May the sauce be with you

​Three reasons why this saucy number is up for review:
It wows me how much sugar/sweeteners, preservatives, artificial flavours and colours are added to sauces we buy at the supermarket.
We all know someone that puts sauce on EVERYTHING (even a roast dinner) and shows no sign of stopping – they need the best option.
I have a bottle of Get Real Food’s Tomato sauce
Get real food – the result of two kiwi Mums getting together and creating a product range with “no nasties”. I have their tomato and BBQ sauce – I chose to review BBQ sauce because 60% of the time I’d choose BBQ every time. 
Taste review:
I wanted unadulterated flavour so first I tried it by itself – it was smoky and tangy like all good BBQ sauce. I then added it to eggs, which it complimented well. Extra points for not giving me a sugar rush. Tick.
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Nutritional review:
I hate that the nutritional value of things like sauce even need to be considered – if you are having something sweet you want it to be an obvious sweet treat, right? I’m thinking ice-cream or a caramel slice. Not something that is considered savoury.
Popular brands (Hint: rhymes with squatties) Tomato sauce is 30% sugar and I found a sweet-chilli sauce packing a sugar punch of 66% (more sweet, less chilli).  
Sneaky food companies.

Sugar is sugar is sugar. Meaning whether you’re adding white sugar, raw sugar, organic coconut sugar, molasses, rice syrup, maltose, nectars, agave syrup, maple syrup (just to name a few) you are adding “free sugar”. It is recommended that what we eat on a daily basis should be under 10% of free sugars (ideally under 5%). In simple terms this means sweetened foods should be kept to a minimum. 
Given there is 14.3g/100g of “sugar” in Get Real Foods BBQ Sauce there is free sugar coming from somewhere. That somewhere is Apple juice concentrate and Blackstrap Molasses. Dates contain natural sugar too so they will be adding sweetness. In comparison a sauce with 14.3% “free sugar” is a job well done. You should however still be weary of how much you are adding at the table.

I appreciate NZ brands that do their best to reduce sugar content and make the ethical choice not to use preservatives, artificial flavours or colours.
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Good one Get Real Food.