Title: What's in Heinz Ketchup? | MyRecipes
Headings: What’s Really in Heinz Ketchup?
What’s Really in Heinz Ketchup?
Tomatoes + ambiguity = perfection

Content: A necessary accompaniment to scrambled eggs and hash browns, there’s nothing like it. But what exactly is in ketchup, and why do we always think of Heinz’s version first? We all know ketchup as a tomato-based product, but it’s certainly not tomato sauce or tomato paste. The tangy-sweet sauce contains vinegar, onions, garlic, some kind of sweetener, and seasonings like mustard powder, cumin, allspice and cinnamon. However, if you were to make a batch at home with those ingredients, your ketchup still probably wouldn’t taste like the stuff you get at the diner. So, what else is going on inside every bottle of Heinz? Although ketchup was first used as a general table sauce (it was called “catsup” then), and was made with vegetables other than tomatoes, what we think of as ketchup today is actually the result of a debate over a potentially dangerous preservative. Sodium benzoate, a chemically engineered sodium salt, was used in many packaged foods during the early 20th century. Harvey W. Wiley, the first commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, was against using the preservative, citing scores of health complications it could cause. Along with other entrepreneurs, Henry J. Heinz set out to create a ketchup that didn’t need to be preserved with sodium benzoate.