Veganism and the Search for a Cure Diet

[icerat]

Actually if I recall correctly if you're using a non-sugar laden version, ketchup is actually nutritionally better than raw tomatoes. Lycopene for examples is far more bioavailable.

One of the reasons why the raw food diet is a bit silly. A *lot* of vegetables (not all) are healthy cooked/processed. Having said that, the average american switching from an average america diet to a raw food diet is probably going to be healthier.

As for the best diet? The healthiest one that you'll actually stick to.

 

[Maurice Ledifficile]

Not explicitly:




But anyway...



Really? Why?

Would you think it silly to count fresh tomatoes as a vegetable?

What about if you crushed the tomatoes into tomato paste? Does it stop being a vegetable because it's mushed-up?

What about if you mixed a little sugar, salt, onion, garlic, ect, into the paste? Does adding extra ingredients somehow reduce the total vegetable content?

At what point in the process of making ketchup do tomatoes stop being a vegetable?

The tomato in the ketchup can remain a vegetable if you wish, but the ketchup itself is not a tomato, therefore not a vegetable. It is indeed silly.

A serving of vegetables provide a certain nutritional value (good energy, vitamins) and is good for a kid. Ketchup is mainly sugar.

I'll give them that you can get vitamin A and C from it, but it's not a *********** vegetable.

 

[Magrat]

Not explicitly:

At what point in the process of making ketchup do tomatoes stop being a vegetable?

My objection is that you don't use enough ketchup in a lunch to count as a serving of vegetables, not that it was made of tomatoes. At least the average person doesn't. That would be a LOT of ketchup!

And as was said above, also a lot of sugar and salt.

 

[Magrat]

I had to go look, but a "serving" of tomatoes is, for instance, six grape tomatoes or 1 medium tomato. I would be very interested to know how much ketchup you can make from 6 grape tomatoes, and how much sugar and salt are in the ketchup that equals the same vitamin level.

 

[Brian-M]

The tomato in the ketchup can remain a vegetable if you wish, but the ketchup itself is not a tomato, therefore not a vegetable. It is indeed silly.

But it retains all the nutritional qualities of the tomatoes that were used to make it, plus the nutritional qualities of other vegetables used to add flavour, such as onion and garlic.

What difference does it make to the nutritional value of the food whether or not the tomatoes were mushed-up in a factory, or if they were mushed-up by your teeth?

A serving of vegetables provide a certain nutritional value (good energy, vitamins) and is good for a kid. Ketchup is mainly sugar.

75% of the energy from a fresh tomato is carbs, and about two-thirds of that is in the form of sugar. So about half the energy from fresh tomatoes comes from sugar anyway.

But I don't see how this is relevant. If I took a fresh tomato, and sprinkled it with salt and sugar, then ate it, does that mean I no longer have consumed a portion of vegetable?

And if that's your objection, would that mean you'd agree that low-sugar ketchup should count as a vegetable?

Adding salt, sugar, ect, doesn't remove the nutritional value of eating a vegetable. (It may add additional unwanted nutritional qualities, but that's beside the point. The point was in setting a minimum amount of vegetable consumption, not a maximum amount of salt and sugar.)

My objection is that you don't use enough ketchup in a lunch to count as a serving of vegetables, not that it was made of tomatoes. At least the average person doesn't. That would be a LOT of ketchup!

Now that's a good reason for objecting to it.

 

[casebro]

Contadina brand tomato puree used to advertise that "we put eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can". I suspect ketchup is mostly condensed tomatoes, and you can't argue that it has not got enough fruit in it.

I suppose a few packets of ketchup would equal that medium sized tomato.

But referring back to the OP, I don't think you can make raw ketchup.

 

[bigred]

people do eat salsa in significant quantities, unlike ketchup.

Don't put me in that commie group. A burger aint worth eatin if it's not swimming in the stuff.

Quantities aside, there's a logical flaw in Brian-M's argument, as he's attempting to say that because there are gradients, there can't be a distinction between the endpoints.

The fallacy has different names; wikipedia calls it [Continuum Fallacy]

"You can't say in what processing step ketchup stopped being tomatoes, therefore ketchup is a vegetable."
"You can't say in what processing step corn syrup stopped being corn, therefore corn syrup is a vegetable."
"You can't say what day my grandmother stopped being a baby, therefore my 99 year old grandmother is a baby."

Common sense alone should tell us this argument format is invalid, but it finds a happy home in skeptic forums.

What's missing is that the categories have many factors, and there's a "point" to the categorization.

bravo to you, very nicely stated/summed up.

 

[Modified]

75% of the energy from a fresh tomato is carbs, and about two-thirds of that is in the form of sugar. So about half the energy from fresh tomatoes comes from sugar anyway.

But I don't see how this is relevant. If I took a fresh tomato, and sprinkled it with salt and sugar, then ate it, does that mean I no longer have consumed a portion of vegetable?

From a quick web search, it looks like a typical tomato is about 60% sugar per-Calorie, while a typical ketchup is 80%. More importantly perhaps, a tomato has about 6.5 grams of fiber per 100 Calories, while ketchup has about .5 grams per 100 Calories. So they've taken a high fiber food and made it into a low fiber food.

 

[blutoski]

Contadina brand tomato puree used to advertise that "we put eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can".

I would advise against using the manufacturer's slogans to infer nutritional content.

I suspect ketchup is mostly condensed tomatoes, and you can't argue that it has not got enough fruit in it.

Sure we can. That's the argument we're making: fruit was an ingredient that went into the process. It is not necessarily an acceptable description of the result. Stuff was removed, stuff was added, stuff happened to it. It's something different now.

I suppose a few packets of ketchup would equal that medium sized tomato.

Not from a nutritional point of view, no, and if the context of the discussion is 'can this be a substitution for an equal weight of fruit and vegetables' the answer would be 'no'.

 

[blutoski]

But it retains all the nutritional qualities of the tomatoes that were used to make it, plus the nutritional qualities of other vegetables used to add flavour, such as onion and garlic.

What difference does it make to the nutritional value of the food whether or not the tomatoes were mushed-up in a factory, or if they were mushed-up by your teeth?

Because if we're talking about ketchup, they do more than just premasticate it. They remove elements people don't like in their ketchup.

75% of the energy from a fresh tomato is carbs, and about two-thirds of that is in the form of sugar. So about half the energy from fresh tomatoes comes from sugar anyway.

But I don't see how this is relevant. If I took a fresh tomato, and sprinkled it with salt and sugar, then ate it, does that mean I no longer have consumed a portion of vegetable?

Possibly. Notice it's becoming too focussed on the one part. The 'whole' thing a person ate - ketchp - is different than a vegetable. It's a vegetable plus salt and additional sugar. Therefore not the same as eating a vegetable.

And if that's your objection, would that mean you'd agree that low-sugar ketchup should count as a vegetable?

The problem is also the removed components would have to be replaced. I don't know if you've pureed tomatoes, but it's very watery. So if nothing else they removed water to thicken it up. If you leave pureed tomatoes in the fridge for a few days, the heavier elements settle. So, to prevent all this ugliness, food processors remove fiber and water and often add an emulsifier and pH stablizer.

Since the 'good stuff' in vegetable portions is probably the low calorie density due to high volume of fiber and water, the nutritional deficit from this processing is quite significant.

Adding salt, sugar, ect, doesn't remove the nutritional value of eating a vegetable. (It may add additional unwanted nutritional qualities, but that's beside the point. The point was in setting a minimum amount of vegetable consumption, not a maximum amount of salt and sugar.)

And that's the point. The end product is not a tomato. It's a new substance with a lower nutritional profile than a tomato. It is not a nutritionally valid substitute, and cannot be considered a portion of vegetable without redefining vegetable (which is what the legislation did, and therefore my objection to it).

One of the worst things that happened to kids' diets in the last 50 years was the perception that fruit juice is a way to get fruit servings. Fruit juice is candy. The analogy is similar to ketchup: they took out the good parts.

 

[Magrat]

So they've taken a high fiber food and made it into a low fiber food.

That is the essence of cooking and processing. The more cooked, the more caloric and less fiber. In general.

 

[Magrat]

One of the worst things that happened to kids' diets in the last 50 years was the perception that fruit juice is a way to get fruit servings. Fruit juice is candy. The analogy is similar to ketchup: they took out the good parts.

This is literally true, precisely. An Apple has sugar, yes,but also has fiber. As a diabetic I look at the glycemic load of a food, not the straight carbs. The glycemic load is how fast your body absorbs the sugars in the food.

An Apple has a relatively low GL because you have to digest the fiber before you get the glucose. Apple juice on the other hand has a very high GL because it's basically sugar water with some nutrients.

This is also true of ketchup. Tomatoes have such a low GL I can eat them as much as I like (3 in fact).Ketchup on the other hand has a very high GL of 25 for a cup (roughly equivalent to the size of a tomato http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/3005/2)