Fructose page

[katsetaja]

Hi, I have a question about the fructose. As it comes from fruits then can I use this natural sweetener along with stevia extract? I have been thinking how to preserve my strawberrie jams. Stevia does not work there, but fructose or glycose will do. Can I use those or not?
How you preserve your jams? In winter would be lovely to have some jams. Offcourse even when I freeze that jam, it still need some sweetener in.
Any ideas at all?

[Primal123]

I don't use sugar in my jams. There is a pectin for low/no sugar and I use that. One year I boiled down white grape juice for sweetener. This year I made a batch of strawberry jam with less than a teaspoon of honey (to retain color). It was not necessary for flavor or set. Best strawberry jam ever. My friend grates an apple into her jams says it helps. I have not tasted it though to see if it's sweeter, better than the one I did.

[Ouaouaron]

You can can strawberries with a hot water bath method and don't need the pressure cooker, right?

[jaye]

I made grape jam last year with the no-sugar pectin. It turned out pretty good! But I wonder about the ingredients... dextrose, especially. It also contains fruit pectin, citric acid and calcium ascorbate.

I just heard that there is a book about preserving without sugar. I'm going to check it out of the library.

In the meantime, if anyone has tips or tricks for preserving without sugar or store-bought pectin, I'm all ears.

[BestBetter]

I think i'm missing something...the fruit you're using to make the jam is full of fructose, so why would adding a little extra fructose be a problem (assuming that it works to preserve the jam)?

Personally, I'd just use some sugar. A little won't kill you, no need to be afraid of it in small amounts.

Now, if you don't want to use sugar because it makes the jam too sweet, that's different.

[Rosencrantz1]

I recommend you watch Dr. Robert Lustig's talk on Fructose (called Sugar: The Bitter Truth) on YouTube. It was recorded as part of a "Mini Medical School" program from one of the UC schools, and it's a pretty good presentation on the problems with fructose.

[katsetaja]

Thanks a lot. Will look it up.