Packed full of salt and sugar!

[XmisterIS]

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.

 

[vernon]

Leave out the salt and sugar would be commercial suicide for any manufacturer. Their sales would plummet.

 

[XmisterIS]

Please elaborate ... when I make a tomato sauce for my baked beans it tastes much better than the sauce you get with the tinned beans.

My ingredients are nothing more than pureed onions fried in a little olive oil, a bit of garlic, then add a tin of chopped tomatoes that have been put through a blender, simmer for 10 mins. Then I add salt at the table.

I am guessing that to put my sauce (or any sauce) in a tin, all you need to do is add preservative, et voila! Delicious sauce in a tin, no salt, no sugar.

 

[swee'pea99]

Beanz meanz Heinz. As any fule no.

Seriously tho', Vernon is absolutely right: the food industry in this country (and it is a massive industry( is basically about combining salt, sugar and fat, which are cheap, with any 'carrier' that will do the job, from potatoes to ground up pigs testicles, and selling the resultant 'value-added' convenience food to people with infantile palates who distrust anything that's not immediately 'nice' and would rather watch a cookery programme on tv than cook.

 

[DiddlyDodds]

More salt and sugar please ,, love it .
We make all our food fresh and no salt or sugar because of our two year daughter and it tastes so Dull Dull Dull (dont tell the wife though).

 

[Bluebell72]

From my days in Home Economics (dim and distant) I seem to remember that it's something in the canning process (HTST - high temperature, short time) which can slightly alter the flavour and denature other characteristics. Tinned pea manufacturers add green colouring, as peas go a greyish colour in canning, which consumers find unpalatable. One manufacturer stopped this as a test for a while, and sales plummeted.

But you are right - take a look at so called diet products, and diabetic brands - they have more sugar and salt in than their regular variants.

 

[vernon]

I'm not a salt fiend, I never add salt or vinegar to my fish and chips. I never need to use the salt cellar to augment the salt in any dish served in a restaurant or at friends' houses. I don't use a lot of salt in my cooking. My pies are legendary. My guests never resort to using the salt cellar when eating dishes prepared by me.

However:
Some tinned foods just taste wrong/insipid when salt/sugar is removed.

Sweet corn and butter beans spring to mind.

I refuse to purchase tinned salt/sugar free sweet corn. Butter beans I buy reluctantly but I suspect that I add more salt than was originally removed to render them tasty. Butter beans are an impulsice snack for me and soaking, then boiling dried beans is not an option when i want them now.

Tinned goods are convenience foods i.e. open, reheat, eat.

Consumers don't want the hassle of having to rebalance the salt/sugar content. If the stuff doesn't taste right straight out of the tine then It will be abandoned in favour of a brand that does.

Baked beans - love them as they are. Like butter beans they are an impulse item. I don't want the hassle of making a sauce and boiling beans when I wake up wanting beans on toast for breakfast. I'm sure that I'm not alone with this sentiment.

 

[vernon]

Oh, and if folk want to taste something thats virtually salt and fat free try the Seabrooks' "Goodbye Salt Hello Flavour" bland (sic) of crisps.

I bought a six pack of them when they were launched.

I ate a quarter of a packet, binned the remainder and refused to give the remaining five packets to anyone as I didn't want them to think that I hated them enough to want to cause them to vomit.

Several weeks later a colleague at work thought that it was a good idea to share the vile products with other members of staff - she was not popular.

I hope Seabrooks aren't pinning their hopes on their new product being a major contributor to the profits of the company.

BTW

I really enjoy 'Salt and Shake' crisps without the salt.

 

[MossCommuter]

I am guessing that to put my sauce (or any sauce) in a tin, all you need to do is add preservative, et voila!

What preservative?

 

[funnymummy]

I agree that some processed products needs salt & sugar. I used to be a chef, so i find it just as easy to make my own sauces then to open a jar, I do however use to odd tinned item, my kids love Baked Beans & Pot Noodles.
What makes me laugh is when manufacturers make a HUGE hooha about their "new improved 50% less sugar/salt" variety

 

[Arch]

More salt and sugar please ,, love it .
We make all our food fresh and no salt or sugar because of our two year daughter and it tastes so Dull Dull Dull (dont tell the wife though).

That's odd. I cook from fresh mostly*, and never add salt or sugar, and my food is fine. And I do serve it to other people, so it's not just that I have an accustomed dull palate.

*in a pasta sauce, the only processed stuff will be a squirt of tomato purree, and dried herbs. And pesto. In a curry, there'll be Pataks curry paste, so some salt in there. I do make my chilli con carne with tinned beans (I prefer them to kidney beans, and the tomato sauce comes with them).

I do have beans and stuff, and occasional shop bought pies, sausages etc. I notice that I'm thirstier after eating processed stuff.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I once bought some "No Added Salt Or Sugar!" muesli. If nothing else, at least I now understand why they add salt and sugar to muesli.

As for beans ... I like them with a tablespoon of Marmite and a hefty teaspoon of hot chilli powder in them. Salt just doesn't cut it for me any more.

 

[ColinJ]

I once bought some "No Added Salt Or Sugar!" muesli. If nothing else, at least I now understand why they add salt and sugar to muesli.

I used to make my own and found the sweetness of raisins and chopped banana (and maybe half a teaspoon of honey as a treat) was fine for me.

As for beans ... I like them with a tablespoon of Marmite and a hefty teaspoon of hot chilli powder in them. Salt just doesn't cut it for me any more.

I go for 3 or 4 hot Thai chillis (including seeds), a tablespoon of curry powder and 2 or 3 cloves of garlic. It's why I tend to be found at the back on my forum rides!

 

[Bluebell72]

I notice that I'm thirstier after eating processed stuff.

The other week we were helping a friend move house. At the end of the afternoon, as things were still in disarray, he phoned up for some Domino's Pizzas for us all.

In the night both of us got up for glasses (pints) of water as we were so thirsty - lizard tongue!!
Stuff like this never leaves me feeling very good afterwards.

 

[Seigi]

Fast food is the worst for it, it's full of salt and sugar to make it 'tasty', I often find when eating fastfood (how rare that is) I can taste the salt in it and it's quite off putting.