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I believe sugar is added to tomato-based products (sauces, condiments, etc) because tomatoes are pretty acidic by themselves and sugar is a common way to balance out acidic foods.

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I've found that making tomato sauces from raw ingredients is a really simple and much better than most store bought which, as you say, usually have a lot of sugar added.

That's true. You can cut the acidity with some cinnamon, further cooking and / or some butter, but that's more expensive and less addictive than adding sugar.

Or by adding a base like baking soda.

The texture suuuuucks though, or at least it did the first (and last) time I tried it.

I've tried this but I don't think it really works, it forms sodium citrate which tastes sour. Maybe not as pronounced as the citric acid in tomato sauce, but you still need sugar to balance it out. It's also an emulsifier so it can change the texture of the sauce.

A lot of tomato based sauces are just very sweet. If you're worried about the sugar intake eat less of it.

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