Dolmio and Uncle Ben's firm Mars advises limit on products

I was stumped as to why sauces are made this way , when making my own fresh sauce , no fat is needed and I only put in about a 1/4 teaspoonful of sugar to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes . But I'll still buy Uncle Ben's Sweet Cantonese ( I love it ) !

I suppose they are covering their backs regarding the "Sugar tax".
Bit of a "Ratner" moment though to recommend reducing consumption (and therefore purchase) of their product.
Sales are unlikely to rocket.

I always make my own - without any sugar - and not blowing my own trumpet but it's yummy and easy peasy!

I make tomato sauce by gently frying garlic cloves in quite a bit of olive oil until the garlic is golden brown, add two tins of napolina chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper, 1 tsp of sugar, oregano or mixed Italian herbs and then reduce very slowly until jammy. Take out the garlic cloves before serving and stir in chopped fresh basil.

I make this in batches using 6 tins of tomatoes and freeze in portions. I use it with pasta and to make chicken parmigiana among other things.

You are more likely to eat things like yoghurt daily and some seemingly healthy zero fat varieties have extremely high sugar content.
I think there should be clear labelling and then you pays your money and makes your choice.

"I make tomato sauce by gently frying garlic cloves in quite a bit of olive oil until the garlic is golden brown, add two tins of napolina chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper, 1 tsp of sugar, oregano or mixed Italian herbs "

There's more sugar in that (33.8g) than in the Dolmio sauce (29g).

(Napolina tomatoes are 28.6% higher in sugar than Tesco Everyday Value)

"An easy tomato sauce I make is 2 tins of plum tomatos.......Add a couple of shakes of salt and pepper and 1 spoonful of sugar per tin."

That's higher in sugar than both Dolmio and Kittylester's recipe, how are manufacturers supposed to compete with that?

A plate of spaghetti with Dolmio sauce has about 12% of the total calories from added sugar, the SACN recommends a maximum of 5%.

Glad you wrote that, crun, because I was about to. Just checked the tins of tomatoes in my cupboard and a standard 400g tin has 16g of sugar. Almost every veg (or fruit) puree - home made or not - will be high in sugars, because that's just about all fruit and veg contain. The body doesn't know whether sugars are 'natural' or added. I don't really understand Dolmio's advice.

I wasn't commenting on the amount of sugar in my sauce, more on the ease of doing it oneself.

As with Dolmio's recommendation, we don't eat the sauce often, probably once or twice a month in various forms. And, surely, it depends what the rest of one's diet is like?

Two things to get your head round.

Firstly some sugars are intrinsic (already.present naturally in the fruit or vegetable) and some sugars are extrinsic so must be. added by you or the manufacture.

Where it says on the labelling 'carbohydrates of which sugar' that will show both without distinguishing.

To find out what is actually added in processing you need to read the ingredients list.

Dolmio is prominently displayed on special offer in our Co op.

I cannot think that 6 teas of sugar in a sauce for probably24 people and that only eaten twice a month compares with lots of people I know personally who put 2 teas of sugar in every hot drink they have throughout the day, and are mostly in healthy old age. We get too hung up on things

Very true. My DH must have ten cups of tea a day with a spoonful in each, so I've a lot of catching up to do I know someone who used to have 4 spoonsful per cup. He's cut down to 2 now.

Quite, ann!

Yes. I wonder bout tins of tomatos. How does the body know that the sugar comes naturally from the tomatos? And it must be fructose, which is the worst kind of sugar. Apparently.

Anya most ingredients lists do list carbs plus 'of which sugars'. Still doesn't tell you how much is naturally occuring though.

I still think they need to take all their confectionery off the market forthwith.

Makes no sense otherwise.

Well, here we go again. 'Nanny state' has decided that no-one has any common sense, that we stuff ourselves with mars bars at an alarming rate and that we all eat spag bol every single night. We are ADULTS, we know the risks and we like a bit of variety in our diets too so spag bol every night is probably no-one's idea of a balanced diet. Why not leave us all to make our own minds up !

As for tins of tomatoes there are some surprises concerning them too. I thought one tin of toms was pretty much identical to another. However, my daughter went on the Atkins no-carb diet and took to reading labels to identify items with hidden sugar, she told me that, for example, Tesco's own brand tomatoes contained much more sugar than brands like Napolina so we both pay the premium and buy the Italian brands now.

Also, I read somewhere that Waitrose and M & S are much better on the 'no added salt and sugar' front than other shops.

I have never bought ready made pasta sauces but I do buy pesto and had no idea it contained sugar.

Makes you think!

Home made green pesto wouldn't contain sugar unless you wanted to add it - but why would you? And,so long as you keep covering it in olive oil, keeps quite well in a jar in the fridge.

We don't eat that every day either but cooked new potatoes tossed in pesto and fried whole in olive oil are delicious.

Napolina tinned tomatoes are more expensive but you get more tomato and less juice when you buy more expensive tomatoes. I think it was a Good Housekeeping test that proved that but I know that from trial and error.

I never buy ready made sauces, I make my own and never add sugar or salt, you don't need it. I have never met an Italian that puts sugar into bolognese/tomato/past sauce. And I have met a few, my first mother-in-law was Italian.

Dolmio would do better to reduce the salt and sugar rather than tell us to limit the amount we eat.

"most ingredients lists do list carbs plus 'of which sugars'. Still doesn't tell you how much is naturally occuring though"

You can make a conservative estimate though. I count all sugar that I don't know is definitely intrinsic as being extrinsic, and as that is below the recommended maximum the true extrinsic sugar level must also be below the limit.

Take plain yogurt as an example. The blurb with show it contains sugar but there will be no sugar listed on the ingredients. So you can be reassured there is no added sugar and it's all intrinsic (lactose).
Re the so-called 'nanny state' you don't hear people moaning about it when it's something that suits them do you? Like free compulsory education, health care, policing, etc...but if people think it's telling them not to smoke or drink or over-eat....wow do they protest!!!

Lactose doesn't count as added sugar because it's present naturally, but technically it's extrinsic because it's not bound up in the cellular structure of the food. That's why the technical term for added sugar used to be NMES: non-milk extrinsic sugar.

The term NMES has been scrapped in favour of Free Sugar now, since they decided to count the sugar in fruit juices as added because the juicing process breaks down the cellular structure and makes the sugar quicker to digest.

It's a government's job to provide information to its citizens with which to make informed decisions, what the "nanny state brigade" don't like is having their heads pulled out of the sand.

I do not use commercial sauces as they all have too much sugar in them. Read the labels on all the processed food items to see how much sugar we're eating a day. Think how much is a 100grams ( about 4oz) of food . What is the percentage of sugar in that 100g? The percentage number given is the number of grams we are consuming in each 100grams of that food. Should we expect sugar in saviour dishes?

We are all eating much more sugar than we did 40 years ago and many of us are much fatter.