It's not always the food we eat which is making us put on weight, it is the condiments we add to the food. Today we will be looking at most likely the biggest condiment culprits... ketchup!
I love tomato ketchup, I use it pretty much everythingthat I eat. So this one pushes a few personal buttons for me.
Tomatoes are good for you, correct?
Ketchup is mainly made of tomatoes. Therefore you would think that it's not too bad for you. All of us accept that it's also packed with sugar, but tomatoes are natural veggies, correct? So at the very least you are getting the nourishment from those...
Unfortunately not when they've been boiled to death!
Ketchup is essentially produced from really over cooked tomatoes that have now lost all of their nutritional value, some water and tons of sugar.
The sugar that you can find in ketchup will be worth a closer look. Because, although it starts out as sugar (which is already unhealthy) before it's added to the ketchup it is refined into high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is much worse!
As well as this, it is packed with flavourings, like MSG, which make us want it more.
So , ketchup is not a good idea if you want to eat healthy. It's only decent ingredient has been robbed of its value and everything else has been linked to a great number of health problems, such as...
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is linked to
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Heart Disease
- Cancer
.. and contains absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. It just makes food sweet, so people eat more.
Is MSG really bad for you?
When you do a little research for MSG, you will discover a great deal of articles stating that it has a bad rep but it isn't really that bad for your health. Then you will stumble upon this little insight from Michael Galitzer...
“It’s probably one of the most harmful substances that one can eat.”
I honestly believe that there might be a little bit of a conspiracy here, trying to avoid the majority of folk from discovering the reality about MSG. So that we keep eating products which are packed with it.
MSG can lead to 'Leaky Gut' which certainly sounds disgusting and is linked to...
- Bloating
- Gas
- Diarrhea
- Abdominal pain
I have to admit, on quite a few occasions I have had all those, specifically after eating a greasy Chinese takeaway.
Healthy Ketchup options
Anyway, let's get back to ketchup. We all love it. We want to keep eating it. But we don't really want 'Leaky Gut'.
The healthiest substitute for shop bought ketchup is to make some in your kitchen.
If you fancy giving that a try, then check out this video from "Cooking With Plants"
If you simply don't have time for that, there are a couple of ketchups that are a healthier option.
Back in 2010 ConAgra removed the HFCS from their tomato ketchup (Hunt's Ketchup) but unfortunately they put it back in a few years later. Why? Honestly, I feel that they were trying to cash in on many peoples growing understanding of the dangers associated with HFCS and expecting that their more healthy option would earn them a greater share of the ketchup market.
I don't for a single minute feel that they did it out of genuine concern for our health.
Obviously, it didn't do the job, simply because they added it back in again. But folks are constantly becoming more health mindful, so maybe they are going to give it an additional go when they think the public wants it. It's certainly worth picking up a bottle and checking the ingredients every so often.
Another option, but not really a tasty one, is to use tomato puree. Within recipes this will work perfectly, but like a sauce it's really not the same. Tomato puree is not as sweet and has an extremely powerful flavour. But it's worth a try, include a little sweetener and it'll be much more palitable. I'm pretty sure that whatever you do will be a lot healthier than any shop-bought ketchup!
Just don't boil all of the nutrition away, load it with HFCS and lace it with 'gut-leaking' MSG! Aside of that, go crazy... even adding a sprinkling of (deadly) sugar will still produce a more healthy ketchup compared to the one you're likely using now.
Tomato puree (mixed with a sweetener) is a good alternate to making your own ketchup since it lasts a lot longer than fresh tomatoes, takes up less room inside your fridge and its simple to rustle up in a couple of seconds when needed. Try it, and let me know how it goes.