Expanding on the idea. Add a graphical representation of teaspoons of lard for fat content. Sodium content as 1/4 teaspoons of salt (yes, would seem tiny, but considering 1/2 a teaspoon is really all you should have in a day, and many exceed that in a single entree)
Not sure what would make a good stand-in for fiber, protein, etc. though.

In the meantime, here's a fun site that will show you graphically how much of a particular food item is contained within 200 calories: [www.wisegeek.com]

@Tyler Laing: Well, not exactly. yes, the searing provides flavor. But the searing on ALL sides also kills all surface bacteria, which is what then makes it as safe to eat a blue rare steak as it is to eat one well done.

@Eyebrows McGee (on Twitter: LPetelle): I'll try that next time I make some! Have an intolerance to cooked tomato (how crappy, right?) so I haven't made sauce in a while. I am super fond of overloading with a good 8 cloves of garlic a pot, and heaps of basil.

Amazingly enough, I don't have any cavities... or diabetes...yet.

(Yes, I can taste it. I don't eat anything with sugar at all, so I can always tell when something has sugar in it or not.)

Its why restaurants sear all the sides of a steak before they do the real cooking, as the browned sides offer a lot of flavor from all the different molecules that are formed during the browning.

I'd like to see a site that converts snacks into HFCS cubes.

Carrots, especially baby carrots, have always tasted slightly sweet in my opinion. I guess that's why it works. :)

I tried making pasta sauce from scratch, once. Oh, what a disaster. The sugar content in the manufactured stuff seems high, but a lot of things can be classified as sugars. The most important thing anyone can do is read the labels. HFCS? Dump it. Regular old sugar? That's ok. Sugar is brain food after all.

When I was in Japan, they had a ton of unsweetened teas available from vending machines, etc. Why the hell can't we do that here?

Now, as a person who eats fruits/veggies like no tomorrow and may have candy maybe once every month or so, I think it's probably ok.

each of those cubes is only 16 calories.

4 grams x 4 calories per gram (sugar is a carb) = 16 calories per cube.

/I don't understand how they can cram so many calories into something as flat as a pop tart.

Then you fish the carrots out before serving.

I've heard sauteeing onions in the spaghetti sauce pan before adding the tomatoes can have the same effect (I guess they add some sugar too), but I haven't really tried that w/o the carrots.

@LabCoatWanting_GitEmSteveDave: Yes, but the tomatoes are so acidic as they cook that it isn't enough. Some people are really bothered by the over-acidic flavor; others aren't. It also seems to depend on the tomatoes you use, but I don't do it from scratch often enough to know that much about it.

@cabjf: I realize why it's there, and in my from scratch sauces there's usually a little sugar.

But that's a lot, lot more than I ever add.

The sugar in pasta sauce thing is always a bit weird.