I have been on a canning kick lately.  I’ve made my own homemade peanut butter and homemade applesauce and those were a success.  But now for the hard part, sugar-free or low sugar strawberry jam.  As I was Googling the recipe, the first thing in the results was from the Ball website.  It only has 3 ingredients.  Strawberries, Unsweetened White Grape Juice and Ball® RealFruit™ Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin.  That’s it?  Oh well besides 6-8 oz preserving jars of course, which I have.

SparkPeople has a wonderful recipe calculator which you could use to find out how many calories go into any recipe.  I went there, added all 3 ingredients.  I figured out with an app on my phone that 8 oz is equal to 16 tbsp.  So I went to my calculator and multiplied 16 tbsp by 6 jars and I got 96 servings.  I went back to SparkPeople and typed 96 servings and my jaw nearly hit the floor when it said that each 1 tbsp serving of this jam is only 2.3 calories.  How?

I wanted to make my own sugar-free Strawberry Jam because of how expensive it is in the stores.  Have you seen those prices?  People who are diabetic can’t get a break anywhere.  If you have a special diet, you are going to have to pay a heavy price, and I just won’t do it.  I can’t recall the exact price, but a little 8 oz jar of sugar-free strawberry jam must be like $5 or $6, somewhere around there.  With this recipe, all I need are 2-1 lb baskets of strawberries which is basically what the recipe calls for, 4 cups worth, and right now they are 2 for $4.  So right there I’ve already saved money with just that.  Basically, I bought 1 jar and I am getting the other 5 for free.  Of course I am not counting the pectin which I already have, but that is only 3 tbsp and I’ll need 1 cup of the white grape juice.  If you think about it, the 3 tbsp of pectin and the 8 oz of white grape juice makes up and maybe another 50 cents for that 1 jar.

Why didn’t I ever think of doing this before?  I mean, how can I ever buy strawberry jam again for the rest of my life knowing it is this easy and basically has no calories?  All your calories in a regular jar of Strawberry Jam is from the sugar and high fructose corn syrup or whatever the heck is in your jam.  All my calories are basically from the strawberries and the grape juice and that’s it.

Do I even need to convince anyone besides the price and very extremely low calories?  I can’t wait to make this.