Are sauces and condiments considered bad during a flare? Why or why not?

  I have been eating really bland, but healthy food, however, I'm really sick of not being able to eat ketchup, mustard, spaghetti sauce, or any other condiment for flavor.

  Is there something bad about eating tomato sauces etc? Can you negate these effects at all???

every person is different ... for me, even during a flare, I had no problems with ketchup, mild salsa or spaghetti sauce. And now, in remission, I eat a LOT of spicy foods with no effect.

The acid in tomato products does cause pain and bowel problems in some people with UC ... I was lucky that it did not bother me. It was the sodas and coffee that did me in during flare.

In general condiments are probably good for you. Ketchup and tomato sauce are loaded with lycopene. Mustard can contain turmeric (lookup turmeric on this forum). Of course all bets are off if you are allergic to tomatoes or mustard, or the gluten in spaghetti.

You may want to watch carrageenan widely used in ice cream and almond milk. The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine by Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno, page 593:
“In the initial experiments reported by Marcus and Watt in 1969, one-percent and five-percent carrageenan solutions were provided as the exclusive source of oral fluids for guinea pigs. Over a period of several days, the animals lost weight, developed anemia, had bloody diarrhea, and developed ulcerative colitis. These results have since been confirmed by numerous investigators and in studies involving other animal species including primates.”

Here is proof that food can cause UC. It doesn’t matter if the animals were fed degraded or undegraded carrageenan because the intestinal bacterial flora Bacteroides vulgatus converts it to degraded. Certain probiotics can displace Bacteroides vulgatus from the intestine. The quality of intestinal flora probably explains why some humans are immune to carrageenan and others (like me) are sunk by it.