...you left out low-sugar tips for pies and preserves, as most standard recipes call for lots of sugar in home-made products.

Donnie:

Great point! I make jam from some of my fruit. After using Sure-Gel, I found the jam sickening sweet. When I reduced the sugar on the next batch, the jam did not gel thick enough. Some of the recipes called for 5 cups fruit with 7 cups sugar!

I now use sure-gel light. It calls for 1/3 less sugar than regular Sure-gel. Works great. I have reduced the sugar on some of their recipes even more and still get it to gel good.

I am amazed when I meet europeans living in ith U.S. I constantly hear from them that Americans use too much sugar!

Of course I agree somewhat but not always. I bought some
scandiavian made jams from a local specialty store. WOW!
It listed sugar on the ingredients but far too sour for me.
I will not buy jelly/jam from scandinavia again. Although I have had great luck with morello jam from Italy and some
red currant jelly from the U.K.

Luckily I now have enough homemade jams from 2011 crop to last me thru 2012.

I use about half the sugar of standard recipes. To get it to gel I cook it in a very thin layer, maybe 3/4" thick at most. I cover the whole stove with pots cooking all at once. One other thing I sometimes do is cook it down with half the sugar added then add the other half toward the end - this keeps the boil temp lower and avoids overcooking the fruit. If set is not happening fast enough I may add a touch more sugar at the end. There is almost never a need to add pectin if its cooked in a thin layer.

Even low-sugar jam is relatively sweet, its like all these parents thinking they are being good by feeding their kids "100% juice" but its not much different from Kool Aid in terms of sugar content. The way you eat less sugar is eat smaller helpings of whatever is sweet.

Scott

The use of thickeners such as Clear Gel and a sweetener such as stevia has allowed me to cut way back on sugar in baked goods and sauces.

I have never tried making jam, but I only eat pies that I've made myself and I always adjust the recipe to have more fruit and less sugar. I've never had someone complain that my pies weren't sweet enough, people are always impressed by how much better a pie made with good fruit and a reasonable amount of sugar is.

I agree that sugar being cheap is the main factor in the over sweetening of American foods, not just fruit desserts but in everything. I think many businesses use sugar to make up for sourcing the cheapest ingredients possible. One time I read the ingredient list on a store bought 'angel food cake' and I was unable to find flour or eggs in the entire long paragraph. It was a completely artificial food-like substance (thanks to Michael Pollen for my new favorite term.)

The common grocery store pectins use sugar and high heat to gel and to get a good gel you have to use a lot of sugar. The low sugar versions work well but they still need sugar just to activate the pectin. If you can find Pomona brand pectin it is completely different - it uses Calcium to gel. You can make jams and jellies without any sugar at all if you wish. I see it at high end health food stores.

This is a good string.
I have always been concerned whether the sugar specified in any particular recipe or brand of pectin was necessary for the canned jam to be safe to keep for two years? I often use recipes that use no pectin, just because the pectin is quite expensive and I make large amounts of jam, but the jam is overly sweet to my taste. If one uses the Pomona brand and a hot water bath, is that sufficient to keep the canned jam for long periods, or does this make more what we would call a "refrigerator" jam?
Northwoodswis

I think this is moving into the territory of the Harvest Forum. There are real experts on canning and safety over there. I'll cross post it if that's OK.

Here is a link that might be useful: Harvest Forum

Coming over from Harvest following Flora's thoughtful cross-post.

To answer Northwoodswis' question: a jam or other preserve with high-acid fruit (which excludes such low-acid fruits as bananas, figs, mangoes, melons) will be safe to process by boiling water bath regardless of the amount of sugar.

Studies on the shelf life of low-sugar spreads are limited, but there are some indications of somewhat reduced shelf-life. Refrigerator life is also somewhat briefer.

But regardless, no canned high-acid spread is going to present any health issue other than (possible) mold. Since mold is easily discernable that's not a problem except for the waste.

Old-timers used to scrape the mold off and eat the remainder. That's not recommended because invisible threads of mold can still penetrate the preserve and there is evidence of a correlation between this mold and cancer.

I hope this helps.

Happy preserving,
Carol

"If you can find Pomona brand pectin it is completely different - it uses Calcium to gel. You can make jams and jellies without any sugar at all if you wish. I see it at high end health food stores."

Good luck with Pomona pectin. The less sugar you add the more it tastes like jello. No sugar and you get jello. Plus the pectin is exorbitantly expensive, like $50 a pound. I gave up on that stuff due to poor results with low sugar. If you add full sugar it works great.

Instead of Pomona, I buy commercial pectin from the well known auction site for $5 a pound. I did however have to develop my own recipe. The recipe I developed turned out to use about the same quantity of pectin as the Pomona. This pectin uses the full sugar but tastes great and costs way less.

So buy the Pomona pectin and hand them $45 a pound profit. I you search around you can find low sugar pectin for less than $50 a pound.