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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.
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.
I have never put any sugar in my from scratch sauce. But that's probably why I don't like jar sauce.
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.
I don't put 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.
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 :)
The actual acid (acetic in vinegar, citric in citrus and tomatoes) actually boils off with the water. So a long simmer actually removes the acid and changes the pH of the dish.
Oh shit, that's super interesting! Really appreciate you sharing that, now I wanna go read more about that some time!
Yes, but aren’t those sugars much different (read: better) than refined cane sugar (or worse: HFCS)?
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.
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.
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?
I can’t imagine putting sugar in my sauce. The sweetness comes from hour four of San Marzano tomatoes simmering in an enameled Dutch oven.
Carrots?
Carrots are common as a sweetener and thickener in some veggie based sauces. Melinda's hot sauce uses them too
My grandma's old recipe was just letting them soak in it all day and then taking them out rather than leaving them in. They're a very nice snack after soaking in there. Very interesting flavor.
Username almost checks out 😁
I'm a fraud
Nope.
My pasta sauce doesn't have any sugar in it, but it does have tomatoes, browned onions and wine, all of which contain natural sugar.
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.
Starch in tomatoes? 🤔
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.
People really need to find better tomatoes. Onions are all that's needed to balance the acidity, really.
the amount of sugar i put in my from scratch sauce doesnt compare to what usually comes with these premade satchets
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...
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.