Put some healthy sweetness in your life!
Owning a health food store, I hear a lot of people ask what replacements are available for sugar. They know that they should not be eating so much sugar, and are quickly learning that it is nearly impossible to avoid it if you are eating any packaged foods, as it is literally in everything regardless of what food you purchase. If you don’t believe me – I challenge you to go to your food cupboard, grab and 2-3 items and look at the ingredients – not the nutrition facts (because all food contains some sugars), but the actual ingredients – all of the following are considered sugar, beet sugar, cane sugar, sucrose, glucose, dextrose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and maltodextrin – just to name a few. Seventy-six percent of the 134 lbs. of sugar the average person eats is hidden in foods (Teresa Paul, from HW, Vol. 28). What is person to do?
There are many natural sweeteners. These include simple sugars such as; honey, molasses, date sugar or syrup, turbinado sugar (raw sugar – they take the sugar cane, dry it, and crush it – making true brown sugar – the popular brown sugar you purchase in the grocery store is really white sugar with molasses added after the fact, true raw sugar has the molasses still in tact without removing valuable minerals), Sorghum (a grain syrup), Succanat (dried cane juice – where they take the sugar cane, and extract out the juice), maple sugar or syrup, fructose (fruit sugar) and fruit juice concentrate. One popular brand of fruit juice concentrate is Mystic Lake Syrup.
Then there are the complex sugars like, brown rice syrup, and barley malt. Fruit can also be substituted in recipes (for example; replace applesauce for oil in banana bread), as fruit is 33% complex sugar. The complex sugars take your body longer to break down and are considered healthier than the simple sugars. There are complex sugars in all whole grains as well.
Once you have optimum health, eating these in moderation is considered okay. Remember it is important that our bodies do get some form of sugars – sugars turn to carbohydrates and that is what our bodies burn for energy. So once you are healthy eating simple sugars in moderation is a good thing. In the meantime we recommend people get their sugars, from fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
The problem with all of these natural sweeteners is that they still act as sugar in the body. This means they raise blood sugar levels, are high on the glycemic index scale, which is bad for diabetics and others with blood sugar issues. For people that are trying to get rid of fungus, parasites or other health issues, they can feed these organisms and make it harder to rid the body of these unfriendly body guests. The biggest issue of all is weight loss, all sugar turns to carbohydrates and must be burned by the body. And let’s face it, people like to eat sweets, but don’t like to exercise – so sweeteners that don’t affect the glycemic index are considered beneficial for weight loss.
The glycemic index was created to help diabetics, athletes and overweight people. The index is an indicator as to how much your blood sugar increases in 2-3 hours after a specific food is consumed. Most, if not all carbohydrates are metabolized into the simple sugar glucose, which in the glycemic index is assigned a value of 100. The higher the glcemic index food number is, the faster it raises your blood sugar level. Foods or ingredients with glycemic index numbers close to or above 100 can cause health issues for diabetics and others with blood sugar issues.
Fortunately there are some healthy alternative sweeteners out on the market today. Four of the most popular are Agave Nectar, Lo Han, Stevia and Xylitol.
The first of these is Agave Nectar from the Agave cactus. This agave nectar is what they make tequila out of. It is similar in taste and texture to honey. It can be purchased in a raw form – which means it is not heated or cooked, a dark form, which has more minerals intact and has a richer flavor similar to barley malt, or a light form, which is lighter and looks more like honey or brown rice syrup. It is 1.4 times sweeter than sugar, but has nearly half the amount of carbohydrates. Agave has a glycemic index of 48, and honey has one of 58. Most agave nectar is organic and is easy to use and cook with. I make lemonade with it often – using water, lemon juice, and agave to sweeten. I also use it as a sweetener in my chai tea as it adds body to the tea, so with the oat milk, and the Yogi Tea Redbush Chai Tea – it is very yummy. Also if you look on our website at www.truhealth.com I used it in my “Sugar Free Almond Butter Crunch” recipe.
Another favorite sweetener of our customers is Lo Han Kuo. Also known as just Lo Han, it is a fruit from China. Lo Han is so low in calories that one serving has no measurable caloric value, it also has an incredibly low glycemic index, however I could not locate the exact number. It does not cause sweet or food cravings, nor does it stimulate fat storage. Lo Han does not raise blood sugar and is safe for most diabetics and hypoglycemics. Best of all, it tastes great. Flavor is slightly softer or some would say, more fruity than sugar, a bit like maple syrup. It can be used in cereals, tea, or wherever you would sweeten with sugar. There are recipes in the boxes as well and there are starting to show up on websites as well. Lo Han is 10-15 times as sweet as sugar. Prices have dropped on this product and it is now much more cost-effective, but it is still considered more expensive than the other sweeteners listed here, depending on your usage. Lo Han is sold by TriMedica as SlimSweet, and a few other makers as well. There are even beverages available by many companies that use lo han as a sweetener.
Stevia has been used for over 1500 years in Paraguay and surrounding countries. In the 1970’s the Japanese developed a method of refining the sweetness out of the plant – creating a new term called steviosides, which are 300 times sweeter than sugar. In fact, when I was in Japan a few years ago, I learned that stevia is sold in most of their soft drinks and many other products, as they do not allow any artificial sweeteners to be used.
When using the whole leaf extract, there is a bitter taste with the sweetness, and an aftertaste of licorice when the product is diluted with water or other liquid. I have many people come into the store and tell me that they have “tried stevia” and don’t like it. I encourage people to try several brands, because each is very different from the next. Each brand can vary between 20-200 times sweeter than sugar, some are liquids and some are powders. We let people try tastes in our store and most people are surprised that they can find one that will work for them.
The FDA approved Stevia in 1995 to be sold as a dietary supplement, and it is good for many skin issues. But most people I know use it as a sweetener, even though you won’t actually read that on any bottles of the stuff as the FDA prohibits this. In addition to being a sweetener, stevia is also touted as helping with many other health issues, such as weight loss, high blood pressure, tooth decay. I am sure most of these are basically because people are now off the sugar or other harmful sweeteners that are causing these issues in the first place.
Cooking with stevia can be a challenge – but there are some great cookbooks out there – check your local library first or Amazon.com for some used ones. I am sure your local health food store will have some of the most recent ones, or just surf the Internet as there are many out there as well. We have sugar free cooking classes each year, and I am amazed that the stevia made items taste better to me than the others – it does take a cookbook or some testing to get your favorite recipes though, as recipes that call for 1 cup of sugar, will usually only use 1/8th of a teaspoon of stevia – which of course changes the bulkiness of the finished product. Cookies for example, wouldn’t have that much bulk to them – so it is important to find a recipe that will give you the end result that you are looking for.
There is also a cocoa drink mix available that is sweetened with stevia, and also some “kool-aid” type drink mixes. In addition to making healthy refreshing drinks, we also use them to make popsicles and what we call “healthy jello”. They are nice because in addition to not containing sugar, they also do not contain any artificial flavors or colorings.
Xylitol (wood sugar)
Xylitol is approved for use as a sugar substitute in 35 countries and has been in the U.S. since the 1960’s. Xylitol is an all-natural wood sugar and is naturally extracted without chemicals using steam. The human body naturally produces xylitol and it is also a natural carbohydrate that is found in fibrous fruits and vegetables.
The benefits of xylitol include: stops the growth of yeast (including Candida Albicans), safe for diabetics, very low on the glycemic index scale – 7, fights plaque, improves breath odor, strengthens tooth enamel, 40% fewer calories than sugar (9.6 calories per serving), 75% fewer carbohydrates than sugar, helps to boost the immune system and reduces middle ear infections by 40% in children, reduces infections in the mouth and relieves dry mouth.
Xylitol can be used in all baking except where yeast is involved. When I make cinnamon rolls, I use a little raw sugar to activate the yeast in the dough, and then I sprinkle xylitol and spices on the dough after I have rolled it out. It works great in hot drinks, but doesn’t dissolve well in cold drinks. I use it in all my baking, and usually use a little less than recipes require for sugar. There are xylitol cookbooks available, but I have used just regular recipes with mostly success.
Xylitol was originally made from birch trees, but after damaging many birch forests, with no other use for the extracted wood, many companies have now switched to corncobs. Almost all xylitol is now extracted from corncobs. Some companies use non-GMO corn, and others do not. Check where you purchase xylitol as each source is different and many of our customers notice the difference between the brand names.
Xylitol is unique of all the sweeteners as it actually helps your teeth. It is now used as a sweetener in many gum, and candy products, as well as toothpaste, mouthwash and even nose spray, as it is beneficial for sinus and ear infections because it kills the fungus and bacteria that cause these conditions.
Xylitol is a sugar alcohol and there are many other sugar alcohols out there on the market; sorbitol comes from cherries, maltitol that comes from malt sugar, mannitol comes from seaweed, and lactitol from milk sugar. The negatives for xylitol are that when you use too much xylitol in some baking, there is a cooling effect aftertaste, which of course is perfect for gum, candy or other products where there is mint present. Xylitol gum lasts forever, which is great. But in some baking it is not good – fudge for example came out well, but the aftertaste was a little much for me. Additionally,
Another issue with most of the sugar alcohols including xylitol is that they cause gaseous and laxation side effects for some people. This is not an issue for many people, in fact it is good for people that are typically constipated as it will help move their bowels.
There is another new sugar alcohol called Erythritol that we are seeing in some new products. It doesn’t cause the intestinal problems like the other sugar alcohols, but it also doesn’t have all the benefits of the xylitol either.
If you would like to try any of these healthy sweeteners stop by our store for free taste, and put some healthy sweetener in your life.