Why do the food manufacturers put salt and sugar in so many foods that really don't need it??!!
Take baked beans for example - I make my own now with navy beans fro the health food shop and home-made tomato sauce - it is damn near impossible to get commercially produced baked beans that are not chock-full of sugar. Why?? The sauce doesn't need sugar!
The other day I bought a couple of tins of ratatouille, took them home ... and what do I find half-way down the ingredients? Sugar!! No need for it at all!
The way I cook is to use fresh vegetables, obviously I don't put sugar in, and I don't put salt in either (except if I make a bouillon) - I leave the diners to add salt to taste.
So why don't the food manufacturers make tinned and pre-prepared stuff without the salt and sugar and leave us to add whatever we want, to taste, I wonder!! It would be easy to do and would give us a much healthier diet.
I totally agree with you - thats 100% agreement with no reservations.
We buy very little processed or pre-packaged food. Food is made from basic ingredients.
One of the reasons is that nearly all packaged food tastes revolting. Why?
The main reason is that it tastes of some combination of seawater, syrup, and lard. Silly quantities of salt, sugar and fat. Even foods with reduced fat, reduced sugar and reduced salt labels still contain enough to make them completely unpalateable.
The reality is that most people in our society have had their tastes conditioned to accept this as normal. nonetheless when we have guests eating with us they normally enjoy what they're given and often ask for recipes. Some even follow those and reproduce the food. Many are surprised at the interesting flavours they taste. Those are the delicate flavours so often obscured by the salt and sugar in the commercial foods.
Everything from tomato juice through soups to tinned peas. All unpleasant to eat because of the added sugar and salt.
If the manufacturers removed all salt and sugar from their products we might eat more of them, but not probably enough to keep them in business while the majority prefer the bland, boring and predictable taste of sugar, salt and fat.
Salt and sugar are both excellent preservatives!
No doubt other preservatives could be used of course, but would they be any better for us?
In theory, properly cooked and tinned food shouldn't really need much preserving over the normal shelf-life.
I have some preserving jars (glass plus a rubber lid seal). Mainly used for soups which are best bulk cooked and we make them when we get cheap ingredients or leftovers. They're put into the jars when close to boiling point, and then last a year with no preservatives. That's also supposed to be the principle with tinned foods.
Just finished last year's asparagus soup, in time to reuse the jars for this year's. Asparagus, sage, oregano, and a little cream. Nothing else. Tastes wonderful and it's cheap.
