I make my own jam and use way less than the recipe suggests.
There is too much sugar added to products that don’t need it. Chicken soup is my recent find.
Australia is suffering a major health crisis and sugar is a concern.
Both with long histories in our food.
For which foods though is it essential?
Sugar can be found in,
- most breads,
- biscuits/crackers,
- cakes and muffins,
- sauces and dressings
- yogurt
- healthy labelled cereals
Etc, etc
Some of these have sugarless options, but may taste like old cardboard or …. Is one option to substitute natural sweeteners? I don’t include honey in the healthy options.
I have a 2 1/2 year old granddaughter. Her parents have been very strict about what she eats. Sugars and salts are out of bounds. Her favs include blueberries and ‘strawblueberries’ for treats and she loves the various toddler bars. I tried one of her toddler bars and it tasted like cardboard (or suggested having COVID from lack of taste/flavour) but she loves them.
My suspicion is when a human is never introduced to sugars and salts they do not miss them, but once they taste them (spices in general) they never look back to eating without them. As businesses humans are their market and the volume is from people who are accustomed to sugars, salts, and spices. Surveying modern grocery items also shows there are more spiced options on the shelves that are actually flavoursome in comparison to not so many years ago - even if not to the standards of a good home cook.
If more people sought comparatively flavourless healthy foods there would be more of them on the shelves. Some will argue healthy foods do not need to be flavourless but that is in the taste buds of the consumer as to what it means to the individual. Not everyone likes some flavours, natural or otherwise, or subtle flavours. ex, I get pilloried if I do not add enough salt and pepper to the steaks.
At the end of the day eating is normally an enjoyable experience in well-off societies and if one tries to take the enjoyment away they will do so at their own peril. There are enough consumers of varied interests and attitudes toward foods to drive businesses to respond; the money is what the products follow.
There are more healthy foods in absolute or relative terms than possibly since the advent of food processing so the market might be working as best it can.
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I would venture to say that the quantity of sugar, salt, fat, is in fact the problem? Processed, manufactured foods have a too high and unhealthy quantity of those added, as the topic suggests and many agree.
Actually Pepper, Salt, and Sugar are natural preservatives (inhibit microbial growth). In an age before refrigeration those were essential to increase the life of a product, and even nowadays sugar makes it possible for jam to have a long shelf life, and some of the cheese spreads products are very high in salt and can be stored in the pantry, just to name a few examples.
Spices also not only act as preservatives but also help in the digestive process, are anti microbial, aid in digesting fats, calm and soothe the stomach.
There’s also a simple fact which suggests that the human body is programmed for those 5 tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami, as we perceive taste through our taste buds on our tongue which send messages to our brain about those tastes. It would be very difficult indeed to never get a taste of those because they occur naturally in many foods i.e. the sweet or the sour taste in fruit, the umami taste in meat, and so on.
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How much sugar per cup of cooked fruit do you use? Does your jam set easily?
Depending on your definition of “way less” I also use less than the book says. I use 3/4 of the traditional amount, which is as much sugar as cooked fruit. However if I want it to set I need to reduce the water added and do my best to use good fruit with plenty of pectin.
Sugar does much more than sweeten the food it is added to.
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Food manufacturing companies self monitor their products while The elected Government is asleep including the glorified National Diabetes Association.
Does a body thinks what if sugar content and associated ingredients being cause of the Diabetes including monitoring other methods and innovative ideas like some one suggested adding sugar to your need definitely will help. The sweeter the more market- WHO monitors the product, has anyone heard from Diabetes Australia or ???
Coffee
Tea
Milk
Water
But the realities are sugars cannot just be stirred into lollies and soft drinks.
like cordial is to water.
So i certainly am not crying out for add your own sugar products
There is sugar in just about all packaged products. Eg. Tinned Beetroot, packet Coffees’. They could leave it out or cut down on it in most products. On some, say sugar free, they have probably used the synthetic sugar which is just as bad for you.
I bake bread… I do not add sugar. I do add a bit of salt.
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Organic yogurt does not contain sugar nor salt
I make all of my dressings and sauces so I do not add sugar unless the recipe calls for it and 9/10 it does not.
I make crackers weekly zero sugar
Many people cannot tolerate dairy, therefore Coconut yogurt is the alternative. The trouble is there is sugar in that type of Yogurt. Is there another alternative?
You could make your own yoghurt. That way, you get to control what goes into it.
Yoghurt cultures for non-dairy milks are available online. One example is
