granulated sugar onto your plate and encourages you to mix it in to the rest of your meal. What’s going through your mind right now? Weird right?

Always check the labels

Sugar, or any sweetener for that matter, doesn’t belong in pasta sauce. It’s a savory dish. But don’t tell mainstream pasta sauce producers like Ragu or Prego, who have unfortunately made the white powder a staple of their products. There are only two reasons why companies add sugar to products: 1.) To make you consume more of the product and 2.) To make it taste better. These companies must be insecure about the taste of their products and are apparently overcompensating for their lack of flavor by “cheating” with something they know we all like – sugar.

Tony identified the worst pasta sauce in the store as Hunt’s pasta sauce because it contains high fructose corn syrup and the fact that it’s in a can. Glass is best because it doesn’t contain BPA. For more information about BPA in plastics, click here. High fructose corn syrup is a sweetener which several studies have shown has addictive characteristics. A 2008 Study from Princeton University shows that lab rats have withdrawal symptoms when they go from eating high fructose corn syrup and suddenly stop. This explains why many consumers report headaches when they first go on a “clean” diet and take chemicals like this out of their diet. Despite these concerns, the Food and Drug Administration continues to allow companies to use as much of this chemical in food as they want. Thanks government!

Source: https://www.princeton.edu/news/2008/12/10/sugar-can-be-addictive-princeton-scientist-says?section=topstories