Tomatoes and sugar
sheddit
Posts: 7 Member
Hello I have a question. I was looking at my food diary trying to find out where I am going over on my daily sugar. I have a small plate of raw veggies each day. This week it's cauliflower, broccoli, and tomatoes. The tomatoes are so high in sugar! I didn't realize that. One grape tomato is 9 grams of sugar and I have 3.
Do people watching what they eat generally avoid tomatoes? Do regular tomatoes have less sugar than the grape tomatoes? Just curious because I don't want to cut the 1 1/2 teaspoons I use each morning in my oatmeal and two cups of coffee, but it seems I need to cut sugar somewhere.
Do people watching what they eat generally avoid tomatoes? Do regular tomatoes have less sugar than the grape tomatoes? Just curious because I don't want to cut the 1 1/2 teaspoons I use each morning in my oatmeal and two cups of coffee, but it seems I need to cut sugar somewhere.
0
Replies
-
The MFP recommendations for sugar is pretty low. Since sugar (natural or refined) are just carbs, most people will track fiber instead of sugar specifically. That is assuming you don't have a medical reason to track sugar on its own.0
-
You should weigh your food. Each grape tomato is not only 9 grams. The weight of the grape tomato will give you a better idea of carb content. Yes, tomatoes are all pretty carb heavy, that's why you stay away from this "veggie" when you do the Atkins diet in the initial weeks.0
-
i do not like tomatoes at all, although i will eat them "in" something such as sauce or salsa. in foods, i do not watch sugar at all. in fact, i don't even have a "sugar" section in MFP food journal. i only log calories and protein.0
-
I would question the accuracy of that database. Does one grape tomato weight more than 10 grams anyway? If a large tomato has 5 grams of sugar, I find it questionable that a grape tomato would have 9.0
-
Thank you all for your replies. I don't have a reason to track sugar. I just thought it seems like something I want to keep an eye on the intake. I'm not dieting per say, just trying to make healthier food choices. Maybe I'll just stay away from the grape tomatoes and instead cut up small portions of a regular tomato.0
-
If you like tomatoes, just eat the damn tomato!0
-
This is what I was saying in the other thread before it got closed. The problem (among other things) with heavy-handed advice to "cut sugar" is you get all these people deciding they need to cut fruits and veggies.
No, there's no reason to avoid tomatoes if you are watching what you eat unless you have some sort of health issue. Tomatoes are good for you, as part of an overall balanced diet, of course. If your sugar limit is so low that you can't eat some tomatoes and various veggies, it's too low. (Barring some undisclosed health issue, of course.)0 -
Thank you all for your replies. I don't have a reason to track sugar. I just thought it seems like something I want to keep an eye on the intake. I'm not dieting per say, just trying to make healthier food choices. Maybe I'll just stay away from the grape tomatoes and instead cut up small portions of a regular tomato.
No need to stop eating grape tomatoes. The food entry you used is flawed. A grape tomato weighs about 10 grams. If 9 of them were sugar, then it would look like rock candy, not like a tomato.0 -
tomatoes are the devil...
But srsly, the entry in the database is flawed. One single grape tomato has 0.21 grams of sugar. Also, unless you're sucking down cookies and cake and washing that down with 40 ounce big gulps...in other words, have issues eating tons of added sugar or have a medical condition that warrants tracking it, I wouldn't bother.
For something like grape tomatoes I would type in "Grape Tomatoes - USDA" to get a better entry.0 -
You should weigh your food. Each grape tomato is not only 9 grams. The weight of the grape tomato will give you a better idea of carb content. Yes, tomatoes are all pretty carb heavy, that's why you stay away from this "veggie" when you do the Atkins diet in the initial weeks.
There's like 3.92 grams of carbs in 100 grams of tomato...0 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I would question the accuracy of that database. Does one grape tomato weight more than 10 grams anyway? If a large tomato has 5 grams of sugar, I find it questionable that a grape tomato would have 9.
This ^^ The problem isn't with your tomatoes, it's with the crappy database which is full of erroneous information. A cherry tomato is a bit larger than a grape tomato and it has < 1g sugar.
http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/32580 -
More than 36 calories each according to the food list.
Tomato - Grape, 3 Grape tomato 135 18 1 4 21 27
*columns are: Calories, Carbs, Fat, Protein, Sodium, Sugar0 -
Thanks everyone for the input. I'll just either use "Grape Tomatoes - USDA" or just ignore the sugar content.0
-
unless you have a medical condition that makes you sensitive to sugar then there is no reason to avoid it...0
-
lemurcat12 wrote: »This is what I was saying in the other thread before it got closed. The problem (among other things) with heavy-handed advice to "cut sugar" is you get all these people deciding they need to cut fruits and veggies.
No, there's no reason to avoid tomatoes if you are watching what you eat unless you have some sort of health issue. Tomatoes are good for you, as part of an overall balanced diet, of course. If your sugar limit is so low that you can't eat some tomatoes and various veggies, it's too low. (Barring some undisclosed health issue, of course.)
this one is scheduled for lock down in ten hours....
0 -
More than 36 calories each according to the food list.
Tomato - Grape, 3 Grape tomato 135 18 1 4 21 27
*columns are: Calories, Carbs, Fat, Protein, Sodium, Sugar
look for a better entry...that's what people are trying to say. Don't just take the first entry you find and go with it...there are a lot of erroneous user/member entries in the data base. Find one that is right. In the beginning you may need to compare entries of certain things to other websites...but for most things without packaging and labels I just type in "whatever it is - USDA"0 -
Agree with previous posters that it is better to use a scale to weigh your food - I do.
With that said, you can use the non-asterisked MFP entry for "Tomatoes - Red, ripe, raw, year round average" to estimate the macronutrients. Over the past two years, I have eaten grape tomatoes nearly every day and have weighed them. I have found that, on average, one grape tomato weighs 8 grams, of which 0.21g is sugar, per the USDA Foods List database for "11529, Tomatoes, red, ripe, raw, year round average." An average grape tomato is roughly half the weight of a 17 gram cherry tomato, which is a portion listed in the USDA Foods List database. You can estimate then that 3 average grape tomatoes are 1.5 servings of cherry tomatoes. Below is a screen shot for the estimated nutrients for 1.5 servings of cherry tomatoes from the MFP database.
Note that this food item in the MFP database has multiple serving sizes to choose from. Personally, I use this entry for all of the raw tomatoes I log, since it averages out over the year.
0 -
Once again, CyberTone has great advice on logging. In all seriousness, that's the entry I use for all tomatoes also, and the non-asterisked entries are what to seek out if you can find an applicable one.0
-
CyberTone thank you so much! Great information.
I don't just pick the first entry I see, I do try to match things up with my own label if I have one. And lemurcat12 thank you because I didn't realize that the asterisked entries were other users' added entries. I will definitely pay attention to that in the future.0 -
I really thought that this was going to be one of those "weird food combo" threads.0
-
As others have said: eat the tomatoes.
0 -
TheVirgoddess wrote: »I really thought that this was going to be one of those "weird food combo" threads.
My grandmother used to put sugar on their just-picked tomatoes. I remember this being pushed on me as a snack when we visited them, when I was a kid. Seems weird, as I'm sure they were plenty sweet without it. (I didn't like raw tomatoes as a kid, but it was the texture, not the sweetness.)0 -
Fruit has naturally occurring sugar... Eat and enjoy the tomatoes!! Don't worry about sugar, ESPECIALLY sugar from fruit!0
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393.6K Introduce Yourself
- 43.8K Getting Started
- 260.3K Health and Weight Loss
- 176K Food and Nutrition
- 47.5K Recipes
- 232.6K Fitness and Exercise
- 431 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.6K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.4K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.8K MyFitnessPal Information
- 24 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.6K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions