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Home / Home canning concepts / Smarter sweet choices for your home canning

Smarter sweet choices for your home canning

In the canning world, sweetening alternatives are often referred to either as “noncaloric sweeteners” or “non-nutritive sweeteners.”

The home canning company, Ball, says:

Whether you have a dietary requirement, or a desire to make healthy eating choices, home canning is a simple way to reduce the amount of sugar in your diet.”  [1]Fresh Preserving & Canning Questions. Ball Web site.  Accessed March 2015 at https://www.freshpreserving.com/tools/faqs.

When many people start considering home canning, thinking it a “healthy alternative” to commercially-made foods, they are often speechless and dismayed at the quantities of refined white sugar called for. The dismay doubles when they find that the cargo-ship loads of sugar are called for not just in jams and jellies, but also in relishes, pickles, ketchups, chutneys, etc.

In fairness, it’s really not possible to make such traditional home canned preserves without some form of sweetening being added, as some sweetness is an essential part of the taste profile and balance of those items. That being said, the good news is that it is possible to make them without sugar, using sweetening substitutes.

Stevia and Splenda® (aka sucralose) are two sweeteners that aren’t affected by the heat of processing involved in home canning. With them you don’t need to worry about the warnings about “bitterness” or “degrading”, etc. that you will see about other sweeteners.

In the recipes on HealthyCanning.com, we’ve chosen to go with concentrated liquid stevia as our alternative sweetener. It’s all natural, genuinely 100% calorie free, and easy to use.

For every teaspoon of liquid stevia we call for in the recipes here, it is generally replacing 1 cup (225 g / 8 oz) of refined white sugar.

Instead of the teaspoon of liquid stevia you could use:

  • 1 cup of refined white sugar (you can use a smaller replacement ratio if desired); OR
  • 1 cup of “like for like” stevia (which has added bulking agents); OR
  • ½ cup of sucralose (e.g. Splenda).  [2] “Laboratory tests have shown that half as much sucralose as sugar in the original recipe provides adequate sweetening. For example, if the recipe calls for 1 cup sugar per quart of water, use ½ cup sucralose instead of the sugar.” National Center for Home Food Preservation Self Study Course. Module 3. Canning Acid Foods: Canning Liquids for Fruits. Accessed March 2015.

Note that using other sweeteners, even other forms of stevia than liquid stevia, will probably increase the calories / carbs / Weight Watchers Points Plus in the recipes, so if you care about that you’d need to recalculate the nutritional values yourself.

If you use a solid sweetener like refined white sugar, or “like for like” stevia, or sucralose / Splenda, you will want to dissolve it in some of the liquid from the recipe. Generally, do this by taking some of the liquid from the recipe, either water, vinegar or juice depending on the recipe, put in a small saucepan, add your solid sweetener to it, whisk it in, and heat, whisking frequently, until your solid sweetener is dissolved completely. Then add the liquid back into the recipe.

The liquid stevia we call for can be added at any point in the recipe; you can even add some more at the very end just before canning when adjusting the taste of your product.

Note that when we say “sugar-free”, we acknowledge that we really mean “free of added sugar.” Many foods have naturally occurring sugars in them!

What about honey, agave, etc?

Sometimes in “sugar free” canning recipes, people use ingredients such as honey, agave nectar, corn syrup, maple syrup, etc, instead of sugar. These of course are really just sugar in other forms, and as such, aren’t of any use to people needing to reduce their sugar intakes for medical reasons, or wanting to for other reasons including weight management, etc.

HealthyCanning.com may from time to time include recipes using those ingredients — if only because we’re not fanatics about the sugar-free topic — but the vast bulk of the recipes will always truly be free of added-sugar.

References[+]

References
↑1 Fresh Preserving & Canning Questions. Ball Web site.  Accessed March 2015 at https://www.freshpreserving.com/tools/faqs.
↑2 “Laboratory tests have shown that half as much sucralose as sugar in the original recipe provides adequate sweetening. For example, if the recipe calls for 1 cup sugar per quart of water, use ½ cup sucralose instead of the sugar.” National Center for Home Food Preservation Self Study Course. Module 3. Canning Acid Foods: Canning Liquids for Fruits. Accessed March 2015.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. LA

    July 31, 2022 at 1:09 pm

    Can you comment on the flavor of the Stevia? I had liquid stevia drops in my coffee once (Sweet Leaf brand) and there was a terrible chemical taste to it. How do you find the taste of the Now Brand?

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      August 02, 2022 at 12:02 am

      First, everyone’s taste buds are different. Some people love cilantro, others hate it. We found the Now brand of Stevia to have absolutely no discernable taste at all, but a few other people have said the opposite. Shrug.

      Reply
    • Bella B.

      August 07, 2022 at 3:50 am

      I find the same…almost like a tinny taste…don’t like it at all.

      Reply
  2. Cindy

    June 08, 2022 at 7:16 pm

    Can you use Truvia in jams?

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      July 24, 2022 at 3:24 pm

      Yes, in jam recipes that use no-sugar-needed pectins.

      Reply
  3. Christine

    April 29, 2022 at 11:52 am

    Have you tried using Monkfruit as an alternative sweetener?

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      July 25, 2022 at 8:59 pm

      Monkfruit would be safe in recipes that use no-sugar needed pectins, or in canning fruit. You’d just want to work out the quantities that work best in terms of taste. We don’t have any experience in that.

      Reply
      • Bella B.

        August 07, 2022 at 3:51 am

        I tried monk fruit in cranberry sauce and blackberry jam and it was fine for the first day or so, then it crystalized.

        Reply
  4. Mary Temples

    August 29, 2020 at 3:28 pm

    Can you use erythritol as a sugar substitute?

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      September 22, 2020 at 12:04 am

      Please see this: https://ask.extension.org/questions/210825 “It would be safe to use Erythritol for canning, but it may not result in the quality that you like. If you want to try it, I would suggest canning up a small amount of fruit with an Erythritol syrup and then tasting it a few days later to see if you like it.”

      Reply
    • Rose

      September 23, 2020 at 6:00 pm

      I have used erythritol for sugar free sweet relish and sugar free bread and butter pickles. The relish is wonderful. I can’t speak for the pickles yet as I haven’t opened them. Good luck!

      Reply
  5. Jodi

    September 06, 2018 at 4:48 pm

    Another option for sugar-free or low-sugar canning is Pomona’s Universal Pectin, which allows for very low amounts of sweetener. It also allows you to choose the type of sweetener you prefer. There’s a bit of a learning curve in using Pomona’s, but it’s certainly not complicated, and it’s definitely worth having more control over the food you put into your body.

    Reply
    • Healthy Canning

      September 11, 2019 at 6:18 pm

      Good point. More information here on Pomona.

      Reply
If you need FAST or relatively immediate canning help or answers, please try one of these Master Food Preserver groups; they are more qualified than we are and have many hands to help you. Many of them even operate telephone hotlines in season.

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