Tomato ketchup is one of England’s favourite sauces, whether it’s for chips or a full English breakfast. Not everyone may think splurging on organic ketchup is worth it. But if you can afford it, the taste difference is worth it, and it won’t be full of chemicals (instead, it contains mostly tomatoes!)
A good thing too, as ketchup was actually invented in Asia, and used to be made from fish?
Keep ketchup away from pets, due to sugar, salt, garlic and onion. Read more on food safety for people and pets.
Look in stores for good organic brands like River Cottage and Mr Organic. Ketchup is pretty simple to make, as it’s just a blend of tomatoes, vinegar, sugar and spices (you can add extras like beetroot, which makes it sweeter and more earthy).
Organic farming is better for the planet, and in blind taste tests, the cheap supermarket brands beat the ‘top names’ (not organic) proving that ‘good ketchup brands’ often are just marketing. Go for proper brands, and you won’t go wrong. Listen to your taste buds, not TV ads. The belly has no ears!
The Politics of Tomato Ketchup
Tomato ketchup has recently become a political hot potato. One major brand recently pulled its ketchup from a supermarket, as it would not increase prices to its customers. Yet it seems happy to often charge a fortune for more ‘ethical foods’.
Food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe (a successful chef who once lived on £10 a week to feed herself and her daughter) recently created the Vimes Index (an alternative index to the usual ‘loaf of bread, pine of milk’ used by economists) saying that many supermarkets have recently upped the price of daily staples like apples, but left luxury goods like champagne intact.
She was recently contacted by an elderly gentleman, who had eaten a teaspoon of toothpaste for his dinner, to fool himself into thinking he had eaten something.
Of course supermarkets (and MPs) now keep saying that prices prices on everything (from food to energy) are due to the Ukraine war. But that’s not true.
Because if people shopped locally in walkable communities, we would not eat oil to power the lorries, central distribution houses, plastic (made from oil) to wrap goods, all-night lighting for 24-hour supermarkets etc. Palm oil is in most ready-made foods, flown to England from Indonesia on a plane (oil) to make bigger profits for industry.
The Vimes Boots Index is a warning shot to retailers who keep their £7.50 ready means and £6 bottles of wine at the same price for a decade, while quadrupling the price of basic stock cubes and broken irregular grains of white rice. This issue isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I. Jack Monroe
Make Your Own Tomato Ketchup
It’s easy but to avoid botulism and other nasties, it’s really important to sterilise the jars, before you bottle it: Run glass bottles on the highest dishwasher setting or wash in hot soapy water, then dry (no tea towel) in the oven. Sterilise rubber seals, by soaking in a jug of boiling water.
Make use of seasonal produce with this beetroot ketchup (The Veg Space). Perfect for dunking chips, you can leave out the chilli for children or milder palates. Wonderful also on a veggie burger, or as part of a ‘Full English’ veggie breakfast.
Prefer Brown Sauce?
Many people abroad don’t even know what brown sauce is, or that it’s so yummy. Biona organic brown sauce is widely sold in health shops.
