Tomato Ketchup vs. Tomato Paste

I can never eat chunky, thick-cut chips (US: French fries) without dipping them in tomato ketchup.
If there's no ketchup available, my desire to eat chips soon disappears. Therefore, one has to ask, do I prefer to eat chips or ketchup? Like Gin and Tonic, the two go perfectly well together but seem unappealing by themselves.

Unless you're eating the really thin-cut, heavily salted French fries - the kind they serve in fast food restaurants - that taste really good (because of the oil used for frying and the salt used for coating) but don't actually contain very much potato. With a thicker chip, there's more need for a dipping sauce to balance out the starchy bulk of potato.

In my humble opinion, ketchup wins hands down. Chips don't taste the same with brown sauce or mayo. I think ketchup has become such a popular sauce, not because of its tomato base, but because of the added sweetness from refined sugars.

In my quest to learn more about:
1). what goes into foods (read the ingredients list),
2). the nutritional make-up and value of foods (read the nutritional information), and
3). a natural, healthier alternative to processed foods (ingredient substitution),
I discovered all three 'lessons' can be applied to the following food: Tomato ketchup!

I knew tomato ketchup contained added sugar, and some additional ingredients like vinegar and salt (all to make it taste good), but I didn't realize just how much? I then discovered tomato paste and was surprised to find out just how good it tasted and even happier knowing that it was a simple natural food source I could substitute whenever I wanted to eat tomato ketchup.

Below are the ingredients and nutritional information for both tomato ketchup and paste. See the difference and give tomato paste a try when you’re next indulging on a few chips! Just mix 1tbsp water with 2tbsp tomato paste.

There are eight ingredients in tomato ketchup:

• Tomato concentrate made from vine ripened tomatoes
• High fructose corn syrup
• Distiller vinegar
• Corn syrup
• Salt
• Less than 2% of onion powder, garlic powder, natural flavors

At least the main, largest ingredient is tomato. However, the second biggest ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup is also the fourth largest component of ketchup - just in case the HFCS wasn't sweet enough!!! No wonder ketchup tastes so good; it is full of sugar and salt.

Tomato paste just has one ingredient:

• Tomato pulp

Tomato ketchup (L), Tomato Paste (R)

Nutritional Information:

Tomato Ketchup

Tomato Paste

If you just compare the nutritional labels, a quick glance will show little difference between the two. In fact, you may just look at the calorie count and decide ketchup is better because it has fewer calories than the paste. However, when reviewing the number of calories, you also have to read the serving/portion size. The labels above give double the serving of tomato paste for 10 extra calories. The added salt and sugars in the tomato ketchup are clearly visible in the measurements of sodium (190mg) and sugars (4g). The tomato paste has 3g sugars but this is sugar naturally found in tomatoes. There's even 1g fiber and 2g protein from the tomato pulp.

P.s. In the UK, nutritional labels have to display the 100g criteria in addition to the per serving measurement. This allows consumers to easily compare ‘apples to apples’.