AIBU and very stupid to say this isn't junk /convenience food?

[dottytablecloth]

Right am really exposing myself for a potential flaming here but anyway...

Am making a sausage casserole today with the following ingredients:

Butcher sausages
2 peppers
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
Onions
Tin chopped tomatoes
Fusilli pasta

And now for the bit a JAR of Lloyd Grossman tomato sauce

It's a made up recipe a la dotty so please forgive me if that's not what a sausage casserole is supposed to be like!

Anyway SIL was her earlier and says she wouldn't feed that to her 3 year old as it's junk food.

I'm mortified

I thought it was quite nutritious.

I've a very fussy 20 month old who loves sausages.

AIBU and deluded to serve this up and think it's not junk food?

RJ

Really you are just going to keep banging on aren't you, no matter how many times it is pointed out to you that the tomatoes make up nearly all of the sugars. Less than 2.6% of the jar is 'added' sugar. Less than 16g of sugar in the whole, huge, 660g jar. 4 teaspoons in a whole enormous 660g jar. 9g in a regular jar - about 2 teaspoons in the entire meal of which the OP's DS probably had 1/5th at the most.

I think you might like to look in the mirror if you are looking to see who has confused the OP.

There was nothing wrong with her meal at all

PS: Feel free to point out where I have misquoted you.

Yes, of course the OP's 20 month old DS ate 1/4 of a 660g jar of pasta sauce as well as his sausages, vegetables and pasta.

I think I did point out and you just continued.

You also completely ignored the point I made earlier, which was that this type of sauce is NOT as good as one made at home without added salt and sugar and that from my research most pasta sauce in jars has more added salt and sugar than this.

But yknow if you need to continue a back patting exercise I don't mind, I think I have my point coherently and hopefully it will offset the poor nutritional advice spouted on here, if not fair enough people tend to only hear and accept what validates their own point anyway and I reckon that has been repeatedly proved on here.
If anyone is actually interested in the truth, any google of hidden sugars will bring up advice on pasta sauces, it isn't difficult to find.

If anyone wants to try something a little better, there are plenty of recipes already on the thread.

If anyone wants to continue banging away to prove They Are Right, feel free, I'm out.

Oh and op, you are not stupid, just don't accept everything at face value!

'Oh and op, you are not stupid, just don't accept everything at face value!'

Like your SIL, because she's clearly an idiot.

Well I'm not trawling through your posts to see if you pointed it out or not, if you don't wish to now, when I have asked you to, it can't be that much of an issue.

This sauce is every bit as good as one you make at home.

From your research. Right, would you like to list out what your 'research' involved?

Even if it they do, we weren't talking about 'other sauces' we were talking about the one which the OP actually used.

But you ignore all the facts and bang the same drum, that's OK.

The OP's DS liked his dinner, he ate all of it, he didn't just pick the bits of sausage out

chippingin I agree the added sugar isn't a massive quantity - in this jar of sauce. My tinned tomatoes have 3g sugars/100g, so there's 1.8g / 100g added to the jar. 2/3 sugars come from the tomatoes but 1/3 as much again is added. As a preservative and to improve flavour. In addition to salt which is completely unnecessary in cooking.

A homemade sauce doesn't need to add almost 4g sugar per tin of tomatoes to achieve flavour or shelf life and therefore this particular jar is not as good as one that could be made at home, without adding unnecessary extras.

All the little added sugars here and there add up over the course of a day's meals and result in obesity, type 2 diabetes and dental decay.

Nigel Latta did a very good programme here recently on how prevalent sugar is in everything on the shelf and he added up how much an average person ate of "hidden" sugar over the day. Fascinating documentary and would recommend it to anyone - TVNZ online should still have it listed.

However - this thread has reminded me that I'm out of my own sauce, so have just put a batch in the slow cooker.

This actually got me really interested so I checked.

The LG jar (660 size) has 4.8g/100g of sugar therefore 31.98g in the jar.

My homemade tomato sauce (tinned tomatoes, celery, leek, courgettes, garlic, basil, black pepper) has 18g sugar per 600g portion.

I'd say why eat 14g sugar more than you have to?

Did you include the sugar from the tomato purée, hic?

I usually make my own pasta sauce but when LG ones are half price I buy them because they're delicious

Op everything in moderation. We're having toad in the hole with cauliflower cheese tonight. Homemade (apart from the sausages) and much more unhealthy than a jar of pasta sauce.

Thumbwitch what tomato purée? There isn't any in my sauce, just reduced tinned tomatoes. Mine's a personalised recipe in myfitnesspal which gives the nutritional content. I was just comparing the "good" jar of LG with the homemade equivalent, not commenting on the whole sausage pasta thing. My equivalent has almost half the sugars.

The 350g jar is the standard size, especially if you are bulking it out with your own stuff.
I could be wrong, but the picture doesn't look like it has had a massive jar of pasta sauce thrown over it.

Processed meat, white refined pasta, unhealthy jar sauce. Its 70% junk.

Hmm, percentages not your strong point Polly?

This thread is priceless. MN at it's best!
"I never said 6 BIG teaspoons of sugar."
"Yes You did."
"No I didn't."

Is this in 'Classics' already?

I would have said it is the sausages that are the junk component.... people who eat processed red meat have an increased risk of an early death,

sausages are also high in salt, and high in preservatives - ever seen a homemade sausage... they are not pink for long. Most butchers sausages are also high in fat since they usually contain belly pork.

and yet people are complaining about a couple of extra teaspoons of sugar in a whole jar of sauce.

I'm a bit bemused that some posters claim using the jar of sauce as part of a meal turns it into a convenience meal, but it's ok to use a stock cube? that seems more than a little hypocritical.

For those who mentioned tinned tomatoes can be a bit bitter, the secret to making a tomato sauce sweet is all to do with onions. Increase the proportion of onion and the sauce will taste sweeter. Not sure why but it definitely works.

For a really quick and easy tomato sauce, stick an onion, garlic, pepper etc in the food processor and blend. Fry off. If using fresh tomatoes, stick them in the processor along with some sundried tomatoes,give them a quick pulse, and add to pan. Add a bit of salt at this stage as it helps to draw out the water from the tomatoes. Add whatever herbs you fancy (except for fresh basil, which add that right at the end) and simmer till thick. stick a slug of wine in if you fancy.

Minimum salt, no added sugar or other "nasty" ingredients, no need for tomato puree (which does contain extra salt and is also a processed or pre-prepared ingredient) and stonkingly simple to do. Prep time takes a maximum of 5 minutes and then all you need to do is to give it the occasional stir while it is cooking.

Can someone type out the rules, just do we all know:
Should OP spend hours chopping tomatoes? Or is that only ok if she has grown them herself?
Should she cook it down and reduce it, for hours, so increasing g the tomatoes natural sugars?

Or does that too make her sauce to unhealthy?

Just checking. , so we're all clear as mud what the rules are!!

The SIL is a loon.

So too are some of the food Nazis on here. A jar of LG pasta sauce? Get over it!

Obviously the only reasonable answer to that, Oblomov is that she should grow everything herself (organically), chop by hand, mix in a hand-hewn wooden bowl (crafted from a fallen tree to avoid deforestation) and then serve without adding salt. No cooking will mean the natural sugars are not increased and the added roughage from raw food will be excellent. Not to mention saving all those airmiles from transporting across tubes of tomato puree.

OK, it wont taste anything like tomato sauce but that's not the point here, is it?

Let's not even get into the thorny matter of adding gorgeous parmesan cheese on top of a pasta dish. because that contains salt too.

Are you allowed a grind of black pepper, do you reckon? or does that fall foul of the guidelines too?

People will pick apart anything anyone posts regarding food. Information and advice also seems to change on a fairly regular basis.

Do the best with what you have. That's all anyone can do. Stick to fresh where you can. Cut corners when you need to. Fish fingers chips and beans on a Friday when your all shattered and just got back from swimming won't hurt anyone.

^^ this!

I'm still laughing at the carb police pointing that with the pasta it's a lot of carbs for a child and pasta could be removed from the recipe and replaced by vegetables to cut down.
Children don't need a low carb fecking diet! Carbs aren't the devil!
Some of disordered thinking about food on here is crackers.

Has anyone suggested yet that the OP make her own pasta? Maybe out of ground tree bark or something. Then if there are any insects in it that would replace the protein that was in the sausages of doom. Not a fruit tree though, that might contain sugar.

I don't eat things like pasta which is a processed food or sauces with additives but I would certainly say what you are serving is better than some foods. It is not pure healthy paleo like many of us eat but it's better than a pack of sweets.

There is no need unless you have little money to have all these carbs people feed their children all the time or processed foods like sausages. Just serve the child the veg and a piece of meat or fish or eggs.

I'm curious now..if someone has guests or is really busy and would rather talk to the guests and doesn't have time to create sources from scratch EVERY time, what's better, grabbing take aways on the way home or using a jar to save time whilst being able to use fresh and better quality ingredients in the rest of the meal to produce something more appetising and home made?