Fruit jams are preserved fruits and sugars normally canned or sealed for long-term storage.
Jam making involves the disruption of the fruit tissue followed by heating with added water
and sugar to activate its pectin before being put into containers. Processes that expose foods to high
levels of heat may cause some nutrient loss. Hence, the objective of this study was to evaluate the
nutritional composition of four commonly consumed fruit jams that are available in the Malaysian
market. Different brands (n=6) of each type of fruit jams (grape, apricot, blueberry and strawberry)
were sampled from supermarkets in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The sampling method used
was stratified random sampling. The fruit jams were analyzed for the presence of 27 important
nutrients using Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (AOAC) official methods of analysis.
This study showed that fruit jams are a good source of energy and carbohydrate. The fruits jams
have very low levels of fatty acids. Fruit jams may provide an affordable and convenient source
of energy and carbohydrate. The data can be utilized to contribute to the enhancement of
Malaysia Food Composition Database.