Oh, yes, no need to say farewell to jams either! There are “no sugar added” jams on the shelves of grocery stores, as well as on the internet. Different stores have different brands with different flavors, prepared with different sweeteners (sucralose, xylitol).

A word of caution: while it is true that there is no added sugar in these jams, they still contain the carbohydrates that are found in the fruits themselves. Always check the label to see how much carbohydrate a jam contains and adjust consumption accordingly, keeping in mind the other foods that are part of the meal. Personally, I never have more than two table-spoons of jam in one sitting.

I must confess though, that I am pampered by my husband. He prepares our own home-made jams for me. So far he has made: strawberry jam, rhubarb with strawberries, apricots, apricots with strawberries, apricots with Italian plums, blueberries, berry mix, Italian plum jam with dark rhum (yumm!), raspberry jam – and I am probably forgetting a few of his combinations.

He was inspired by Chef Ricardo’s freezer jam recipe but, as usual, he adapted the original recipe to our needs and taste.

INGREDIENTS

4 cups dressed fruits

1 cup xylitol (a.k.a. birch sugar)

the juice of 1 lemon

METHOD

Couldn’t be simpler. My husband puts the ingredients in the slow cooker, cooks them for about four hours (one hour covered), then ladles them into clean mason jars, previously heated in the oven (to sterilize them). The slow cooking at low temperature allows the jam to keep more of its flavor and color.

When the jars have cooled down, they go into the fridge, awaiting their rendezvous with destiny.

It is now the second summer we have been making our own jams. The engineer in me would like to know the exact carbohydrate contents, but that is beyond us. As a substitute method, we check the equivalent store-bought jam label. Can’t be that much different, can it?

In addition, we are [sort of] testing the shelf life. Nothing ever spoiled so far and I am not sure whether that is because we eat them relatively quickly (within half a year on average) or whether it is because of the anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties of xylitol. To be seen. We are still at the beginning of the journey after all.

Good luck to All and keep your glucose levels down!