Surely we all know ketchup, ketchup or ketchup. It is a sweet and sour sauce of Chinese origin, made from tomatoes, sugar and vinegar with seasonings and various spices. However, few people know what was the true origin ketchup, and curiously, his invention is little or it had nothing to do with being used as a bandage for certain types of food. In fact, before the sauce became popular today, they tried to convince the public that this condiment was effective cure for all diseases.
It was in 1837when the scientist Archibald Miles decided to market a patented drug called “The American Sanitary Pill” which was later changed to “Miles Tomato Extract” and that it was nothing more than ketchup tablets. He sold it as a mixture of tomato extract and claimed that it excellent medicine that cures almost all diseasesfrom gastroenteritis, colds and even mycosis.
In addition, there were several shocking campaigns in order to emphasize its healing properties. Talked about the need to use ketchup to help lower cholesterol or even diseases such as prostate cancer.
Heinz brand ketchup.
However, in 1850 the American agency Food and Drug Administration (FDA)reduce this type of belief with ban on advertising the medicinal properties of ketchup and, in particular, lycopene, since there was no evidence that this food healing effects regarding any disease. However, many people fell in love with this taste and began to make ketchup at home.
A few years later, in 1876 by Henry J. Heinz took the recipe for this “healing” sauce and mass-produced it under the name we all know today. To avoid adding all those harmful preservatives that were used by other manufacturers and eventually banned, Heinz drastically increased the amount of preservatives. sugar and vinegar in the recipe, resulting in a typical American sauce.
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Ketchup as we know it today is an adaptation chinese sauce was called “ketsiap” or “ke-tsiap”, which was a mixture of sauce from fermented fish and various spices. This sauce came to the West through merchants and sailorsand his popularity spread.
In the 19th century, ketchup appeared in the United States, where it began to be used local ingredients such as tomatoes instead of the original fish sauce. It’s connected with H. J. Heinz popularizing and popularizing tomato sauce in the market by launching his own 1876 version.
It is important to mention that there different varieties and styles of ketchup all over the world, but the most popular modern version originated in the United States and has become one of the most used sauces globally.