Latest Fact Sheet

Season 2, Ep 4 - Spreads

Spreads Facts

Last year kiwis spent over $100m on over almost 30m jars of spreads.

Jam is our favourite spread – it made up 30% of our purchases.

Despite what you may expect, jams don’t tend to include colourings. Their colour comes from the fruit or fruit juices that are also added.

Jams must contain at least 40% fruit. However, because the fruit contains sugar, the final product is usually from 64-67% sugar. Even artificially sweetened jams will contain some sugar due to the fruit content.

Pectin is a common ingredient in jam – it acts as a gelling agent and gives jam its consistency.

In New Zealand, nothing can be added to honey. What we buy in a jar is what bees produce in the hive, it has simply been centrifuged, filtered then heated. Honey is heated so it is easier to pour into jars.

Some manuka honey has unique antibacterial properties over and over other honeys. If you want to buy manuka honey that has these properties look for a UMF rating or 10+ or higher or an MGO rating of 500+ or higher. These standards indicate that the honey has a high antibacterial level. However, we only need these high levels if we’re unwell.

Manuka honey has also been scientifically shown to be great at healing wounds. It is used in hospitals around the world and has been used on wounds that conventional medicine could not heal.

Yeast spreads are a good source of B vitamins – these are added in during production.

Of the 121 foods tested in the Total Diet Survey, yeast spreads had the highest concentration of salt.

Peanut Butter contains around 48% fat but the majority of this is heart-healthy mono- and poly-unsaturated fats.

Look out for the amount of sugar in peanut butter – some have it added. Weight for weight, sugar has less calories than fat - carbohydrates like sugar have 4 calories per gram, fats have 9 calories per gram. Some light peanut butters have fewer calories because sugar is substituted for peanuts - the source of the fat).

Hazelnut spreads are low GI but this doesn’t mean they are something we should eat a lot of! Other low GI foods include sponge cake, milk chocolate and some ice creams.