Sugar Series pt. 2 – What’s in Your Tomato Sauce?

Welcome back to the “Sugar Series,” pt. 2! This week we’ll be talking about what’s in your tomato sauce. (Read the series introduction and part 3.)

What’s in Your Tomato Sauce?

I’ve studied a lot of ingredient labels for this series, as I mentioned in the intro post. On one of my excursions, I went to a very popular grocery store chain and I found sugar in every single tomato sauce. Every. Single. One.

Here you see the sugar hiding on this label, tucked right there in the middle of the pack. (Below the soybean oil I might add. But we’ll save that for another post on another day!) Tomatoes have a natural sweetness to them which comes out if you roast them so you shouldn’t need added sugar. Have you ever had homemade tomato sauce? Heaven. 

But don’t worry, I’m not here to tell you that you should be making your own sauce each summer and canning it. Although that does sound dreamy if you have the time! 

Back to the sauces and ingredient labels. 

You may hear people mention something like, “This (insert product name here) is really clean.” Or, “The ingredient list is really clean.” Here is a look at a label that makes their sauce from just the basics. And it’s also the sauce that my husband requests most frequently based on the taste alone, in case you need an outsiders’ perspective. 

This post is not about Rao’s Marinara Sauce, even if it’s a Crunchy Kat husband favorite. This post is about reading ingredient labels and making sure you’re not getting any extras in your diet that you don’t need or want. Then after you have that bowl of pasta with clean sauce, have some dessert! 

You can always follow me over on Instagram (@crunchy.kat) as that’s where I share lots of sugar-free tips and tricks in my Stories and posts.

Disclosure: The links above may contain affiliate links. This post is not sponsored, I just love sharing what I love.