What’s the difference between tomato sauce and ketchup?

IT SHOULD be a simple question. But when we set out to discover the difference between these two condiments, we didn’t know what we were up against.

FOR the last few months, I have set about answering what I thought was a fairly simple question: What is the difference between tomato sauce and ketchup?

Simple, right? Wrong.

If you’re as much a fan of the delicious condiments as me, you would surely notice a difference in the taste and texture of the products. Ketchup seems thicker, while tomato sauce is thinner in consistency. One is also a classic Australian condiment, while the other is American.

Back in the ‘80s, then President Ronald Reagan’s administration proposed counting ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches. But the plan was pulled after public outcry, because we all know both varieties of condiment are anything but a vegetable, in fact ketchup contains 25 per cent sugar.

As I began my search for answers online I found all sorts of hypothesis; most experts claimed there is a key difference in the ingredients, which makes sense.

“I’ve found that tomato sauce is bitter tasting and ketchup is slightly sweeter. Certainly is difficult to describe but it’s a definite difference,” wrote one user on a Whirlpool forum earlier this year.

“The ketchup seems a bit thicker in consistency than the sauce. It also tastes, well, different. Not just a straight out tomato flavour, but, maybe a little bit more of a spicy flavour to it — hard to describe the actual taste difference,” wrote another.

In a 2010 piece on The Times of India, a man by the name of Manish Goyal stated that in the US, ketchup is prepared using tomatoes, vinegar, sugar and spices while tomato sauce is made sans spice.

Other experts online suggest more tomatoes are used in one than the other, while some believe one is sweeter than the other.

Some hypothesised there was no difference at all.

Confused, I decided to take my question to the experts — and they all seemed to fall rather flat.

I thought it was the perfect timing; Heinz had released a new campaign urging Aussies to make the switch to ketchup. “Thicker is tastier,” read the campaign’s slogan.

Heinz used celebrity chef Ben O’Donoghue to make the case that Heinz tomato ketchup was “packed full of tomatoes, which makes it thick”.

But that was it. Despite Ben describing his “surprise” that people didn’t know the difference, he failed to really tell us what the actual difference was. He is yet to answer my tweet.

When I asked Heinz to comment, I never got an answer. Same goes for Masterfoods. Masterchef’s Matt Preston is overseas and even the CSIRO told me to Google it.

A couple of nutritionists were also disappointingly dull.

So where does that leave us? In a minefield of confusion over whether we’ve just given into clever marketing gimmicks, or if there really is something unique about both.

A look online at the ingredient list for both Heinz’s ketchup and tomato sauce gives us a telling answer.

The ingredient list on a bottle of regular Heinz ketchup is as follows: Concentrated Tomatoes (Contains 206g of Tomatoes per 100mL), Sugar, Salt, Concentrated White Vinegar, Food Acid (Citric Acid), Natural Flavours (Contain Garlic), Spice. Contains 77% Concentrated Tomatoes.

The ingredient list on a bottle of regular Heinz tomato sauce is as follows: Tomatoes (148g per 100g Tomato Ketchup), Spirit Vinegar, Sugar, Salt, Spice and Herb Extracts (Contain Celery), Spice.

Looking at the two, it seems the only difference is the fact there are more tomatoes, 58g extra to be precise, in ketchup than tomato sauce. Otherwise they both use sugar, salt and vinegar.

Perhaps a slight difference in spices?

Comparing Heinz’s tomato sauce to Masterfoods’ tomato sauce the only difference stems from added water and onion spice.

The ingredient list on a bottle of regular Masterfoods tomato sauce is as follows: Tomatoes 76% (from Paste), Sugar, Salt, Food Acid (Acetic), water, Onion Powder, Spice Extract.

So which is the better choice? It’s hard to say. Perhaps in the end it is all about personal taste.

According to The Telegraph, despite the amount of sugar contained in both there are apparent health benefits — for men at least.

A 2002 Harvard study revealed eating tomato sauce more than two times a week can reduce the risk of prostate cancer by up to 20 per cent.

A 2007 study by Finnish scientists found that ketchup, on the other hand, can potentially cut out “bad cholesterol”.

Meanwhile a 2014 study by the Asian Journal of Andrology showed that Lycopene, the pigment that makes tomatoes red, boosts male fertility by up to 70 per cent.

According to Heinz, research showed 70 per cent of Australians don’t know the difference between the pair and “either believe that sauce and ketchup are one and the same thing” but instead of making an irritating ad for it, they could have simply explained why.

Failing that, here’s how you can make your own from home, thanks to Best Recipes.

Continue the precise conversation with Matt Young via Facebook or Twitter.

UPDATE: Masterchef’s Matt Preston tweeted overnight with a telling answer:

Ketchup is thicker and sweeter. Sauce is more vinegary.

— Matt Preston (@MattsCravat) December 19, 2017