You Are What You Eat

I think one of the biggest problems that we face when it comes to eating healthy is convenience. I don't know about you but I have a jam packed schedule and sometimes I really don't want to have to prepare a meal for myself (much less write a blog about preparing a meal). It is much easier to just grab what you can get and a lot of times people head straight to the drive thru. I have really tried to cut that out of my diet lately and make better choices. After all we only get one life and I don't really want to spend mine sick because I couldn't give up french fries.

On my quest for healthier eating I hit a rough patch. I love sauce. On everything. Well maybe not everything but I do love sauces and enjoy the added flavor it gives my food. I have also recently been reading every food label before purchasing and definitely before eating anything. I hadn't even really given thought to the secret monster that lives in my refrigerator and cabinets. Sauce. When I started reading labels I was shocked at:

1. The amount of sodium
2. The amount of sugar
3. The number of additives and I'm not talking about the good kind. I'm talking chemicals.

If I handed you a bottle of bleach and told you to drink it would you? Absolutely not. Then why are we putting other chemicals in our body? Because the FDA says it's OK? Maybe because we rationalize that it isn't the same as drinking bleach? Or maybe even because we don't think there is another way. Well guess what? Long before packaged food, people ate. It's a shock, I know but it happens to be completely true. So where is our solution? We make our own sauce and it's super easy.

I decided to start with the first thing I could think of. Ketchup.

The first thing I did (that you do not have to do) was to make my own brown sugar. It is one of the easiest things you can do and the benefit is that you don't have to buy multiple kinds of sugar.

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar
1Tbsp molasses
(I only made one cup because I didn't need more than that. I stored the rest for future use as you would normally)
There is no trick to this whatsoever all you do is add the molasses to the sugar and mix it together until it looks like brown sugar. You can make as much or as little as you like and if you need darker brown sugar guess what?! You just add more molasses. Easy peasy. Also, made this way it tends to be fluffier and not as dry and lumpy.Literally all I used to mix the two together was a fork. Try it out. Seriously, it's fun.
Pictures!!

 

Now for the ketchup. This is one of the easiest recipes I have ever made. You literally just dump all of these ingredients into a saucepan (I used a deep skillet) and mix it together and let it simmer for about 45 to 1 hour or until its a ketchup consistency. I did about 50 mins and it turned out great. Let it cool down and then store it in a container in the refrigerator. Remember that this has no preservatives in it so it won't last as long. The recommended time is around a month.


2 (6oz) cans tomato paste
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon white pepper (I used black. The only difference is color. Often a recipe calls for white pepper so that you wont see black specks in your sauce. It is always ok to substitute)
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons molasses
2 Tablespoons raw honey
2 and 1/2 cups water

Mine turned out a bit sweeter than I liked but the few people that have tried it liked it. When I make it again I will probably cut the brown sugar and possibly part of the honey out. Now for some nutrition facts just to send you over the edge with happiness. I took a picture of the ingredient label on the ketchup bottle that we already had:


My recipe has 17 calories, 3 grams of sugar, and 115mg of sodium per Tablespoon. I'd say that was a vast improvement over the bottled version especially when you add the fact that mine contains no high fructose corn syrup, natural flavoring, or any other preservative.

xoxo
susan