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Comment by tigershark | Hacker News Reader

You need to add sugar to contrast tomato acidity, it has nothing to do with sugar addiction. And it has been like this since forever, not only from the '70s. Source: even my grandmother added a pinch of sugar when cooking pasta sauce.

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A very little bit of sugar that's in a pinch isn't any kind of a problem. Even a tbsp isn't that much. The problem is the massive amount they put in drinks of all types...and foods of all types. They even put it in bread for heck's sakes.

In terms of taking the edge off of tomato sauce, shredded carrots works pretty well. I don't use sugar in any of my cooking, and no one has noticed.

Sugar in bread is so nasty to me. I can't stand to eat it, yet it's in almost every loaf on the shelf at a supermarket with 50 types.

Even without sugar, bread contains a lot of carbohydrates that break down right into sugar just by coming into contact with the spit in your mouth.

If you think that's not true, simply take a sugar-low bread (check the food label, don't just go for organic/whole-grain, those usually have more sugar) and taste it for a while in your mouth. You'll notice it starts to become sweeter in your mouth.

And that's actually not an issue. As you probably know, glucose is the fuel our bodies and brains run on, and while your body can break down proteins to glucose in a pinch, it's not actually healthy (despite what proponents of ketosis diets will tell you). It's especially hard on the kidneys.

As long as you stick to proper bread without the crazy added sugar, and preferably whole grain (actual whole grain, not just marketing "whole grain"), it's not an issue. Unless you try to subsist on literally only bread, of course.

I'm not talking about various proteins and rather about starch, which is a natural part of a good bread. The enzymes in your mouth and digestive system will break down starch to normal Glucose without a problem.

My point is that we need carbs, it is unhealthy to subsist on protein alone.

Obviously, yes. A balanced diet is always a better choice than any extreme diet. Like basically anything else too.

This is one of the best reasons to make your own at home. Thankfully, bread machines aren't expensive.

No knead bread is great. You don't even need bread machines.

Rye bread even has sugar in it.

My grandma used grated carrots to offset bitter/sour flavors in tomato sauce. There was a time before industrial white sucrose was as cheap as flour.

That's actually a good guideline. Treat sugar as seasoning, to be used sparingly.

Yes, a pinch, not enough sugar to turn the sauce into "kids ketchup"

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