Eating common cheap, sugar-rich jams, jellies or marmalades with white bread or other calorie-dense foods, like peanut butter, can make you fat.
A toast with jam, jelly or marmalade has many calories
Above all, jam can make you gain weight because it has many calories. Common jams and jellies have more than 200 calories per 100g, or 40 calories per tablespoon!
Certainly, just a tablespoon of jam won’t make you gain weight. However, a snack with a sugar-rich jam can be bad for a hypocaloric diet for weight loss.
Bread
Both white and brown breads have many calories. Two slices of bread have about 150 calories! In fact, bread can make you fat when it isn’t consumed in moderation!
Spreads
Moreover, almost all common spreads, such as peanut butter, cow’s butter, almond butter, or tahini have way too many calories per tablespoon. Actually, they have almost 100 calories per tablespoon, as they’re particularly high in fat.
Keep in mind that tahini is the healthiest spread for weight loss. Actually, tahini is better than peanut butter for weight loss because it has a superior nutritional value! Tahini is a super food.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
For instance, just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with white bread has about 300 calories.
Adding more than a tablespoon of peanut butter or jelly significantly increases the total calorie content, though. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich can have more than 500 calories!
Therefore, you should eat peanut butter and jelly sandwich or other snacks with jam, jelly, or marmalade in reasonable amounts if you want to lose or maintain weight.
Eat only a jelly sandwich a day between meals as a healthy snack as part of a well-balanced, low-calorie diet. It keeps us full for hours, as it’s high in protein.
Jam & white bread don’t regulate hunger
Furthermore, most common cheap jams, jellies, and marmalades are packed with sugar.
In many cases, the main sweetener of jam, jelly, or marmalade is the cheap high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The overconsumption of HFCS substantially increases the risk of obesity. Most noteworthy, it seems to have severe adverse health outcomes compared to other sweeteners.[1]
HFCS and table sugar keep us hungry all the time, as they play a key role in ghrelin, insulin, and glucose concentrations in the body.[2]
This effect is getting worse if you eat a sugar-rich jam, jelly, or marmalade toast or sandwich with white bread. White bread consumption alone spikes blood sugar levels. Simple carbs of white bread are easily metabolized by the body to blood sugar. White bread has a very high glycemic index.[3]
Eating foods with a high glycemic index has been associated with increased risk of obesity. They lead to overeating. Foods high in sugar and simple carbs make you fat.
Eat sugar-free jam, jelly & whole grain bread
On the contrary, eating high-quality, sugar-free jam with brown bread is good for weight loss.
Unlike white bread, brown bread is a good dietary source of fiber. Fiber delays digestion and prevents spikes of blood glucose.
Furthermore, there are high-quality jams high in fiber, as they have high concentrations of whole fruits. For instance, this strawberry jam has 10 grams of fiber per serving!
In addition, there are high-quality, sugar-free jams and jellies. Natural, low-glycemic sugar substitutes, such as monk fruit or stevia are used, instead of cane sugar or HFCS. In fact, many of the top 10 bestseller jams on Amazon are jams with no added sugar.
How to eat jam or jelly to gain weight?
Also, adding too many seeds and nuts to your favorite toast with jam, jelly or marmalade can make you fat. We should eat seeds and nuts in moderation. They have too many calories. For instance, walnuts have about 650 calories per 100g!
Adding dried fruits to your favorite jam snack can also make you fat. All dried fruits (e.g. raisins, dates) are high in calories and sugar! We should avoid consuming them with other foods high in sugar, like jams and jellies.
Drinking fruit juices or sodas with a snack with jam, jelly or marmalade can make you gain weight as well. Fruit juices and sodas are particularly high in sugar. Moreover, they have negligible amounts of fiber.
If you want to lose weight, it’s important to eat jam or jelly with foods high in fiber, such as brown bread and whole fruits. Fiber controls the total postprandial glucose response.
