Woo hoo! I have enough spaghetti sauce to last me a REALLY long time – all 6 of them are now in little freezer containers, packaged with some homemade meatballs. The added meatballs were required because in order to get 6 spaghetti sauces that were similar I had to buy all the plain marinara ones. I also made sure they all said “natural” somewhere on the label so I could presumably only compare the better, healthier ones. I also did all the taste testing with 100% whole wheat pasta. (Do I get extra brownie points for that one?)

The sauces included

Rao’s Homemade All Natural Premium Quality Marinara sauce
Prego 100% Natural Italian Sauce – Traditional
Newman’s Own – All Profits to Charity – All Natural Marinara
Barilla Marinara – with Olive Oil
Emeril’s All Natural Authentic Recipe Chunky Marinara Pasta Sauce
Classico Traditional Favorites – Traditional Sweet Basil Pasta Sauce

The Taste Test

I invited my mom to participate in this one as she is the pasta queen; it’s one of her favorite comfort foods so I figured she would be more discriminating when it comes to the sauces. I don’t eat pasta very often so I was in carb AND sugar heaven – I had not had sugar in months so I could definitely taste the sugar in all the sauces – which my mom complained about – she thinks it’s weird to have sugar in them since she doesn’t use sugar in her own recipe for spaghetti sauce. I personally was okay with it!!!

Rao’s Marinara sauce
This one tasted like worcestershire sauce to me, my mom noted it was green-peppery and a little thin. We both ranked it AT the bottom – 6 out of 6. This one had significantly more fat per serving than the others (5 grams instead of 1.5 – 3 grams) and actually was the only one that had saturated fat – it must be from the olive oil which is not extra virgin olive oil. This one did have the lowest salt – a good 100 mg per serving less than all the others – and the least carbs (4 grams per serving compared to 12 to 13) and sugar (3 grams compared to 8 to 10).

Prego Traditional
This one was the darkest in color and I liked it the best (1 out of 6) because it tasted the sweetest – I was clearly motivated by sugar deprivation. My mom didn’t like it as well and rated it a 4 out of 6. This one had more salt than the others -at 480 mg per serving. I was dead on with the sugar – this one had the most at 10 grams per serving.

Newman’s Own Marinara
This one was one of the thicker ones. I found this one really tart – with a basil taste; my mom also noted the basil and really liked it. She rated it as her favorite. I rated it a 4 out of 6 for lack of sweetness. At this point my craving for sugar has clearly taken over and my opinions can no longer be trusted.

Barilla Marinara
OK – I think I’ve been redeemed – I liked this one and it didn’t taste too sweet – because GARLIC is one of my favorite spices and this had plenty of it – and nice chunks of tomatoes. My mom also noted lots of garlic and chunks of tomatoes. I ranked it as my 2nd favorite – 2 out of 6 (you didn’t really think it would beat out the supersweet one did you?) and my mom ranked it 3 out of 6.

Emeril’s Chunky Marinara
This one was also sweet and I noted something else but can’t read my handwriting. Probably excitement overwhelming me. My mom noted “rather sweet, but plain”. This one also had the most calories per serving – although only by a small amount – 80 calories instead of 70 for the others. This one along with Classico had the 2nd highest amount of sugar – 9 grams per serving.

Classico Sweet Basil
For this one I noted big chunky tomatoes but the basil used was completely overwhelming but interesting; I went back and forth trying to decide if I liked it; no – the sugar ones won out – I ranked it 5 out of 6. My mom noted this one was the darkest AND thickest sauce – she loved the spiciness of it and ranked it 2 out of 6.

The Ingredients

Weird (and not so weird) Ingredients

The Oils
It’s interesting to note that everyone used olive oil except the Prego brand which used Canola oil and Barilla used Sunflower Oil in addition to olive. Newman’s Own and Emeril’s used Soybean Oil in addition to olive oil. Canola Oil is made from Rapeseed and unfortunately just like our soy crops and corn crops, it has been genetically modified – which leaves the Prego, Newman’s Own and Emeril off the perfectly “natural” list!

Calcium Chloride
This is a salt made of calcium and chlorine. It is used as a firming agent (presumably for the tomatoes) not really a salt replacement. It’s often used as a preservative in canned foods. Even if you believe it’s as safe to use as table salt (which I don’t) – shouldn’t we question why Classico has to firm their tomatoes? Check out another food full of calcium chloride: Life is Like a Container of Salsa – You Never Know What You’re Going to Get

The Results

If we knock out Prego, Newman’s Own and Emeril for their oil escapades and Classico for not being firm enough (and by the way this also knocks out the top sugared ones) – and then knock out Rao’s for having saturated fat and for tasting awful, that leaves us with Barilla Marinara as the winner – which we both thought tasted pretty darn good!

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