Emma Rinard

Emma Rinard is a world-traveler and multidisciplinary writer, who is passionate about living holistically.  She knows first hand the importance of organic products in living a healthy lifestyle and hopes to raise awareness in others by contributing to HomeOrganic.  She endeavors to write in a way that inspires others to take the reins of their own life and to thrive.

Ketchup – America’s Top Condiment

Ketchup is easily one of the most used condiments in America. Surprisingly, ketchup has been around for a very long time, with it first being mentioned and used in ancient China. However, the ketchup then was not made with tomatoes like it is now, instead it was made with parts of fish, meat, and soy. The idea was to create a condiment, or a flavor, that could travel on ships and not spoil. Having flavoring or spice to easily add to food was not easy to create at the time. As centuries went on, ketchup adapted to mean different concoctions of foods to add flavor without the worry of quick expiration. Now it is known as the sweet tomato sauce that many people dip their french fries in, or lather on their burger, and is usually the first condiment seen at restaurants on the table. As there usually is in everything that is mass-produced to meet high demand, however, there are often ingredients that are in your regular ketchup that are best to steer away from. The next time you go to the store to buy that familiar red bottle for your home, you may want to pick the organic ketchup instead, and here’s why.

What’s in Regular Ketchup?

As with most things that we have been purchasing and consuming since we were kids, we often buy our foods without taking even a second glance at the ingredient list. Because of this, we are often consuming ingredients that can be detrimentally affecting our health. We often hear about how prevalent high fructose corn syrup and soy products are in our foods, and how unhealthy they are for us, and yet we continue to purchase products that contain massive amounts of each ingredient. Ketchup is not void of unhealthy ingredients, much like most foods. Here are some of the ingredients that it is always better to keep out of your daily diet:

• High Fructose Corn Syrup: It takes one simple search to see why high fructose syrup is extremely bad for your health, and yet it can be found in the majority of pre-packaged foods that require a sugar of some sort. Consuming too much high fructose corn syrup can contribute to diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, liver disease, and more. Utilizing high fructose corn syrup has become an easy way for corporations to guarantee the biggest profit for the corn industry, and it has steadily been snuck into our foods over the past decade or two. Although ketchup is naturally sweet, as tomatoes themselves have natural sugar in them, high fructose corn syrup is added to get the traditional sweet ketchup taste at a cheaper cost for the manufacturers. If anything contains this ingredient, it is always better to choose a different option.
• Natural Flavoring: Natural does not always mean healthy. This seemingly innocent ingredient that you can find on many ingredient lists, not just ketchup, is an easy way to add an ingredient that may be unhealthy for you. In ketchup, this can mean monosodium glutamate(MSG). MSG is an additive that has potential to cause obesity, metabolic disorders, and negative reproductive health problems¹. Similarly as above, it is best to stay away from products that contain “natural flavoring,” as this can disguise many ingredients that are not necessarily healthy for you.