"Öko-Test" anger about apple sauce and apple puree: Pesticides found

Created: 09/23/2022, 15:30

By: Anne Tessin

Applesauce brings back childhood memories and is a great addition to many recipes.

"Öko-Test" has checked which one you can buy without hesitation.

With potato pancakes, in cakes or as a fruity note in yoghurt: Applesauce brings back sweet children's memories and tastes good for adults too.

But please not with heaps of extra sugar.

In the past, a sugar concentration of 16.5 percent was legally mandatory for a manufacturer to be able to call his product applesauce, but this requirement is now passé.

Mush with less sugar can now also bear this name and is no longer just called apple mark.

This is one of the good news from the new "Öko-Test" about applesauce and applesauce (issue 9/2022).

Applesauce simply goes with potato pancakes, but not everyone is recommended © YAY Images/Imago

“Öko-Test” warns of added sugar and pesticides in applesauce

The testers examined a total of 26

Apple purees from discounters and well-known manufacturers, 15 of which are Mus and eleven times Mark.

The result: the organic testers gave top marks to all eleven apple brandy products, including many inexpensive products.

At least three times the apple sauce was rated “very good”, including the Gut & cheap apple sauce with no added sugar from Edeka.

Not all applesauce contain added sugar, at least five out of 15 products do without.

The others add sugar, sometimes even up to 18 percent.

A reason for the testers to deduct points.

Pesticide contamination also remains a problem.

In two cases, the commissioned laboratory detected the growth regulator mepiquat, a spray poison that is banned in European fruit growing.

The substance was also found in the most recently tested apple juices.

The two products in question, Globus Golden Delicious Applesauce and Every Day Applesauce, therefore failed the Öko-Test.

They also contain the insecticide acetamiprid.

Traces of the pesticide pirimicarb and the antifungal agent tebuconazole were also detected in individual samples by the laboratory, albeit in tolerable concentrations.

All test results at www.oekotest.de (payment barrier).

Added sugar - Manufacturers no longer under legal pressure

Apple puree contains only the natural sugar of the processed apples, on average almost eleven percent, while applesauce has to be sweetened.

However, the requirement that the sugar content in fruit products must reach at least 16.5 percent has now been dropped.

When manufacturers offer applesauce with less added sugar, this is often prominently displayed on the label.

Manufacturers of apple sauce that does not contain any sugar have to “mark it sufficiently and in compliance with the law” – an annoying hurdle, as the eco-testers note.

Great news: mold toxins were not detected in any sample, so the apples used were carefully sorted and not a "rotten apple" slipped through.

Yuck, mold!

You can still eat these foods

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Just make applesauce yourself

If you want to be absolutely sure that the applesauce does not contain any undesirable substances, simply make it yourself from organic apples.

It's quicker and easier than you think:

For homemade applesauce you need:

• 1 kg organic apples, sweet or sour according to taste

• 100ml of water

• juice of half a lemon

• 1 cinnamon stick

• sugar to taste

And this is how you make applesauce yourself:

• Peel the apples, remove the core and then cut them into small pieces.

  The smaller, the faster they will cook soft.

• Put the apple pieces in a sufficiently large saucepan and pour in the water.

  Also add the lemon juice and cinnamon stick and sweeten to taste.

• Steam the apple pieces over medium heat until soft.

  Depending on the size, this takes about 15 minutes.

• Remove the cinnamon stick and puree or mash the applesauce to desired consistency.

You can enjoy

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