Delicate transparent jelly beckons with its coolness and makes you want to grab a spoon. It can be multi-layered and multi-colored, fruity and milky. It is advised to use it during various diets. But what is its main benefit? And how to prepare a healthy product?
Classic jelly composition
The most common homemade jelly recipe consists of the following ingredients:
- fruit juice or compote;
- sugar;
- gelatin.
To prepare dessert, gelatin must be fluffed in boiled slightly warm water. Do not pour boiling water over it.
Gelatin is of animal origin. It is made from the joints, bones and tendons of animals and fish. Through a complex drawing process, the sticky substance crystallizes to form the familiar product called gelatin. Its main components are protein and collagen.
Also in the composition of gelatin you can find:
- amino acids;
- glycine;
- alanine;
- hydroxyproline;
- aspartic acid;
- glutominic acid and much more.
The benefits of classic jelly are evidenced by its composition. Fruit and berry juices contain a storehouse of trace elements and vitamins, which are almost never destroyed during cooking. After all, this dessert requires a minimum of heat treatment.
By adding protein and collagen to this composition, you can get a well-absorbed, very nutritious, but low-calorie product.
To maximize the benefits of jelly, it is recommended that you restrict the preparation to a minimum of sugar. Better yet, cook without it at all.
Useful types of jelly
Along with gelatin, pectin or agar-agar can be used to make a healthy and light dessert. These substances are plant-based. Agar-agar is extracted from some types of seaweed, while pectin is found in fruits such as pears, apples, plums. Such substitutes for gelatin improve digestion and peristalsis, remove salts of heavy metals from the body.
Agar agar contains iodine, iron, calcium, magnesium and folic acid. These substances are not just good for the body. They slow down aging, strengthen the heart muscle, blood vessels and the nervous system, remove toxins and cleanse the liver.
Getting into the stomach with food, agar-agar swells and, thus, allows you to feel a feeling of fullness. For this property, products that contain this substance are recommended to be consumed to lose weight.
The next substitute, pectin, binds heavy metal salts and radionuclides and removes them from the body. It normalizes metabolism, helps in the functioning of the kidneys and liver, cleans them and blood vessels from harmful cholesterol. As a prophylaxis, it is recommended for the risk of atherosclerosis and cholelithiasis.
Jelly harm
The main harm is caused by excess sugar in the preparation of this product. Also, the use of ready-made compounds (briquettes, powders), which are sold in stores. Not always the declared products on the label correspond to the contents of the package or may turn out to be of poor quality.
Making jelly at home also requires some attention. The usefulness of the product directly depends on the use of quality ingredients and compliance with the sequence of preparation of the product.
