If you think about ketchup, you’re probably thinking about a North American tomato ketchup, the one which you can find all over the world. Originally however, ketchup is neither North American, nor made with tomatoes. Ketchup is derived from a Chinese fish sauce, named ke-tsiap. Long ago, Northern European sailors would bring this sauce back home to make their own variants with it. Nowadays, we know ketchup mostly to be tomato ketchup; made with tomatoes, salt, vinegar, spices and (lots of) sugar. We are happy to introduce you to a pure tomato ketchup that is healthy: Curtice Brothers.

Ketchup is healthier than a tomato

Good tomato ketchup contains a lot of – absorbable – lycopene. Lycopene is the pigment that makes tomatoes red, and a very important antioxidant. Normally, our body cannot properly absorb lycopene from tomatoes. It is found in the cell wall of tomatoes, which is difficult for our body to digest. Heating up the tomatoes destroys the cell walls, allowing our body to absorb the lycopene after all. This makes tomato soup, tomato juice, tomato paste and tomato ketchup healthier than fresh tomatoes. Unless, of course, you start adding all kinds of extra ingredients, such as sugar, (too much) salt and flavour enhancers. That's where it usually goes wrong.

What makes conventional tomato ketchup unhealthy?

Most tomato ketchups almost always contain a combination of the following ingredients:

✔ Tomatoes from concentrate (is OK. If tomatoes have been heated up, the healthy lycopene was released).

✔ Sugar is the second ingredient in almost all variants, which can amount to up to 50 sugar cubes per bottle!

✔ Vinegar belongs in tomato ketchup, but is often of the cheap kind, or brandy vinegar.

✔ Salt is usually fourth in the list of ingredients, which often means a lot or too much salt was used.

✔ Spices are not required to be listed, which manufacturers therefore often not bother with.


The secret of traditional tomato ketchup: fresh, ripe, pure

In 1868, brothers Simeon and Edgar Curtice founded a small grocery store in Rochester, New York, where they sold fresh fruit and vegetables. Soon thereafter, they started developing sauces and spice mixes with the fresh products they had in their store. They created the recipe for their famous Tomato Ketchup, which was said to have the rich flavour or fresh, ripe tomatoes – all in a bottle. Unfortunately, this brand disappeared in 1940, as did the information on the original recipe. That is, until 2015. Dissatisfied with the same processed, industrially made ketchup they encountered on their travels, a group of friends decided to breathe new life into this brand, under the name Curtice Brothers. What they created was not an ordinary ketchup, but a classy, worldly sauce with soul.

Curtice Brothers organic ketchup consists of 77% FRESH tomatoes

The main ingredient in Curtice Brothers organic tomato ketchup is 77% fresh tomatoes. The ketchup is enriched with balsamic vinegar, apple, onion, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, mustard seeds and white pepper. Only fresh products are used, sourced from local Tuscan certified organic farms. The ketchup contains about 50% less sugar and salt than its industrial counterparts.

Cooking with ketchup: sweet potato fries with a spiced ketchup dip

If you love fries, you will love this recipe for sweet potato fries with a spiced ketchup dip.

INGREDIENTS Fries:

1 large sweet potato, cut into strips
fresh parsley
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
½ teaspoon of salt

INGREDIENTS Dip:

2 tablespoons of Curtice Brothers Ketchup
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 teaspoon of chopped red onions
½ teaspoon of black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS:

Fry the sweet potato strips for about 4-5 minutes or until golden brown. Place them in a bowl and season with the salt, parsley and oregano. Mix the ingredients for the dipping sauce in a separate bowl. Garnish with some parsley. Enjoy!