8 calorie jam

Regular jam has around 50 calories per tablespoon. Fruit spreads and reduced sugar jams have about 20 to 30. Mine has 8.







You will need:

• a strawberry
• 1/4 tsp sweetener
• 1/4 tsp psyllium husks

Mash up the strawberry. Add the sweetener and the psyllium and mix well. Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes to give the psyllium time to gel and the jam to thicken. 

Use as you would any other jam.

1. You can use other berries instead, but strawberries are the lowest in calories for the volume. Also note that the strawberry I used was 18g after trimming, which is what the USDA considers a "large" strawberry, but until I looked it up I would have called a small-medium strawberry. Remember that a lot of USDA values were determined in the 1950s before massive hybrids became the norm. If you're concerned about portion size, verify the weight on a food scale.
2. I used splenda because it dissolves well. Erythritol based sweeteners are not recommended for this recipe because they do not dissolve easily. 
3. Psyllium husks have 17.5 calories per tablespoon, or 1.5 calories for the 1/4 teaspoon used in this recipe. Psyllium is almost entirely fiber, 80% of which is soluble and 20% of which is insoluble. Insoluble fiber is never digested and does not contribute calories. Soluble fiber cannot be digested by you, but your gut bacteria might ferment it into something that can be digested an absorbed by you (fatty acids, butyrate, etc.). Because of this fermentation, nutrition labels (depending on the labeling laws in your country) reflect that 1 gram of fiber has up to 2 calories. However those two calories reflect the highest possible number of calories given perfect conditions for fermentation, and since psyllium passes through me so quickly and does not make me gassy in the same way that other high fiber foods like nuts and wholegrains do, I assume that I am not digesting all of those theoretical calories.