If you've ever canned your own sauce, you'll understand what I'm talking about. If not, and you're a friend of mine, you have higher than average reasoning powers, and will follow along nicely.
If you take tomato, remove the skins and seeds, you're left with a very watery sauce. So,canning instructions are, slowly cook your sauce to reduce it by evaporation. Well you can cook and cook, and it doesn't have a consistency anything like those commercial prepared jar sauces. Pounds and pounds of fresh tomato's, processed at home, only to produce my watery sauce. Why? Why take all this time slaving away in the garden and the kitchen, when you could purchase your sauce, for a fraction of the cost of homemade, at the grocery?
So, I'm pondering this for hours while I struggle to can all the tomato's I harvest from my 40 plus plantings and this is what I've come up with. "They" must add something to commercial sauces to change the consistency because there is no way in hell that they could sell Ragu type sauce for $1.50 following the recipe we all use - it's just too product and labor intense. Again, I've identified another area of our food chain, where corporations optimize their earning while compromising our nutrition. This is why I work so hard to produce my own food, and why I'm blogging, to share these ideas, and improve all our lives. The secret ingredient that thickens their sauce while mine remains watery is starch. Vegetable gums, starch, and pectins are added to the mixture because a very small quantity of starch, absorbs a large amount of the water in the sauce, therefor making it thicker. "Ok", you might say, "big deal - they're not toxic or anything, right? "
True, it's not toxic, but I think it's a bit disingenuous at least. Theirs is not a thick, concentrated sauce chocked full of tomato pulp... it starts as the same watery sauce we make, is artificially thickened, further diluted with water which replaces what you think are nutritious vegetables. They actually have to use very little real tomato - just thicken theirr product with starchy fillers. Therefor, the consumer is ingesting less nutrients and more sugary starches, even though their intention was probably to make a nutritious meal. The added bulk from the starch, also fills you up, but without nutritional benefits. Commercial sauce will have a less nutrient concentrate and less flavor than a homemade sauce , but they get a lot of product for less money. The consumer is unaware of the switch- a -roo, and they make great money. Sell us glass jars of sauce that many think must be far superior to home canned sauces because it has the thick consistency we've all expected from spaghetti sauces. Greed, it's at the source of what's wrong in society today. Post your comment to my theory, am I just worried about a non issue? I need everyone's feedback/comments to fuel my blog! Keep watching for posts to the blog and I'll share my tricks to thicken the sauce.
What are your tricks to thicken the sauce Betsi! How do you peel and seed your tomatoes? Are there any sauces on the market (at Shaw's) that do it right?
ReplyDeleteI don't seed the tomatoes. I also don't cook/evaporate all the water out. I can the tomato juice for veggie stock and I food process the tomatos. Then I add cooked veggies so they won't loose all texture and flavor in the long cooking process. My only downfall is I add paste at the end to thicken. I do make a huge pot of sauce and don't add too much but it's still cheeting. Amy
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