| Your Health | | |  | Eating Well |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|
|
| | Take 5 | | | | Tomato-based pasta sauces | | | | | |
The basis of a good tomato-based pasta sauce is tomatoes, olive oil, basil and perhaps some garlic. So when you’re looking out for a sauce for your pasta, keep an eye on the ingredients list. Most sauces will contain more ingredients than this – in fact you’ll be hard pressed to find a jar of tomato-based pasta sauce that only contains these ingredients. That’s because they also contain additives, preservatives and extra ingredients, such as herbs and lemon juice.
A good rule of thumb when choosing a pasta sauce is to make sure you recognise all the ingredients. Most contain ingredients that you’d have in your kitchen cupboard, but occasionally, they may contain preservatives, particularly those sauces that contain meat.
As you can see from the table, the sauces here are generally quite low in calories, with the Loyd Grossman sauce being the highest in calories, most likely due to the smoked bacon. Out of the five sauces, this sauce also fares the worst in terms of fat and salt, again mostly due to the smoked bacon.
The Dolmio Original has the lowest calorie content and also the shortest ingredients list. It’s also very low in fat and saturated fat, but quite high in salt, so not the best option if you are concerned about your blood pressure.
Let’s take a closer look inside 5 popular tomato-based sauces.
| | | | Nutrition Information | | | | Per 100g | Calories | Fat (g) | Saturates (g) | Fibre (g) | Salt (g) | | Roma Chunky Bolognese | 53 | 2.4 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 1.4 | | Seeds of Change basil, parmesan & cherry tomato organic pasta sauce | 76 | 4.4 | 1.3 | 1.0 | 0.85 | | Dolmio Original Bolognese sauce | 49 | 1.4 | 0.2 | 0.9 | 1.25 | | Dolmio Taste of Rome creamy tomato & ricotta pasta sauce | 98 | 6.5 | 1.8 | 0.9 | 0.8 | | Loyd Grossman Smoky Bacon sauce | 115 | 8.0 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 1.5 |
| | | | Ingredients | | | Roma Chunky Bolognese
Tomatoes (59%), Tomato semi-concentrate (8%), tomato concentrate (5%), celery (4%), peppers (4%), courgettes (3.4%), aubergines (2.6%), carrot (2%), olive oil (2%), onion (1.3%), salt, sugar, rice starch, basil, herbs, pepper, garlic, acidity regulator: citric acid | | | Seeds of Change basil, parmesan & cherry tomato organic pasta sauce
Tomatoes (59%), tomato paste, cherry tomatoes (9%), cream, sunflower oil, onion, basil (1%), parmesan cheese (1%), cane sugar, sea salt, parsley, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice concentrate, garlic, oregano, black pepper | | | Dolmio Original Bolognese sauce
Tomatoes (76%), tomato puree (14%), lemon juice, onion, sugar, olive oil, salt, basil, garlic, herbs, parsley, spices | | | Dolmio Taste of Rome creamy tomato & ricotta pasta sauce
Tomatoes (59%), tomato puree (14%), ricotta cheese (7%), olive oil, fresh cream, lemon juice, onion, basil, sugar, parsley, salt, garlic | | | Loyd Grossman Smoky Bacon sauce
Diced tomatoes in juice (65%), smoked bacon pieces (8%), diced onions, tomato paste, sunflower oil, garlic puree (2%), concentrated lemon juice, sugar, ham bouillon, sea salt, extra virgin olive oil, chilli puree (0.1%), black pepper
Smoked bacon pieces contains: Pork belly, water, salt. Preservative: sodium nitrate. Antioxidant: sodium ascorbate
Ham bouillon contains: salt, lactose (from milk, yeast extract, glucose syrup, flavouring, pepper
| | | | Take 5...Other Pasta Sauces | | | |
|
