Speaker 1: Do your kids refuse to eat anything unless it is
Speaker 1: served with a hearty side of tomato sauce? Or do you,
Speaker 1: even as an adult, go searching for the tomato sauce
Speaker 1: bottle whenever you serve up your hot meal each night?
Speaker 1: Like many condiments, there are many different varieties of tomato
Speaker 1: sauce available in the supermarket. So today on the Nutrition
Speaker 1: Couch Product Review, we take a closer look at our
Speaker 1: favorite tomato sauce varieties to help you choose the healthiest
Speaker 1: option for your petree.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Leanne Wood.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sussi Burrow, and as two of.
Speaker 1: Australias leading dietitians who specialize in everything evidence, space nutrition,
Speaker 1: we bring you the Nutrition Couch Product Review, a weekly
Speaker 1: chat on new products and old favorites that you can
Speaker 1: find at the supermarkets. Firstly, Sussi, do the twins eat
Speaker 1: tomato sauce or do they love to smother their meals
Speaker 1: in a good old Aussie favorite tomato sauce?
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm probably more guilty than them, actually, Like I
Speaker 2: like tomato sauce with things like a schnitzel or any
Speaker 2: kind of red meat. So I'm certainly someone who if
Speaker 2: I don't have it at home, I'll have to go
Speaker 2: and get some. Like I do like it, and my
Speaker 2: boys do have it, but they're not obsessed. They're certainly
Speaker 2: not kids to add it to everything. They like it
Speaker 2: with a sausage, but you know, I don't want to
Speaker 2: brag and get people outside. But they're pretty good with
Speaker 2: their food, so they don't. If they didn't have it,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't throw a tantrum the way I would, probably
Speaker 2: more me. So it's interesting. I've always let them have it.
Speaker 2: I've never been overly amal about not having it at home,
Speaker 2: but I'm certainly not someone who serves it with vegetables.
Speaker 2: It would certainly only be with things like lean sausages
Speaker 2: or you know, if they're having some chips and a
Speaker 2: hamburger out. So it's not something we serve at the
Speaker 2: table every night by any meansley at it's certainly reserved
Speaker 2: for meat in general, or maybe a schnitzlot times. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I did think though that this is a very topical
Speaker 2: conversation for parents, because I know there is a lot
Speaker 2: of different options out there, and there's also perception to
Speaker 2: mosals can be quite high in sugar, and indeed, if
Speaker 2: your child is having, you know, a good tablespoon. You
Speaker 2: know that can add up to almost twenty grams of
Speaker 2: sugars per day in some cases. So I do think
Speaker 2: four pair who are trying to often conjole kids to
Speaker 2: cut back on sauce or have an idea of how
Speaker 2: much is too much. It's a segment that's quite pertinent,
Speaker 2: and I would also say there is a growing range.
Speaker 2: I put the products together this week, and I was
Speaker 2: a bit sort of pleasantly surprised how many there are
Speaker 2: out there. But as just a general rule of someone sources,
Speaker 2: as I would describe to any of my clients, including parents,
Speaker 2: I have a rule of one sauce per meal and
Speaker 2: about a twenty cent piece worth of sauce. So if
Speaker 2: you are a family who struggles with limiting the sauce,
Speaker 2: just even getting the kids to measure it before they
Speaker 2: put it on the plate and say that is it
Speaker 2: is a great way to teach them control and just
Speaker 2: not adding more and more. So I think that's a
Speaker 2: good guide for all of us. If you're a source lover,
Speaker 2: whether it's barbecue, sauce, mayonnaise, whatever the condoment is, that
Speaker 2: you add, measure it and have a set amount rather
Speaker 2: than just pouring limitless because inevitably, with humans, we all
Speaker 2: eat what we're served, and over time we tend to
Speaker 2: serve a whole lot more. So keep that in mind too.
Speaker 1: And I definitely don't have a twenty cent piece of
Speaker 1: tomato sauce with my meals because I am a tomato
Speaker 1: sauce fan.
Speaker 2: Oh you love it. I'm surpr I'm shocked. I know what.
Speaker 1: Every time I put it on my Instagram stories, people
Speaker 1: like what you eat tomato sauce, I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I can't get enough of it, particularly in my eggs.
Speaker 1: I'm a big Yeah, I love a little bit of
Speaker 1: tomato sauce with my eggs. What's bad, isn't it?
Speaker 2: You know someone and then they have tomato sauce with
Speaker 2: their eggs.
Speaker 1: Jeez, if it's like it's just like a like a
Speaker 1: because I don't like the scrambled eggs because I found
Speaker 1: the cream quite rich. So if I'm having a little
Speaker 1: bit of poached eggs or something. Ever since I've been pregnant,
Speaker 1: I can't handle runny poached eggs anymore. Like I just
Speaker 1: I look at them and I instantly feel nauseous, like
Speaker 1: they have to be part of like hard poach, and
Speaker 1: I just find that they're just a little bit more dry,
Speaker 1: so that on a bit of toast is just a
Speaker 1: little bit too dry for me. So I found that
Speaker 1: ever since I was pregnant, I really am. I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of having my eggs with the stem tomato sauce.
Speaker 2: It's not role modeling very well for me, or is it.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to get David to role model there? Goodness,
Speaker 2: As I said, I'm sure he's not really a sauce person.
Speaker 2: Grabbing on about my own kids. And here's you a
Speaker 2: dirty sauce eater. There you go. You heard it here,
Speaker 2: First Land fitness dietician tomato sauce. He loves a good
Speaker 2: tomato sauce. Well, I hope you're choosing one of the
Speaker 2: good ones. I'll tell you the ones I've chosen.
Speaker 1: Shy oh, absolutely, mine's on the list.
Speaker 2: So the first one I've gone to is the Coals.
Speaker 2: Now this is I hadn't seen this before actually, and
Speaker 2: there's a thirty percent sugar reduced tomato sauce. It retails
Speaker 2: for just a dollar fifty, so that's really quite cheap
Speaker 2: compared to some of them. So per serve, which is
Speaker 2: twenty meal, which is a tablespoon worth and hence good
Speaker 2: to be measuring to get an idea of actually how
Speaker 2: much you're using. It's got just shy of one hundred
Speaker 2: killo jewels, which is about twenty twenty. Is that twenty
Speaker 2: five calories? No, not even twenty that twenty calories per serve.
Speaker 2: It's right there in front of me. Hardly any protein,
Speaker 2: no fat, which is what you would expect. Carbohydrate. Now
Speaker 2: this is interesting, we am because it lists almost five
Speaker 2: gams of carbo hydrate per serve, but no sugar. Now
Speaker 2: to me, that label is in trouble because it should
Speaker 2: have sugar just because it's referring to it let alone.
Speaker 2: It's I thought it was a legislative requirement to list sugar.
Speaker 2: So that's a bit dodged on the label calls you
Speaker 2: need to fix that asap. I will assume that most
Speaker 2: of that carbo hydrode is sugar myself. Is that a
Speaker 2: fair call? Am? I?
Speaker 1: Being? Yeah, sugar is the second ingredient, and I think
Speaker 1: the park with that carbo hydrode is sugar, and it's
Speaker 1: not naturally occurring. It's added or some of it's natural.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sodium just shy one hundred milligrams, which is pretty
Speaker 2: insignificant really if you're sticking to that serve. But if
Speaker 2: you're someone who's adding two or three serves of that
Speaker 2: per day, you're up around three hundred milligrams of sodium. Now,
Speaker 2: we suggest people consume less than two thousand milligrams of
Speaker 2: sodium per day for good health. So it's it's low,
Speaker 2: but it's not insignificant if you're using large volumes, particularly
Speaker 2: for kids. So the sodium and the salt is relative. Now,
Speaker 2: the ingredients here tomato pure seventy nine percent, which is
Speaker 2: very low for a source. That means twenty percent is
Speaker 2: made up of other crap, which is a bit of
Speaker 2: a concern. Sugar fructose, So two serves of sugar in
Speaker 2: there are thickener may start. Salt acidity regulator is natural flathing,
Speaker 2: some color which I don't like either, and some spice xtrac.
Speaker 2: Now my concern here, Lyanne, is this is the one
Speaker 2: that's got thirty percent less sugar. Imagine how much the
Speaker 2: other one must have because that's you know, that means
Speaker 2: that the regular one is coming in it, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe six seven grams of sugar per serve. So even
Speaker 2: though this is what I would have a masquerade is
Speaker 2: a bit health haloy, it's not. It's definitely wouldn't be
Speaker 2: my choice. I wouldn't be buying that because straight away
Speaker 2: I don't like sugar on the label of my tomato
Speaker 2: sauce at all, let alone color. So I'm actually really disappointed,
Speaker 2: and I would say no, I don't think it's a
Speaker 2: healthy product at all. And as I said, I hate
Speaker 2: to see the full strength one. Have you seen this before?
Speaker 1: I think it is a newer product. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to look. Cols is very ticky. They don't put a
Speaker 1: great deal of the nutritional information online. I do find
Speaker 1: that Woo Wors is a lot better. I can't actually
Speaker 1: find the sugar content in the normal Coals one. But
Speaker 1: let's just have a look at the standard wool Worst
Speaker 1: home brand three point one grams of sugars perserve, so
Speaker 1: the carbo hydrate's about three point seven grams in the
Speaker 1: standard wol Worst one. So probably a little bit healthier
Speaker 1: the wor Worst one than the Coals one. Is they've
Speaker 1: got tomato pure seven, but.
Speaker 2: This is their coals a healthier one, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? I just don't understand the place of this
Speaker 2: product when it's still got quite a significant amount added
Speaker 2: sugar and not low in sugars, so it's definitely not
Speaker 2: my Yeah, that was a real eye opener for me
Speaker 2: to see this product. Yeah, so the next one I've
Speaker 2: chosen is the one that actually skewed my interest in doing.
Speaker 2: This is a segment for us because I went down
Speaker 2: it was probably for me. I went down to our
Speaker 2: Little Bullies, which is really close. It's one of those
Speaker 2: little Metro ones, and we hadn't we didn't have any
Speaker 2: tomato sauce, and I was really upset. I couldn't have
Speaker 2: my dinner without it, So I quickly skewed it down there.
Speaker 2: And they didn't have the brand I normally gets, and
Speaker 2: that's very disconcerting I find. So I sort of had
Speaker 2: a look at some other ones and this was a
Speaker 2: Master Foods tomato sauce with hidden vegetables. Now, if I'm
Speaker 2: looking at a product that wouldn't normally have vegetables in
Speaker 2: it and then they food companies put veggies in, I
Speaker 2: sort of think I'll come on, like really, it's like
Speaker 2: when you I don't know, buying process meat and they say, oh,
Speaker 2: it's got to serve a veggies in it, like, it
Speaker 2: just doesn't go together. So I myself wouldn't buy a
Speaker 2: tomato sauce with veggies usually, But I had a closer
Speaker 2: look at this one for three fifty, so you know,
Speaker 2: quite a bit more expensive than the home brand one.
Speaker 2: The calories and the Killer Duels. This is a serve
Speaker 2: ony of fifteen, so it's slightly less on the label,
Speaker 2: which is going to lower the numbers, so that's relevant too.
Speaker 2: They're about a quarter less than the typical serve, which
Speaker 2: is a whole tablespoon, So say fifty four Killer Jules,
Speaker 2: you add twenty five percent to that, it's about seventy
Speaker 2: so pretty similar. Same with the protein as you would expect.
Speaker 2: The fat's very low. Now this is what I likely
Speaker 2: am toe point seven grams of carbohydrate and then just
Speaker 2: two point four grams of sugars, so almost half what
Speaker 2: we think we were getting in that lower sugar product.
Speaker 2: But as I said, we can't actually accurately report that
Speaker 2: given it's not on the label. Needs to be fixed
Speaker 2: where it's just estimating. And the sodium again is oh
Speaker 2: my ey, is it not great? Ninety milligram, so very
Speaker 2: similar again, so we look at the ingredients here. Tomatoes
Speaker 2: are seventy three percent with a tomato paste, which we
Speaker 2: know is very rich source of lycopenes, so very good
Speaker 2: for prostates as well. It does have sugar in there,
Speaker 2: and then carrot pole so four percent, carrot pole sweet
Speaker 2: potato pure five five percent, so you're getting sort of
Speaker 2: another nine percent vegetables which takes the vegetable content of
Speaker 2: that up to eighty two percent. And there's a been
Speaker 2: onion as well some spice. So certainly as a parent,
Speaker 2: as a tomato sauce eater myself, I would buy that
Speaker 2: product because I was pleasantly surprised. One it was the
Speaker 2: lowest sugar variety I could find on the limited number
Speaker 2: I had access to. But I actually thought that was
Speaker 2: really quite a strong profile from an ingredient perspective as well.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was a great product, and I
Speaker 2: hadn't been across it before. So yeah, that's the master
Speaker 2: food tomato sauce with hidden vegies. It's probably one I
Speaker 2: would buy for that reason. What do you think am
Speaker 2: I missing something?
Speaker 1: I don't know? Honestly, If your kids are getting their
Speaker 1: veggies through the tomato sauce. Guys, you're doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: Sure they might add a little bit of extra, but
Speaker 1: I think in the grand scheme of things, it's very
Speaker 1: very minimal. So I think for the cost, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not a bad product, Bill, it's a very good product.
Speaker 1: But I think I wouldn't be leaping off the shelves
Speaker 1: to buy it. I think I just prefer the sort
Speaker 1: of standard lower sugar loaves. Or does it taste or
Speaker 1: RD does it taste like normal tomato sauce?
Speaker 2: Yeah it tasted, Yeah, it tasted a bit sort of richer.
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, for eighty percent veggies versus seventy
Speaker 2: for extra ten percent, if you were going to buy
Speaker 2: a non home brand variety, you know I would buy
Speaker 2: it again. But you're right. There are also varieties with
Speaker 2: lower salt and sugar. So let's have a look at
Speaker 2: one of those.
Speaker 1: But I'll i'll just with the marketing debt. I'll just
Speaker 1: add in here one final point with the Master Food's one.
Speaker 1: And the marketing does sort of say it's got five
Speaker 1: serves a veggie in every bottle, but that to me
Speaker 1: my brain first leaving yes as the veggies, it's quite
Speaker 1: misleading because it's in the entire bottle, and there's what
Speaker 1: how many servings per bottle suits you about?
Speaker 2: Well, usually about twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Oh actually no, it says on the nutrition level thirty
Speaker 1: three servings per pack. So out of thirty three servings,
Speaker 1: you're getting five servings of veget So this isn't something
Speaker 1: that we're actually looking to boost our vegetable intake with.
Speaker 1: If you guys are getting vegetables from tomato sauce or
Speaker 1: absolutely doing it wrong. But you know it's not good
Speaker 1: to hurt you, absolutely not. So it gets a I
Speaker 1: don't know, four stars from me, Susie.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, and that's that's a good point. You know,
Speaker 2: I've probably been worried a little bit. It's like was
Speaker 2: love at first sight, but now I'm seeing the true
Speaker 2: you know, you're much more reasonable. So that's fair enough.
Speaker 2: Now it's a fair call because you're right. The sodium's
Speaker 2: not low on it, Like ninety milligrams is not a
Speaker 2: low sodium tomato sauce fhific because that's actually higher than
Speaker 2: that lead like that'd be over one hundred milligrams of
Speaker 2: sodium per serve. Given that that's soy quoting a fifteen
Speaker 2: meal serve size.
Speaker 1: Fifteen meal serve is a very small Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: one in I don't think Australia that uses fifteen meals
Speaker 1: of tomato sauce on their meals.
Speaker 2: Yes, so you're right. It's not overly low in sodium,
Speaker 2: which is the other thing you'd be looking at from
Speaker 2: a sauce. So yeah, no, you're right. Okay, So the
Speaker 2: last one I chose was sort of a mix of hybrid.
Speaker 2: It was fifty percent less added sugar and salt. So
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen this product before either. This is the
Speaker 2: Heinz tomato ketchup. This is the one I like, Oh,
Speaker 2: this is one You're like, okay, these were all coals.
Speaker 2: I sort of just had to scout around. So this
Speaker 2: is again a fifteen meal serve. I guess they're saying
Speaker 2: that a full heap tablespoons kind of twentyms versus a
Speaker 2: sort of level one it's about fifteen, So maybe that's
Speaker 2: how they're rationalizing that energy. Just forty kilo DULs so
Speaker 2: definitely significantly less fewer calories just ten calories per serve
Speaker 2: than the other varieties we've spoken about. So that's about
Speaker 2: half the other's little protein, little fat as expected. Now
Speaker 2: just true point true grams of carbohydrate and just one
Speaker 2: point eight grams of sugar. So this is actually the
Speaker 2: lowest tomato sauce I could find. Sugar wires, dietary fiber,
Speaker 2: sort of insignificant oun product is and then the sodium
Speaker 2: sixty milligrams, So the sodium is a tad lighter. It's,
Speaker 2: you know, these very insignificant amounts of sodium. You know,
Speaker 2: comparing really sixty to ninety sodium is not really that
Speaker 2: big a difference, to be honest. The profile concentrated tomatoes,
Speaker 2: they're not giving us a percentage on that, which is
Speaker 2: a bit frustrating as well.
Speaker 1: At the bottom of it, so it's contains seventy nine
Speaker 1: percent concentrated tomato. I say, where does it say that
Speaker 1: it's so nearly eighty percent tomorrow? Why does it say
Speaker 1: that just at the bottom of the ingredient list.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, the bottom of the ingredient list. Okay, there
Speaker 2: you go, vinegar, sugar, salt. So these incivinia to give
Speaker 2: it that tang, spice and her x tracks, they are
Speaker 2: using a sweetener, so a bit controversial. So they're putting
Speaker 2: the sweetness back in with some stevia.
Speaker 1: So's it's natural sweetness. Yeah, I don't mind that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, spice, Yeah, So you know, I think that if
Speaker 2: you were splitting hairs, that's slightly lower in sugars. It
Speaker 2: does have a sweetener in it, natural sweetener, it's not
Speaker 2: that much lower and sodium. Really, I think that's not
Speaker 2: a bad product. I think depending on flavor. You said
Speaker 2: you like that one.
Speaker 1: I do. From a flavor perspective, this one's my favorite,
Speaker 1: and it's tomato ketchup, not tomato sauce. So I actually
Speaker 1: think this is a really nice, rich, concentrated form of
Speaker 1: It tastes wise and I feel that you need to
Speaker 1: use less because it is nice and concentrated as well.
Speaker 1: I like the little bit of the tang from the
Speaker 1: vinegar as well. So this is the one that I
Speaker 1: prefers my preference in terms of tomato sauces. And again
Speaker 1: I think, you know, i'd probably give it four four
Speaker 1: and a half dollars out of five. It's not like,
Speaker 1: I mean, this probably is one of the better products
Speaker 1: on market, but whenever they give five stars to something
Speaker 1: like tomato sauce, but it is sort of definitely my
Speaker 1: favorite in the brand that I urge towards because I
Speaker 1: like the ketch up or the concentratedness of it, so
Speaker 1: I find that I use a little bit less than
Speaker 1: if I was using like a standard tomato sauce.
Speaker 2: So I think, really, if you're happy to spend a
Speaker 2: little bit more on a brand name either of those,
Speaker 2: I would be fine with the hit in veggie ones.
Speaker 2: I think any of the lower sugar slash lower salt
Speaker 2: options are good nutritionally, but it is worth having a
Speaker 2: quick scan because yeah, there is a big difference. Then.
Speaker 2: Some of the supermarket brands, for example, had upwards of
Speaker 2: five grams of sugars per serve, so in the case
Speaker 2: of spending a lot less, you're getting a lot more sugar.
Speaker 2: So if you're really trying to keep an eye on
Speaker 2: your kid's food intake, and first of all, limit the portions,
Speaker 2: you know, sort one source per meal and get them
Speaker 2: to start measuring it so they learn to use it
Speaker 2: sparingly rather than smothering it on And that's probably the
Speaker 2: best take home message overall. And if you want to
Speaker 2: get one that's slightly healthier, yes you can get ones
Speaker 2: that are lower in sugar and slightly lower in sodium.
Speaker 2: Just the final point I make is for men in
Speaker 2: particular cook tomato, so that what you would find in
Speaker 2: tomato paste tomato sauce has the benefit of a very
Speaker 2: concentrated amounts of lykopene, a very powerful anti cancer molecule,
Speaker 2: particularly associated with a reduction in the risk of prostate cancer.
Speaker 2: So a little bit of good quality sauce or tomato
Speaker 2: paste once a day is not a bad idea from
Speaker 2: a health perspective, as long as you're not smothering fatty
Speaker 2: sausages in levers of tomato sauce.
Speaker 1: And with your tomatoes when you're cooking them, you activate
Speaker 1: the likipene more if you're using a quality extraversion olive
Speaker 1: oil with that as well the end you're getting the
Speaker 1: double powerful antioxidant profile from the fact to help absorb
Speaker 1: some of the lycopene as well.
Speaker 2: Great point. All right, Well, that brings us to the
Speaker 2: end of the Nutrition Couch product review. If you haven't
Speaker 2: done so already, we would love to see you subscribed,
Speaker 2: and we would love it even more if you left
Speaker 2: us a five star review in the iTunes Purple app.
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear from you, particularly on Sundays and
Speaker 2: Wednesday mornings when we drop and we'd love any feedback
Speaker 2: on the Nutrition Couch podcast and we will see you
Speaker 2: this Sunday morning for our regular weekly drop.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, Catch you Tomato sauce lovers next week.
Speaker 1: The Second Stand, The Second stat