Thanx for the suggestions. Will start to research
Mike
Pamona’s Pectin is one brand of low sugar pectin that is widely available online. I’ve used it for low sugar grape jelly with decent results. You can use honey with it.
A small amount of powdered stevia would allow you to cut way down on or eliminate the sugar. Experiment with a small batch.
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my mother has always made them without sugar. she would typically mix pears in it for the pectin, and cook them longer than most recipes. So pears and prunes, pears and peaches. She would put a bit of sugar in blackberry and blueberry jams.
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I use about 1 cup per pound of fruit for most of my jams, so not low sugar but lower than most recipes call for. You can use less you just have to cook longer to evaporate water. I see no reason why you couldn’t use honey.
To test jelling freeze a plate than dribble a small amount onto the plate and put back in the freezer for a couple of minutes.
No sugar added Jams and Jellies were historically made with Arrowroot powder instead of pectin – see for example Joy Of Cooking. But in my opinion Kudzu root powder works better – it does cost more but takes far less to thicken the Jam, or whatever you might be cooking. 
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@MES111
Mike,
You know how it is where there is a will there is a way. We could not always buy white sugar and I’ve used plenty of substitutes. One way is boil down something sweet like apple juice and use that juice as the sugar. I use super ripe fruits when I can jelly using that trick. Honey is sweeter than sugar and makes jelly runny more like syrup even with pectin in it but the flavor is great. Maple syrup and honey don’t go with everything but your right they are healthier sweeteners. Sorghum goes with very little but once in awhile you can work it in a recipe. I can many of my pears most years in apple cider with no sugar, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon! The pears are super sweet and delicious! Honey makes things you can stay good longer also. You might like this article Preserving With Honey: The Sugar-Free Way To "Put Up" Food - Hobby Farms
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I don’t like adding sugar of any kind to fruit preserves. I’ll take freezer-jam over pectin-jam any day.
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You can use sugar free Baking Splenda.
It doesn’t agree with my digestion.
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I think Mikes goal is to reduce white sugar but not necessarily for purpose of cutting calories but to reduce disease. Splenda I think is just white sugar that has been chlorinated correct? If my memory is correct artificial sweeteners increase disease likelihood eg saccharin is a known carcinogen in rats. Nutrasweet and others come with warning labels for those with PKU. @Richard is saying they don’t agree with his digestion which is something I’ve heard many times before and experienced. If someone suffers from diabetes or other disease certainly artificial sweeteners take the edge off. Here is a recent news article Artificial sweeteners: aspartame and sucralose damage gut bacteria
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I recently made a couple of small batches of freezer jam/jelley with sugar and it turned out fairly well. My next attempts will be to not add any sugar/honey/carbs to the mix for at least my personal use. I don’t know what the original poster is wanting to accomplish so I might be off topic at least a little. As a type two diabetic that primarily controls his glucose level with diet and exercise this is very important. I test my glucose level and have learned that moderate amounts of fruit without added sugars keeps my levels reasonable. By watching my consumption of carbs my glucose level stays near the norm. I’m speculating that many of you are also type two or just haven’t been diagnosed as type two. Freezer jam can be a good method to help the lifelong battle. Probably should have just started a new topic but it does fit in to some degree.
I’m not sure how they make it? But it is an isomer of sugar. The stereo chemistry of the molecule makes us unable to digest it. Very much like cellulose is an isomer of starch. they have the exact same atoms, but the structure, the stereo chemistry is different. We can digest starch but not cellulose. Common are mirror image molecules, left and right isomers. What is bad about Splenda is the body thinks it’s sugar and produces the appropriate insulin even though no calories or actual sugar can be processed. This is not good! If Splenda causes cancer so does anything with any type of sugar, and any form of sugar including honey. Because the molecules are exactly the same. It’s unsafe due to the excessive insulin release, but that’s it. Small amounts like in coffee should not be a problem. Now the other sweeteners are different molecules, and so very well could be or are even more dangerous.
Yes, very true. Fruit has so much fiber it blocks the absorption of sugar. So we pass the sugar unprocessed. Rye bread is the best to eat as it has the most fiber and carbs are just huge sugars, and fiber blocks them very easily. Otherwise don’t eat bread! If reducing carbs, bread is loaded, but rye is much lower carbs due to this blocking action of fiber.
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Thanks for the excellent explanation between sugar/splenda and appropriate insulin levels being released. I intentionally didn’t mention insulin although it is the underlying culprit.
One thing I have learned is that we all tend to react somewhat similarly to carbohydrates ingestion but insulin resistance is at different stages from one person to the other and this roughly dictates how fast sugar can be removed from our blood. I have found that doing before and after test of different foods is a valuable tool. Some foods will cause spikes and some have almost no effect. It is odd but adding splenda to food tends to cause no change in my levels.
Jam without sugar isn’t jam.
I see “sugar free jam” in stores all the time and they are straight up lying. There is always apple juice, grape juice or honey in the ingredients. You can argue about sucrose vs. fructose vs. glucose until you’re blue in the face, but they’re all sugar in the end. As for Stevia… don’t make me laugh.
I have to agree that freezing is the best way to preserve fruit when you have a bounty.
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I freeze all my fruit. I add just s little honey. I put the fruit and all the juice in Ziploc bags and squeeze the air out. It keeps forever. I’ve tried starch as a thinking agent for jam. Anyone else try it?
Yes.
Clear Jel is often used for this purpose, is relatively inexpensive.
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Clear Jel is modified corn starch. Pure Jel is standard pectin. I wouldn’t use either.