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Home cooking is one of the best habits you can keep when trying to stay healthy and maintain a good weight. It allows you to have full control over what ingredients go into your food, plus cooking for yourself tends to be healthier than pre-made meals or take-out foods. But there is one sauce you might be adding to your food that turns your healthy meal into a metabolism-slowing mistake, without even realizing it.
Pasta sauces can be a great ingredient to cook with because they instantly add texture and flavor to your foods. They can be used in a variety of ways - not just over pasta. However, store-bought pasta sauces are not as good for you as you might think.
From a first glance, pasta sauces seem quite harmless. They’re made mainly from vegetables, which is almost always a good thing. But the truth is that buying pre-made pasta sauce can come with many consequences. These types of foods maintain their flavor and have a longer shelf-life than their homemade alternatives because they are made with high levels of salt, fat and even sugar.
Eating store-bought pasta sauce too frequently can slow your metabolism and cause unwanted weight gain, due to the high levels of sodium and sugars. These ingredients add flavor to the sauce, but they aren’t essential to having a delicious tomato-based sauce.
The best way to incorporate tomato or pasta sauce into your cooking is to just make it yourself. Most home-made recipes call for fresh tomatoes, canned tomatoes or a mixture of both, and some seasonings to add flavor. This means they don’t contain added sugars or too much sodium. Plus, you can make extra and freeze some for later so you don’t need to turn to store-bought alternatives when you’re in a time crunch.
