to not expect glucose syrup in a cottage pie?

[SpringForEver]

I don't often buy ready meals.

However, picked up a Sainsburys Love your Veg lentil and sweet potato cottage pie to save cooking and to snuggle up on the sofa and relax instead.

Skimmed the ingredients to ensure no palm oil, fine. I expected the potato to be sweet potato, also fine. However I didn't expect the lentil bit to taste like a dessert, it was hellishly sweet, overpoweringly so, even when drowned out with brown sauce to make it edible which it wasn't really.

Took a look at the ingredients list more carefully and it contains glucose syrup. That is the stuff used in commercially made cakes, which I avoid due to the side effects. This is what happens when sugar is censored, absolute crap is used as a replacement.

Ready meals will never replace food but that was truly disgusting, have learned my lesson, no more Sainsburys pre-made crud in future.

According to the ingredients there's a bit of glucose syrup in the stock (why???) but there's more brown sugar than stock. So most of the sweetness is just regular sugar. Still gross.

Skimmed the ingredients to ensure no palm oil, fine.

I have seen loads of mentions on here similar to this - what is the problem with palm oil?

If it isn't sustainably sourced palm oil, then it a massive problem with Dr forestation of the rain first, which ruins homes for lots of animals but especially the orang utans.
Problem is, it's in loads Of stuff.

Most bought stock contains glucose syrup. Don't know why though.

At least you avoided the horse meat that’s in the non-vegetarian version.

Sugar, glucose syrup and caramel!!!

marmitedoughnut personally I avoid palm oil for moral/ecological reasons. I don't want any orangutans harmed in my name.

what is the problem with palm oil?

The very short version is - harvesting it is killing the planet, and even if it wasn’t it makes food taste like crap.

It might be to soften the salt apparently since they have quite high salt content.

That is disgusting.

I've eaten one before and really liked it. Was drinking too though.

Never eating one again.

Sugar has replaced fat in a lot of products, fat gives flavour so take it away and not much flavour so sugars are put in. Sounds disgusting

There is plenty to read about palm oil if you have missed it. I have chosen to avoid it as much as possible, especially in food.

I had also chosen to avoid glucose syrup but hadn't realised I would find it in a cottage pie hence the title of my thread. Sugar is often added when tomatoes are used (not that it improves anything) but glucose syrup, I just don't get it.

Look . everything you buy is sweetened.

Bread/Baked Beans/Roast Ham.
Capuccino powder (unsweetened taste) is still full of glucose.
Pot noodles/mugshots/cupasoups. All bulging with sugar.

They get us accustomed to sweet things.

I think it's disgusting that any form of sugar is put in ready made savoury food. It isn't needed.

Just to add, even the 'sustainable palm oil' has a question mark over it if you read some of the not so readily available material. To be on the safe side I avoid that too.

I have also read about glucose syrup, not impressed.

*Look . everything you buy is sweetened.

Bread/Baked Beans/Roast Ham.
Capuccino powder (unsweetened taste) is still full of glucose.
Pot noodles/mugshots/cupasoups. All bulging with sugar.

They get us accustomed to sweet things.*

I don't buy most of those as they are foul, baked beans have always been sweet, and bread always had sugar but the rest are not things I would buy. They do try to get us accustomed to sweet things and then remove the sugar and replace it with sweeteners to make us ill. But the point is that a touch of sweetness to offset acid is one thing, a cottage pie that is sweeter than a rice pudding is something else.

Really you would need to try it to experience the degree of sweetness, but please don't because it really was foul.

Glucose-fructose syrup is much cheaper than sugar.
Companies do taste tests to find the level of sugar that most customers will like.

Sugar, glucose syrup and caramel!!!
It says "plain caramel". It's one of the many names for E150a, which is tasteless and is there to give a red colour.

Glucose syrup is really bad because it raises the blood sugar too quickly and the body then has to quickly pump out insulin to deal with it. It's a shit product and shouldn't be added to so many things. I can't tolerate it as it gives me palpitations and I feel weird.

Everything is far too sweet now.

The use of sweet potato will have added to the all over sweetness of the dish.

It's to give the impression that there are onions in the meal. Because no commercially prepared onion is ever properly caramelised, it's just drowned in sugar (look at TV cooks for that - 'I'll caramelise the onions now' - no you won't, you're going to fry them too quickly and add sugar).

YANBU sugar is in EVERYTHING. I work with people with type 2 diabetes, obesity, PCOS etc. Sugar is the first thing to go. I have a handout that I give my clients that has over 75 names for sugar as found in labels. It's hidden so well now because people are aware of how many diseases are caused by sugar toxicity.

@impocciona can you share the list??? Just as i think im up to speed om what to look for, turns out im not!

Sugar also has different names and as some companies dont want u to know how much sugar is in, as in the closest to the top of ingredients list the more of it, they call it different names so may have 4 or 5 different labels for sugar in one product, very sneaky

This example of how much crap they can sneak into processed foods just makes me even more determined to make as much as I can from scratch - at least I will have more control of what we eat.

Names for sugar:

Sugar
Sucrose
High-fructose corn syrup
Glucose-fructose syrup
Agave nectar
Beet sugar
Blackstrap molasses
Brown sugar
Buttered syrup
Cane juice crystals
Cane sugar
Caramel (not to be confused with plain caramel or any E numbers called caramel)
Carob syrup
Caster sugar
Coconut sugar
Confectioner's sugar
Powdered sugar
Icing sugar
Date sugar
Demerara sugar
Evaporated cane juice
Florida crystals
Fruit juice
Fruit juice concentrate
Golden sugar
Golden syrup
Grape sugar
Honey
Icing sugar
Invert sugar
Maple syrup
Molasses
Muscovado sugar
Panela sugar
Raw sugar
Refiner's syrup
Sorghum syrup
Sucanat
Treacle sugar
Turbinado sugar
Yellow sugar
Barley malt
Brown rice syrup
Corn syrup
Corn syrup solids
Dextrin
Dextrose
Diastatic malt
Ethyl maltol
Glucose
Glucose solids
Lactose
Malt syrup
Maltodextrin
Maltose
Rice syrup
Crystalline fructose
Fructose
D-ribose
Galactose

That is a very useful list MongerTruffle
and utterly vile
I’m disgusted at that cottage pie but not at all surprised. As if you’d put sugar in at home. They really want us addicted to that shit don’t they?!