Vitamins in Jelly for a Healthy Diet - Give Up the Goo!

I do not understand your question, Ben Zoltac, but humans are confounding in their questions at times.

Since the Good Ship UHP Hubbertise is in for a refit, I have free time from my duties as Science Officer^SCI-PI and will apply it in an attempt to deal with your questioning on this strange new topic.

At first blush, it would seem that any jelly that did not contain a portion of vitamins would be merely some sort of plastic goo - manufactured in one of Earth's synthetics factories, for example. Or perhaps by Hollywood for yet another remake of Ghostbusters.... or The Kids in the Hall - whichever of those adolescent-humanoid shows employs slime as a comedy device. The goo might, however, be that which infills artificial body implants of a sort.

What sort of jelly do you speak of - cow's foot jelly, perhaps? Snake jelly made by the local crone on the corner? Hair gel, perhaps. It is all intriguing.

Since you are undoubtedly reduced to purchasing gelatin-pak vitamin supplements from gas stations along the Interstate, I have convened a panel of experts to help me with this topic.

As a Klingon colleague of mine says in his agony column, I will now confront your questions.

All of the commercial brands of grape jelly we tested produced no significant amounts of any vitamins, and only one mineral - sodium. This is likely because the cooking and bottling or canning process destroy all of the vitamins of the fruit, namely grapes. Commercial grape jellies contain carbohydrates and calories. That is what they contain.

Un-jellied, whole grapes yield the following nutritional components:

• Minerals: calcium, chlorine, copper, fluorine, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, silicon, sulfur.
• Vitamins: A, B1, B2, B6 and C6.
• Sulfuric compounds: Beta-carotene, lycopene, ellagic acid, resveratrol, others (all in the grape skins).
• Antioxidants: anthocyanins, flavones, geraniol, linalol, nerol and tannins.
• Grape leaves contian other nutritional benefits, being green and leafy.

Because you need to cook the grapes in water, crush them, and drain the juice and toss the skins, you will retain little of the nutritional content.

THE SOLUTION

If you do anything at all to jellify them, you should wash some grapes, keep the skins on but cut and smash them all slightly in a dish, heat them for a minute or two in the microwave, and serve them on toast, English muffins, or ice cream, and derive some nutrition value from them. You could pour them over shortcake or on top of a cake of any type as well. You could add a little honey to the grapes in the microwave.

Fruits that you do not need to peel in order to make preserves, jams, and compotes with little or no cooking to destroy nutrition are the best to use. These include:

• Strawberries
• Raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, mulberries
• Raisins - put some in a dish with a little water, warm up in the microwave and you have a sauce. Use less water and you have a type of preserve.

A Hardee's table top 1/2 oz. Strawberry Jam Packet provides 2.4 mg of Vitamin C or 4% of the RDA.

This homemade version includes:

• Only 10 Calories or less per Tablespoon
• Vitamin C - 10% RDA
• Vitamin A - 0.2%
• Vitamin B6 - 0.2%
• Vitamin B12 - 0.3%
• Vitamin E - 0.2%
• Calcium - 0.3%
• Potassium - 20.7 mg
• Manganese - 2.0%
• Iron - just under 1.0%
• Sodium - a trace
• Others

INGREDIENTS for 6 Cups of Jam

• One huge cooking pot
• A wooden spoon
• 3 Pounds washed Strawberries - about 10 cups
• 1/2 Cup sugar or Honey (or the appropriate amount of Sugar Twin sweetener or Stevia; I don't like any of the rest)
• 3 Tbl Cornstarch
• 1/3 Cup water - I use spring water
• Pint canning jars with lids
• Paraffin (that's wax) to melt for seals - when it melts, it may resemble that goo you were previously eating, but don't be tempted by it. It will indeed gel in the alimentary tract and need surgical removal.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Place berries in the pot over medium-high heat and cook 10-12 minutes, smashing gently.
• Add sweetener of your choice and stir while dissolving.
• Mix cornstarch with the water in a cup, stir briskly, and pour into the pot,
• Stir briefly to mix well and remove the pot from stove top; pour jam into sterilzed bottles.
• Melt paraffin carefully in a small pan, pour a thin layer on top of the jams, and cap. Use jam within 3-6 months. If you process in a hot water bath, you'll destroy nutritional content.

Be sure to taste the strawberries for sweetness before you start preparing your strawberry jam. Adjust the sweeteners as you like. You may also use frozen strawberries in this recipes and often, these packages contain sugar and you might not need any further sweetening agent.

Thank you for calling the UHP Hubbertise Science Department. We hope your question has been answered satisfactorily and in good taste.