6 ms·

I wonder what additives are currently in good that we’ll discover to be harmful in the future. Also interesting that Heinz’s ketchup (in be the US) is now full

I wonder what additives are currently in good that we’ll discover to be harmful in the future. Also interesting that Heinz’s ketchup (in be the US) is now full of high fructose corn syrup and artificial food dyes, when (from the article) it started as the better/safer/more natural option.

frogulis 3y ago
Is that so? As an Aussie, Heinz is not a new brand for me, but I definitely associate them with beans before ketchup (tomato sauce (dead horse in rhyming slang)). Canned baked beans are not thought of as a natural nor healthy option - is that the perception of Heinz as a company in NA, or is it just the ketchup product that's thought of as better/safer/more natural?
- keiferski 3y ago
  Your comment reminded me of the Mad Men story arc (set in the 60s) which is about Heinz being associated with beans, not ketchup. In the US, today I'd say Heinz is almost overwhelmingly associated with ketchup, so it's interesting that their ad efforts didn't make it to Oz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiCW6wlFBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiCW6wlFBc
  - frogulis 3y ago
    These days they may have a better association with "ketchup". My sister affirms that (Heinz) ketchup and tomato sauce are distinct products, but I'm not so sure.
    - jraph 3y ago
      For me, a ketchup is tomato purée / paste + suger + salt + some vinegar + possibly some seasoning (pepper, herbs...). Tomato sauces is a larger category of any kind of tomato based sauce in which we could shoehorn ketchup. A tomato sauce could be purely salted and without any sugar in it, though a pinch of sugar can mitigate the acidic taste.
  - arethuza 3y ago
    "Beanz Meanz Heinz" is etched into my memory from my youth in the UK. Certainly when I think of Heinz I think of beans not ketchup.
    - jjkaczor 3y ago
      Huh - they once ran ads for ketchup that said something like: "Heinz, there are no other Kinds": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JplL1XzVV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JplL1XzVV4
  - drivingmenuts 3y ago
    I've bought Heinz Beans at a grocery store in Austin. In the import section. And they weren't bad, but not great either.
  - foobar1962 3y ago
    The Australia market was dominated by Fountain Tomato Sauce, and possibly Master Foods. Heinz Ketchup wasn't easy to find, and it may have been named Tomato Sauce rather than Ketchup here.
- nkrisc 3y ago
  As an American, I had to do a terrible impression of an Aussie accent to hear how “sauce” and “horse” could possibly rhyme. As for Heinz, my impression has always been that it’s the standard, mass-produced supermarket fare that is probably not healthy/natural. Nothing they make that much of that lasts for so long can possibly be so.
  - frogulis 3y ago
    They rhyme perfectly in an Australian accent :D Not rhotic, plus the vowel in "sauce" tends towards "or" rather than "ah". Hope that's a comprehensible explanation of our esoteric pronunciation :)
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    The science of long lasting food is well known. Boiling kills most bacteria. Acid kills the leftover Botulism spores (one of the few diseases that survive boiling). Seal while hot and the food can stay good for a year or longer. Tomatoes already are near the acid point that kills botulism. Just gotta lower pH a little more with either lemons or vinegar. And bam, success. A professional would need to measure the pH to be sure as acidity levels differ. But we've been canning tomatoes for nearly two centuries now, the science is well tested and well figured out. > Nothing they make that much of that lasts for so long can possibly be so. Refrigeration was invented long after preserved foods. You couldn't match a Roman Legion 500 miles without preservatives. Salt, olive oil and wheat. It must have sucked to be a Roman Legion but less so than other troops. It's why 1lb of salt was worth 1lb of gold back then. The secrets of long lasting food (fermentation, salt, and other methods) is millennia old. Canning is relatively new (boiling+sealing simultaneously), a 1800s era discovery. But canning's health effects are well studied.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      Do you mean salt was worth as much as gold, literally?
      - dragontamer 3y ago
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  In the US, Heinz is definitely more associated with ketchup. When Americans think of canned baked beans (which is rarely), Van Camp's is arguably more well-known. When I think of Heinz these days I think of the politician John Kerry, because he's married to the heir to the Heinz family fortune. But that's mostly because my brain is weird.
CraigJPerry 3y ago
Heinz do different kinds of Ketchup, the no added salt one tastes just like regular european heinz ketchup (i.e. not as cloyingly sweet). I remember the ingredients didn't have HFCS listed on the bottle and we put it down to that being the difference.
- xav0989 3y ago
  Heinz US also does a “simply” ketchup with sugar instead of HGCS and no artificial dyes, and when you compare ingredient lists, that same “specialty” ketchup is the one that’s sold as regular ketchup in Canada.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  Not adding salt makes it less sweet? Or is there some more differences?
  - CraigJPerry 3y ago
    I don't recall exactly but the ingredients lists were pretty different. The no salt one had tomatoes and maybe 2 or 3 other ingredients, the regular one had a few more ingredients although as i recall nothing weird except HFCS was one item.
code_duck 3y ago
Food coloring would be news to me. I haven’t seen that in any ingredient lists… looking at Heinz’s website now, it does not list any dyes in the ingredients for their standard ketchup.
rsynnott 3y ago
So, the odd thing here is that, while, yes, most preservatives used in the early 20th century were extremely dodgy, sodium benzoate, while controlled, remains legal, and considered safe at reasonable levels. This was as much marketing as anything, in this particular case.
derbOac 3y ago
Interestingly, I was listening to a podcast once and they were interviewing a researcher with Heinz who said one of their R&D goals is developing tomato varieties that are sweet enough to be used in making ketchup without added sugar. I don't remember what podcast it was and don't know if Heinz is still doing that but at the time they sounded like it was a big focus for them, for financial as well as health reasons. Gastropod has a good episode on ketchup; it might have been the one I'm thinking of but it might not. It covers many of the same things as this article but in more depth with certain things.
infecto 3y ago
> Also interesting that Heinz’s ketchup (in be the US) is now full of high fructose corn syrup and artificial food dyes, when (from the article) it started as the better/safer/more natural option Amazing the leaps you took to make this statement. 1) There are no food dyes that I am aware of. 2) I don't think the science is conclusive that HFCS is any worse than sugar. 3) They make many varieties, some which use cane sugar instead of HFCS. 4) What does this have anything to to with the US?
- pfdietz 3y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649104/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649104/ (2013) > Both controversy and confusion exist concerning fructose, sucrose, and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) with respect to their metabolism and health effects. These concerns have often been fueled by speculation based on limited data or animal studies. In retrospect, recent controversies arose when a scientific commentary was published suggesting a possible unique link between HFCS consumption and obesity. Since then, a broad scientific consensus has emerged that there are no metabolic or endocrine response differences between HFCS and sucrose related to obesity or any other adverse health outcome. This equivalence is not surprising given that both of these sugars contain approximately equal amounts of fructose and glucose, contain the same number of calories, possess the same level of sweetness, and are absorbed identically through the gastrointestinal tract. [...]
  - infecto 3y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9551185/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9551185/ (2022) > In conclusion, analysis of data from the literature suggests that HFCS consumption was associated with a higher level of CRP compared to sucrose, whilst no significant changes between the two sweeteners were evident in other anthropometric and metabolic parameters We could go back and forth all day long posting studies from nih.gov, lets not be silly. I don't think what you have provided disproves my statement. The science is inconclusive, we don't know that HFCS is materially worse than sugar. I think we can say sugar in any form is not great in large quantities but I don't think we know for certain how worse, if any, HFCS is compared to natural sugar.
rufus_foreman 3y ago
Heinz: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Salt, Spice, Onion Powder, Natural Flavoring Heinz Simply: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, Cane Sugar, Salt, Onion Powder, Spice, Natural Flavoring Heinz No Sugar Added: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled White Vinegar, Salt, Natural Flavoring, Stevia Leaf Extract (Not Normally Found in Ketchup), Onion Powder Heinz No Salt Added: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled White Vinegar, Sugar, Potassium Chloride (Not in Regular Ketchup), Natural Flavoring, Spice, Onion Powder Heinz Organic: Organic Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Organic Tomatoes, Organic Distilled Vinegar, Organic Sugar, Salt, Organic Onion Powder, Organic Spice, Natural Flavoring Heinz Jalapeno: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Dried Jalapeno Peppers, Spice, Onion Powder, Natural Flavors, Bell Pepper Juice Concentrate There are probably others, those are the ones listed at one store.
michael1999 3y ago
Gums. Indigestible. Used in place of flour or corn starch as a thickener or emulsifier. They can be quite irritating to some people.
Applejinx 3y ago
'sucralose'. Which is a trade name, not a descriptive name. There's no way that won't be found to be toxic. I recently had a health scare where I was inadvertently consuming a lot of it in a coffee creamer: the label color had changed and I thought nothing of it, but it represented a change in sweetener from monkfruit/stevia to 'sucralose'. Came damn close to going to the hospital. Gut pain and sweats and pooping lighter and lighter shades as my organs shut down (at least from producing bile). Figured out the change, dumped all the 'sucralose' and after a week or so returned to normal health, no other changes in diet or behavior at all. I don't know why it's not banned already, but it must be hella profitable.

frogulis 3y ago

Is that so? As an Aussie, Heinz is not a new brand for me, but I definitely associate them with beans before ketchup (tomato sauce (dead horse in rhyming slang)). Canned baked beans are not thought of as a natural nor healthy option - is that the perception of Heinz as a company in NA, or is it just the ketchup product that's thought of as better/safer/more natural?

keiferski 3y ago
Your comment reminded me of the Mad Men story arc (set in the 60s) which is about Heinz being associated with beans, not ketchup. In the US, today I'd say Heinz is almost overwhelmingly associated with ketchup, so it's interesting that their ad efforts didn't make it to Oz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiCW6wlFBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiCW6wlFBc
- frogulis 3y ago
  These days they may have a better association with "ketchup". My sister affirms that (Heinz) ketchup and tomato sauce are distinct products, but I'm not so sure.
  - jraph 3y ago
    For me, a ketchup is tomato purée / paste + suger + salt + some vinegar + possibly some seasoning (pepper, herbs...). Tomato sauces is a larger category of any kind of tomato based sauce in which we could shoehorn ketchup. A tomato sauce could be purely salted and without any sugar in it, though a pinch of sugar can mitigate the acidic taste.
- arethuza 3y ago
  "Beanz Meanz Heinz" is etched into my memory from my youth in the UK. Certainly when I think of Heinz I think of beans not ketchup.
  - jjkaczor 3y ago
    Huh - they once ran ads for ketchup that said something like: "Heinz, there are no other Kinds": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JplL1XzVV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JplL1XzVV4
- drivingmenuts 3y ago
  I've bought Heinz Beans at a grocery store in Austin. In the import section. And they weren't bad, but not great either.
- foobar1962 3y ago
  The Australia market was dominated by Fountain Tomato Sauce, and possibly Master Foods. Heinz Ketchup wasn't easy to find, and it may have been named Tomato Sauce rather than Ketchup here.
nkrisc 3y ago
As an American, I had to do a terrible impression of an Aussie accent to hear how “sauce” and “horse” could possibly rhyme. As for Heinz, my impression has always been that it’s the standard, mass-produced supermarket fare that is probably not healthy/natural. Nothing they make that much of that lasts for so long can possibly be so.
- frogulis 3y ago
  They rhyme perfectly in an Australian accent :D Not rhotic, plus the vowel in "sauce" tends towards "or" rather than "ah". Hope that's a comprehensible explanation of our esoteric pronunciation :)
- dragontamer 3y ago
  The science of long lasting food is well known. Boiling kills most bacteria. Acid kills the leftover Botulism spores (one of the few diseases that survive boiling). Seal while hot and the food can stay good for a year or longer. Tomatoes already are near the acid point that kills botulism. Just gotta lower pH a little more with either lemons or vinegar. And bam, success. A professional would need to measure the pH to be sure as acidity levels differ. But we've been canning tomatoes for nearly two centuries now, the science is well tested and well figured out. > Nothing they make that much of that lasts for so long can possibly be so. Refrigeration was invented long after preserved foods. You couldn't match a Roman Legion 500 miles without preservatives. Salt, olive oil and wheat. It must have sucked to be a Roman Legion but less so than other troops. It's why 1lb of salt was worth 1lb of gold back then. The secrets of long lasting food (fermentation, salt, and other methods) is millennia old. Canning is relatively new (boiling+sealing simultaneously), a 1800s era discovery. But canning's health effects are well studied.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Do you mean salt was worth as much as gold, literally?
    - dragontamer 3y ago
dreamcompiler 3y ago
In the US, Heinz is definitely more associated with ketchup. When Americans think of canned baked beans (which is rarely), Van Camp's is arguably more well-known. When I think of Heinz these days I think of the politician John Kerry, because he's married to the heir to the Heinz family fortune. But that's mostly because my brain is weird.

CraigJPerry 3y ago

Heinz do different kinds of Ketchup, the no added salt one tastes just like regular european heinz ketchup (i.e. not as cloyingly sweet). I remember the ingredients didn't have HFCS listed on the bottle and we put it down to that being the difference.

xav0989 3y ago
Heinz US also does a “simply” ketchup with sugar instead of HGCS and no artificial dyes, and when you compare ingredient lists, that same “specialty” ketchup is the one that’s sold as regular ketchup in Canada.
KptMarchewa 3y ago
Not adding salt makes it less sweet? Or is there some more differences?
- CraigJPerry 3y ago
  I don't recall exactly but the ingredients lists were pretty different. The no salt one had tomatoes and maybe 2 or 3 other ingredients, the regular one had a few more ingredients although as i recall nothing weird except HFCS was one item.

code_duck 3y ago

Food coloring would be news to me. I haven’t seen that in any ingredient lists… looking at Heinz’s website now, it does not list any dyes in the ingredients for their standard ketchup.

rsynnott 3y ago

So, the odd thing here is that, while, yes, most preservatives used in the early 20th century were extremely dodgy, sodium benzoate, while controlled, remains legal, and considered safe at reasonable levels. This was as much marketing as anything, in this particular case.

derbOac 3y ago

Interestingly, I was listening to a podcast once and they were interviewing a researcher with Heinz who said one of their R&D goals is developing tomato varieties that are sweet enough to be used in making ketchup without added sugar. I don't remember what podcast it was and don't know if Heinz is still doing that but at the time they sounded like it was a big focus for them, for financial as well as health reasons. Gastropod has a good episode on ketchup; it might have been the one I'm thinking of but it might not. It covers many of the same things as this article but in more depth with certain things.

infecto 3y ago

> Also interesting that Heinz’s ketchup (in be the US) is now full of high fructose corn syrup and artificial food dyes, when (from the article) it started as the better/safer/more natural option Amazing the leaps you took to make this statement. 1) There are no food dyes that I am aware of. 2) I don't think the science is conclusive that HFCS is any worse than sugar. 3) They make many varieties, some which use cane sugar instead of HFCS. 4) What does this have anything to to with the US?

pfdietz 3y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649104/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649104/ (2013) > Both controversy and confusion exist concerning fructose, sucrose, and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) with respect to their metabolism and health effects. These concerns have often been fueled by speculation based on limited data or animal studies. In retrospect, recent controversies arose when a scientific commentary was published suggesting a possible unique link between HFCS consumption and obesity. Since then, a broad scientific consensus has emerged that there are no metabolic or endocrine response differences between HFCS and sucrose related to obesity or any other adverse health outcome. This equivalence is not surprising given that both of these sugars contain approximately equal amounts of fructose and glucose, contain the same number of calories, possess the same level of sweetness, and are absorbed identically through the gastrointestinal tract. [...]
- infecto 3y ago
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9551185/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9551185/ (2022) > In conclusion, analysis of data from the literature suggests that HFCS consumption was associated with a higher level of CRP compared to sucrose, whilst no significant changes between the two sweeteners were evident in other anthropometric and metabolic parameters We could go back and forth all day long posting studies from nih.gov, lets not be silly. I don't think what you have provided disproves my statement. The science is inconclusive, we don't know that HFCS is materially worse than sugar. I think we can say sugar in any form is not great in large quantities but I don't think we know for certain how worse, if any, HFCS is compared to natural sugar.

rufus_foreman 3y ago

Heinz: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Salt, Spice, Onion Powder, Natural Flavoring Heinz Simply: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, Cane Sugar, Salt, Onion Powder, Spice, Natural Flavoring Heinz No Sugar Added: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled White Vinegar, Salt, Natural Flavoring, Stevia Leaf Extract (Not Normally Found in Ketchup), Onion Powder Heinz No Salt Added: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled White Vinegar, Sugar, Potassium Chloride (Not in Regular Ketchup), Natural Flavoring, Spice, Onion Powder Heinz Organic: Organic Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Organic Tomatoes, Organic Distilled Vinegar, Organic Sugar, Salt, Organic Onion Powder, Organic Spice, Natural Flavoring Heinz Jalapeno: Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Dried Jalapeno Peppers, Spice, Onion Powder, Natural Flavors, Bell Pepper Juice Concentrate There are probably others, those are the ones listed at one store.

michael1999 3y ago

Gums. Indigestible. Used in place of flour or corn starch as a thickener or emulsifier. They can be quite irritating to some people.

Applejinx 3y ago

'sucralose'. Which is a trade name, not a descriptive name. There's no way that won't be found to be toxic. I recently had a health scare where I was inadvertently consuming a lot of it in a coffee creamer: the label color had changed and I thought nothing of it, but it represented a change in sweetener from monkfruit/stevia to 'sucralose'. Came damn close to going to the hospital. Gut pain and sweats and pooping lighter and lighter shades as my organs shut down (at least from producing bile). Figured out the change, dumped all the 'sucralose' and after a week or so returned to normal health, no other changes in diet or behavior at all. I don't know why it's not banned already, but it must be hella profitable.