Jam is obsolete

Jam is tastier than frozen fruit. This, as far as I can see, ends the debate. (And if your jam is not tastier than frozen fruit, then you’re doing jam wrong.)

(… you are making the jam yourself, of course—aren’t you? Certainly there is little point in comparing to store-bought jam.)

Adding sugar makes the jam sweeter, and also much less healthy.

It is worth pointing out that most fruits have been bred for vastly higher sugar content than the original progenitors. See https://www.sciencealert.com/fruits-vegetables-before-domestication-photos-genetically-modified-food-natural

In addition fruits are not available year round, rather than during a brief window when the fruit naturally ripens. I suspect that this seasonal access, before winter, may explain our tendency to binge on sugars.

The bottom line is that it is almost all "added sugar". It is a fallacy to treat sugar in fruit as being realistically "natural".

I feel like you’ve buried the lead here - you mean I can have Nutella and frozen fruit for the same(ish) sugar content as jam?

Num num

Keeping food frozen costs money. It also risks spoilage if the freezing temporarily fails, which is hard to test for later. If jam is obsolete, it's only for sufficiently rich first world families.

Also, many people like sweet spreads and use jams regardless of their preservation properties.

I noticed this after attempting to buy jam recently after not having done so for many years and finding every jar on the shelf including tons of added sugars except for the low/no sugar added options which instead add artificial sweeteners.

We have some sharp blackcurrents growing in the garden. My dad makes jam out of them. The blackcurrents are too sharp to taste nice without sugar. Often he freezes the blackcurrents until he gets around to making jam. We are making jam because it tastes nicer than raw blackcurrent.

This is exactly the sort of high quality article for which I am here. Please promptly write an article on pastry alternatives, so that I might increase my knowledge of strange foods.

Someone can correct this: I thought adding sugar was not just for the taste, but as is the case with medicinal syrup - for the osmotic pressure to prevent bacteria growing. In other words, as a preservative.

I’m trying to understand the “cheaper” claim. You seem to be saying it’s cheaper on a percentage of fruit basis. But wouldn’t the more relevant comparison be cost per serving? Ie. Is a Tbsp of smashed raspberries cheaper than a Tbsp of jam?

I like berries on my oatmeal, and have tried various kinds. Blueberries freeze well, and a thawed frozen blueberry is a reasonable approximation of a fresh blueberry. There is the same resistance, pop and release of tartness and flavor. Raspberries turn to mush when they thaw. Strawberries are somewhere in between.