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"Also there are USDA approved low/no sugar applesauce recipes but in the store you can only buy corn syrup or artificial sweetener applesauce."

I don't understand what you're saying here ... there are many, many national brands of applesauce that consist of just a single ingredient - apples. Santa Cruz is one, as is Cadia, as is the Whole Foods "365" brand ...

Its one of those single percentage anecdotes don't matter things. My boring regional employee owned chain supermarket does not sell unsweetened applesauce at all, nor do any of the other nearby supermarket chains.

I've heard of Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck) and was motivated to pull the stats. Some google work indicates Whole Foods gross sales revenue last year was $15B vs the US supermarket chain stores gross sales of $649B. Of course this doesn't count "superstore" concepts like walmarts and targets (and probably others) selling food, nor online or delivery groceries, independents, organic stores, etc etc. So "much more" than 98% of applesauce is not sold at Whole Foods. Assuming that all applesauce sold at whole paycheck is unsweetened, etc. Assuming goods distribution is similar, from my own experience at whole paycheck most people are buying specialty goods like alcohol, meat, produce not bulk processed goods although they do stock them.

Kroger sells unsweetened applesauce under their house brand as well as the national brands.

We make apple sauce using our pressure cooker from the tart apples that grow in our area and freeze it instead of canning it. The taste is phenomenal, rendering store-bought inedible.

Growing up this is how we had apple sauce. It is so delicious and makes store bought totally unappealing. My mom made hers quite chunky making it ideally as a topping for homemade vanilla ice cream.

Mmmm, that sounds good. The first time HN has made me hungry.

Looking to expand my Instant Pot repertoire... Mind sharing your recipe?

Core apples and cut into slices. Put in pressure cooker with some water, maybe 1/4 cup. Bring pressure cooker up to pressure and keep at pressure for 1 minute. Turn off stove and allow pressure to come down on its own. Voila!

We do not add any spices or sugar, but do so to taste if you wish.

And I should have mentioned that after the pressure comes down naturally, carefully open the pressure cooker and puree the apples with a stick blender.

I've made apple sauce a few times for near-immediate consumption (over the course of maybe a week). There is a big, notable difference in taste and quality from the store-bought. Might be time to try canning it for longer term consumption.

However, stores near here do carry a no sugar added bottle of applesauce. That's all we ever buy, and I can't imagine why they would even consider adding sugar/corn syrup. I like making it at home because I can play with the tartness a little more by adding in some grannies, and I like to leave in the skin for the added nutrients.

Studies show that sugar and salt increase consumption. So they add these things to increase sales. People aren't making a decision that's in their best interest, this is a biological hack that favors one party disproportionately compared to the other.

Corn syrup represses the feeling of being full and is also extremely cheap to produce, it might actually make the applesauce cheaper to produce.

>Corn syrup represses the feeling of being full

Small correction, but that study (and I believe there was only one) indicated that fructose metabolism produced less satiation than glucose, not that it actually prevents it. If you add fructose to a food and eat it, you'll still be more full than if you hadn't added fructose, just less full than if you had added glucose.

I think the reasoning was more like this: "Focus groups show that kids like their applesauce sweeter. What's a cheap sugar?"

Apple juice is often used as a surrogate sugar, because it is basically just sugar with a different name.

Sugar and salt make things taste better. Things that taste better also tend to sell better. If you took all salt and sugar out of food, you'd certainly eat and sell less, because it wouldn't taste good.

This is quite subjective. Sugar and salt make things "taste better" if you already have a certain expectation that that's how food "should" taste. That's not the case if you don't have that expectation.

I gave up buying products using refined sugar entirely for an extended period, and baked all my own bread, oatcakes, biscuits etc. Food which I previously found unpalatable without adding sugar or syrup, I could now eat and find perfectly tasty. When I cook porridge in the morning, water and a touch of salt are all it needs. I think it recalibrated my taste significantly--if I now try to eat even a biscuit from a supermarket, all I can taste is the excessive amount of salt in it. Likewise anything with refined sugar--it's too much, and it tastes disgusting. I think with industrially-produced food, we've become so used to the excessive amount of salt and sugar, that it has become normal to expect it even when it's unnecessary and things taste bland when they aren't included--even though it's perfectly fine. You're likely right it sells better. But it's like the music "loudness war" but with ingredients; the end result isn't that enjoyable or good for you even though it seems superficially better.

You substituted salt for sugar in your morning cereal. Try it with neither, and no milk, which is actually quite sweet. If one drops refined sugar and adds fruit (e.g., raisins), it is still sugar (as far as flavor goes). There are very few foods that have no salt or sweetness (refined or natural sugar) that still taste good.

By conventional American palettes. There's great research done on flavor perception by culture, and the US specifically associates sweetness with intensity of flavor, whereas cultures that don't favor sugar so highly more often associate saltiness with heightened flavor.

One example of this is the use of salt or spices on fruit. The generic US palette considers the sweetness of fruit to be its purpose, but many cultures will spice, salt, or cook the same fruits the way vegetables are prepared in the US.

Sugar and salt make things taste better. Things that taste better also tend to sell better. If you took all salt and sugar out of food, you'd certainly eat and sell less, because it wouldn't taste good.

You can call it biohacking if you want, but it is no more so than when your mom made you dinner.

http://www.popsci.com/high-salt-diets-might-make-you-hungrie...

>The more salt you eat, the thirstier you get. Right? Wrong, according to two studies released today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The research found that as salt consumption increased, people actually drank less water. And the high-salt diets seemed to make study subjects hungrier, too.

> I can't imagine why they would even consider adding sugar/corn syrup

Just about any commercial fruit processing is going to need a plan for standardizing brix. That usually will involve some form of sugar. In theory you could have very stringent requirements of your suppliers, but that will get expensive, and even if brix is good, you may need to deal with abnormal acidity in a batch.

Simply Orange Juice seems to do it using "a computer-modeled blending of orange juice sources, intending for the consumer to have a uniform taste year-round"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simply_Orange_Juice_Company

Any Whole Foods in the US has several brands of applesauce with no ingredients other than apples. I'm sure even safeway has at least one.

If you are grocery shopping at the dollar store or walmart, perhaps your mileage varies...

No need to can it, you can freeze them in ziplock bags with no loss of flavor or texture. My family makes a whole year's worth at once, though of course you need spare freeze space.

If you haven't tried it, a splash of cognac really makes the applesauce pop.

And actually you don't even need the applesauce

I greatly enjoy canning with liquor and the classic brandied apple chunks is delicious. I also make a batch of peach rum sauce every year which tastes incredible.

I know the stuff is not good for me from a carb and alcohol standpoint but making it myself is an inherent limiter to consumption and if I'm going to eat junk food its going to be fantastic amazing junk food.

Pork chops taste good. Homemade canned brandied apples as a side dish to pork chops is delicious.

Do you not get Bramley apples over there? Large green cookers that are delightful for apple sauce?

My grandmother always used to make applesauce with Winesaps. There's a little orchard around here that always kept a couple trees for her and they're still there. Every season we go and get some to make applesauce out of em. Always better than store-bought, plus I can't for the life of me find a store-bought chunky applesauce that doesn't have sweeteners and all that in it.

>Next story, lets debate Concord grapes, vs Flame seedless, in raw and home canned jelly form.

For raw grapes, there's no debate, thick-skinned grapes are amazing.