Blueberry Spread

I was cruising through the supermarket on autopilot, picking up things I remembered I was out of. The jelly/jam/preserve section is huge, but I know where the small section is with the better stuff, and where the couple shelves with the sugar free stuff, are in that section. So I go there and grab a couple jars, Blueberry and Strawberry, without paying them much attention.

When I was putting the stuff away, I looked at the label to see how many calories.



WTF? This stuff must make Love Canal look like mother's milk. :eek: But the label doesn't seem to list nuclear waste or Chinese sewage.

Actually it doesn't taste bad, mild flavor and not overly sweet. Their website lists a bunch of flavors, plus things like their version of mayo, salad dressing, and even chocolate dip, with the same specs. I looked at the store locater and far from the Philly are it lists a lot of health spas and nutrition centers. That usually means limited selection and expensive. But within 20 miles of me it listed like 79 locations, all but two being major grocery chains. They ship pretty cheap though, $8.95 for each ten items.

So now you know, I've been hanging around here for 12 years just waiting for a chance to shill for Walden Farms.

It says Refrigerate After Opening but surely that's a quaint phrase, more tradition than requirement?

It's been on sauce bottles and jams/ preserves here for years.
But we had a larder style fridge (now called under the counter) and for a family of five it meant space was limited. So it was completely ignored until my sister and I left home. Thing is, with a family of five and not living in a hot climate, nothing really had the chance to go off. When we'd all moved out (before I moved back in!) the only product which ever gathered mould was jam.

Now my mother would no more leave them in a cupboard than she would raw chicken.

Maybe it tastes better cold? :confused:

Jelly goes in the fridge. Peanut butter goes in the cabinet

lumberjim;909728 wrote:

Jelly goes in the fridge. Peanut butter goes in the cabinet

Yeah what He said.

But that's just tradition. If there's nothing the bacteria wants to eat in Sucralose, cellulose, and natural flavor, no need to keep it cool :cool:

Other than viscosity. Warm jelly isn't very jelly ey

I would say that because it's not packed full of sugar (as a preservative in part), it would be more prone to decay which is probably why the fridge is recommended.

I have bought blueberry spread over here before and found it to be quite mild also. I actually thought it was too mild. didn't really enjoy it. Can't remember the brand though. I never bought it again.

lumberjim;909728 wrote:

Jelly goes in the fridge. Peanut butter goes in the cabinet

fargon;909732 wrote:

Yeah what He said.

That's probably chiseled in stone somewhere.

If it ain't, it should be.

xoxoxoBruce;909692 wrote:

But within 20 miles of me it listed like 79 locations, all but two being major grocery chains.

I used a 50 mile radius, found 32 places Walden's stuff is sold, and all but 3 were Kroger stores. One was "Everything Diabetic", in a medical services plaza.

All were in Tennessee.

Aliantha;909745 wrote:

I would say that because it's not packed full of sugar (as a preservative in part), it would be more prone to decay which is probably why the fridge is recommended.

I know your toilet water goes down backwards, but your sugar is a preservative down there? are you sure you aren't thinking of salt?

as far as I know, starches break down first. sugar attracts bacteria and other nasties. it's food. for most things.

Have you ever seen a lollipop go mouldy? Or toffee? It doesn't get kept in the fridge. Butterscotch?

Items with a high sugar content, such as many jams and most candies are preserved by the sugar. The sugar itself is not what attracts the nasties. It's usually what's mixed with it, which is generally organic matter.

BY GOD YOURE RIGHT!

it's right in the fucking name. preserves! what was I thinking?

In a high enough concentration it can be. Cells (bacterial or otherwise) can only prevent osmosis across their membranes to a limited extent. When a solution is concentrated enough (i.e. hypertonic), it can dessicate the cells, therefore retarding microbial growth and rendering potential pathogens inert .
Some examples of sugar-based preservatives include various syrups (i.e. maple), honey, and fruit preserves (jams). In particular it is useful to note that jam does not require raising temperatures above 104C to kill botulinum spores; although most operations will pasteurize the stock to kill fungal spores which may grow on the top layer of the jam due to recondensed water).

Well that's a turn up for the books.

yeah, right? I was wrong once before. this one time... I thought I was wrong about something, but it turned out I was right.... which technically meant i was wrong... Now it's happened again. goddammit.

One of my wives told me she had only been wrong once. thought she was wrong but was not. :bolt:

Today I Learned. Good one James and Ali.

It turns out that salt and sugar both work the same way:

http://www.answers.com/Q/Explain_the_reason_for_using_salt_and_sugar_for_food_preservation

High-salt and high-sugar mixtures preserve food because they are absorbent relative to the internal fluid of microorganisms, causing them to shrivel up and eventually die. When a layer of a high-salt or high-sugar substance is used to preserve food, the food is protected from microbial invasions. This is a more sophisticated way to preserve food than the oldest method - simply letting it dry out. With salt and sugar, one can theoretically preserve food for decades without it being consumed by bacteria. The value of a method to reliably preserve food can hardly be understated. Prior to refrigeration, which is only about a century old, a preserve was the only way that an autumn harvest could be stored throughout harsh winters.

The deeper explanation:

http://sciencefocus.com/qa/how-does-sugar-act-preservative

Bacteria evolved in environments where the concentration of sugars and salts is the same as or lower than those inside the cell. High sugar concentrations cause the bacterium to lose water by osmosis and it doesn’t have any cellular machinery to pump it back in against the osmotic gradient. Without enough water, the bacteria can’t grow or divide. Mould is more tolerant though and can grow on some jams.

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

Yeah well, now you know why you've been keeping me around.

Honey apparently lasts indefinitely...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/?no-ist

Oh, yeah, honey is a forever food.