Homeschooling Nine Kids - Blackberry picking and the dangers of high fructose corn syrup

Homeschooling Nine Kids

Sep. 6, 2009

Blackberry picking and the dangers of high fructose corn syrup

There is nothing like free food, especially when it is organic and growing in your own garden!

Recently, the children picked blackberries from our own garden. I used them to make bramble jelly, or blackberry jam.

These ingredients make about a jar.

1)400 grammes of blackberries ready washed.

2)400 grammes of brown sugar.

3) A dash of lemon juice.

I put all the ingredients in a pan and heated them up on high to start with, then turned the heat down and simmered them for about 10 mins. You can test if it is ready, by putting some on a spoon and touching with your finger to see if it shrinks back.

I used less sugar in mine, as I knew it would go quickly! If you wish to preserve it, you need to make sure you add all the sugar, as the sugar is the only preservative.

I will be making all my jams now, as I am dismayed to find many jams in the supermarket have high fructose corn syrup in their ingredients. This is not a natural sugar, but created using GM technology. I was wondering why it left an awful taste in my mouth.

Watch this video on youtube:

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Nov. 15, 2009 - I am very surprised to see this post!

Posted by SevenSmiths

I am a bit shocked that European jams, jellies, and preserves would contain HFCS. Is it listed as such on the label? I had actually purposely been frequenting a store here which sells European preserves at a discount, buying them instead of the much more expensive fruit and fruit juice only preserves sold in health food stores here. Of course, I was carefully reading the labels which listed only "sugar." I assumed they were using cane sugar. Is the corn syrup being imported to Europe from the U. S. and used? Or is corn able to be grown somewhere in Europe and they are growing GMO strains?

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