Natural sweeteners are far better for our bodies than refined sugars or artificial sweeteners. I'm working on more "About" pages that describe each sweetener and tell more about the health effects of white sugar and artificial sweeteners, but in the meantime, I've made a short summary of the sweeteners. I know most of them are unfamiliar.

I love these sweeteners. Each has their own character and sweetness, giving me much more variety and possibilities for flavors. Using refined white sugar in everything seems positively boring now!

I'm finding that each sweetener is suited to different health needs and different types of recipes. So I use a variety of sweeteners for different purposes.

Once you get to know these sweeteners, I think you will love them, too.

Agave nectar

A sweet syrup, like honey, but a little thinner in consistency. Because it has a low glycermic index and will not elevate blood sugar, it is a great honey replacement for diabetics and low-glycemic dieters.

Agave nectar is made from the juice of Agave Tequilana, the same variety of agave that is processed into the alcoholic drink tequila. The agave plant is considered the "Mexican Tree of Life and Abundance" and was a favorite food of the Aztecs. Enzymes are added to turn the complex sugars of its nectar into a simple sugar syrup.

Agave nectar is a wonderful sweetener for beverages such as ice tea or lemonade as it dissolves easily. Drizzle it over yogurt or cereal. Use it to sweeten salad dressings and BBQ sauce. For baking, you can substitute agave in recipes as you would honey. Use three-fourths agave for the recommended amount of sugar and reduce the amount of liquid.

I'm experimenting with agave more and more. In comparison to some of the other natural sweeteners, it has a nice clean "sugar" sweetness and holds up well to heat. It's one of the sweeteners I frequently use.

Barley malt syrup and powder

A liquid sweetener that is reminiscent of molasses. Can be substituted for molasses in baking.

Barley malt syrup metabolizes slowly in the body but does have calories and carbohydrates. Diabetics and low-carb dieters should use it with caution. Otherwise, it is fine for anyone who wants a whole-food natural sweetener.

Barley malt is made by soaking and sprouting barley to make malt, then combining it with more barley and cooking this mixture until the starch is converted to sugar. The mash is then strained and cooked down to syrup or dried into powder.

Barley malt syrup is considered to be one of the healthiest sweeteners in the natural food industry, since it is produced from a whole food source and is made up of the simple sugars.

Brown rice syrup

Brown rice syrup is a liquid sweetener with the consistency of honey. It can be substituted for honey in baking. It has a unique caramel-like flavor that can be used to enhance a recipe, but it will disappear if used sparingly in a recipe.

Brown rice syrup metabolizes slowly but does have calories and carbohydrates. Diabetics and low-carb dieters should use it with caution. Otherwise, it is fine for anyone who wants a whole-food natural sweetener.

Brown rice syrup is made by combining barley m alt and brown rice and cooking the mixture until all the starch is converted to sugar. The mash is then strained and cooked down to a syrup that is only 20 percent as sweet as sugar.

The final product is roughly 50% soluble complex carbohydrates, 45% maltose, and 3% glucose. It is a "time-release" energy source. The glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream immediately, the maltose digests over one and a half hours, and the complex carbohydrates burn over two to three hours.

Brown rice syrup is considered to be one of the healthiest sweeteners in the natural food industry, since it is produced from a whole food source and is made up of the simple sugars.

Brown rice syrup is excellent for a bit of sweetness on toast, whole grains, sweet potatoes or squash, or in tea. It blends well to sweeten salad dressings, soups, and sauces. I've been surprised that I have been able to make toffee and crisp cookies with rice syrup. And it is wonderful in gooey treats like pecan pie. I'm finding new uses all the time. It's one of my favorite sweeteners.

Date Sugar

Date sugar is made by simply dehydrating dates and grinding them up into a rather coarse, granulated-type sugar. It contains fiber and nutrients, just as fresh dates do. Although it will not dissolve very well in your cup of coffee, it works very well, substituted cup-for-cup, in any baked-goods recipe that calls for brown sugar.

Dates are 50 to 70 percent sugar by weight. The supersweet Deglet Noor variety contains the same sucrose as sugar cane. The Halawy, Zahidi, and Khadrawy varieties contain invert sugar composed of dextrose and levulose, similar to that in honey. I've never seen date sugar state the type of date used, so it might not be possible to find out what type of sugar it is.

Though fresh dates score low on the glycemic index, dried fruits always score higher, and dehydration would make is score higher still, as the sugar becomes more and more concentrated. So it's not recommended for diabetics or those on a low-glycermic diet, but it's great for anyone else who wants a very unrefined close-to-nature sweetener.

I was surprised to be able to use date sugar in a chocolate cake and have it the texture turn out well and have the sweeteness without date flavor. So I'll be experimenting with this more.

Evaporated Cane Juice

"Evaporated organic cane juice" is just that--the juice of the same sugar cane used to make refined white sugar, but in it's whole, natural state. Only the water is removed. As a whole food it still retains its vitamins and minerals. It also retains its natural balance of sucrose, glucose, and fructose instead of being straight sucrose. This is a dark brown sugar that contains molasses and has a slight caramel flavor.

There is also a naturally milled organically grown granulated sugar that looks a lot like an "off-white" sugar. It is almost indistinguishable in taste from white sugar, but is more processed than the evaporated cane juice. It is also made by evaporating cane juice, but the molasses (which contains the vitamins and minerals) is removed.

These evaporated cane juices are an easy replacement for white sugar in your favorite recipes cup-for-cup--naturally milled cane sugar for "white" and evaporated cane juice for "brown".

These natural cane sugars processed "low-tech" contain components essential for their digestion and are metabolized more slowly than white sugar.

There seems to be some contradictions about how these evaporated cane juices affect blood sugar. Two manufacturers state they cause little rise in blood sugar, a third says it's the same as white sugar. I'm still sorting this out, and will have more on this later.

Powdered Sugar
Powdered sugar made from evaporated cane juice is sold in natural food stores. It is called "organic powdered sugar". It looks white in the bag, but when you mix it with butter for frosting it will turn a very light tan. That's how you can tell that it's powdered evaporated cane juice and not powdered refined white sugar.

Fruit Spreads

Fruit spreads are like jam or preserves, but sweetened with concentrated fruit juice syrup instead of sugar. Usually these syrups are made from grape, apple, pear, or pineapple juice, or some combination of these. These are all natural, unrefined fructose. They are delicious and taste even better than the sugar-sweetened variety because the sweetener is more harmonious in character with the natural fruit.

In the past, the term "fruit spread" seemed to have been reserved for these all-fruit products. Now, though, some "fruit spreads" contain cane sugar. Unfortunately, the fruit spreads that contain organic fruit are sweetened with sugar, and the natural fruit spreads are sweetened with fruit. I haven't yet found a fruit spread that is fruit-sweetened and made with organic fruit.

Be sure to read labels carefully, as some brands sell both sugar-sweetened and fruit-sweetened spreads, and you can't tell which is which from the front label.

Honey

Honey is "the nectar and floral exudations of plants gathered and stored in the comb of honeybees." It is a thick, sticky syrup that is 40% sweeter than sugar. It has a high glycemic index, so it is not recommended for diabetics or low-glycermic dieters. Honey comes in a wide range of colors and flavors--darker honeys having stronger flavors and lighter honeys more mild flavors.

Honey is in perfect edible form in its natural state, requiring no processing. It was one of our first sweeteners and highly prized around the world for centuries. It was our primary sweetener until the industrialization of sugar cane in the mid-1800s.

Honey has many health benefits, particularly when eaten raw.

Maple syrup and sugar

Maple syrup is a very sweet liquid sweetener, made by harvesting the sap from maple trees and boiling it down to a syrup. As continued boiling removes even more water, it turns into that nice, creamy maple sugar candy, and eventually into granules. It has it's own unique flavor that is well-known and well-loved.

Maple syrup and sugar has a very high glycermic index and will make your blood sugar jump. So if you are diabetic or on a low-glycermic diet, stay away from maple syrup. It's fine for anyone else who wants a very low-processed natural sweetener.

Stevia

Stevia one of the few natural sweeteners that has the same characteristics as an artificial sweetener--it has no calories and will not elevate blood sugar, yet it is super-sweet.

The most popular and useful forms of stevia are as a powdered extract, or a clear liquid. These are very very very sweet, so a little goes a long way.

Stevia rebaudiana is a naturally sweet plant native to Sourth America. It is a perennial herb of the Composite family, related to lettuce, marigold and chicory.

The sweetness and taste of stevia products differ, according to the conditions under which the plant is grown and how it is processed. What makes stevia sweet are the glycosides, which are also called steviosides. The higher the percentage of steviosides, the sweeter the Stevia will be. But steviosides contain several sweet constituents, one of which are rebaudiosides--the sweetest compounds in the leaf. A product with a higher percentage of rebaudiocides will be sweeter without the bitter aftertaste. So choose a Stevia with a high percentage of rebaudioside (30-40 percent).

Many health benefits have been attributed to stevia, both in traditional use and recent scientific studies.

Despite its many health benefits the FDA stopped the sale of Stevia in 1986. In 1991 they said it was not suitable as a food additive, for the reason that "its safety had not been adequately demonstrated". Canada and the European Community have also not found it acceptable for use in food.

Looking at the overwhelming number of known health benefits of stevia and the centuries of use will no reported ill effects, I have to wonder at their logic. In comparison to the widespread known negative health effects of white sugar and artificial sweeteners, not to mention artificial colors, flavorings and preservatives--which are allowed to be sold freely--stevia is relatively benign. So despite this warning, I will continue to personally use and recommend stevia.

Today, stevia has received approval by the FDA to be sold only as a dietary supplement. So I won't tell you it can also be used as a sweetening agent.

In other parts of the world, Stevia is popular as a no-calorie sweetener. In Japan, it holds 52% of the entire sweetener market, which includes sugar! No ill effects have been attributed to its use in the 30 years since its introduction in Japan, or in the thousands of years stevia has been used in South America.

Stevia can be used to sweeten a variety of foods, however you cannot substitute it cup-for-cup or even teaspoon-for-teaspoon for sugar. Cooking with it takes some familiarity and practice. I can't even give you a general guideline for substitution, as the sweetness of stevia is different from brand to brand. Equivalents to white sugar are generally given on the product label.

Stevia is heat stable to 392 degrees F, which makes it ideal as a sweetener to be added to any hot beverage. The liquid or extract powders will easily dissolve in cold drinks. Small bottles of stevia liquid and packets of powder are easy to carry with you as an alternative the to sugar and artificial sweeteners in restaurants.

The difficulty in using stevia as a primary sweetener is that it cannot be easily substituted for white sugar. Because so little stevia is used, it does not have the "bulk" of white sugar, which is often as crucial to the recipe as the sweetness. And stevia does not have the same physical properties as sugar, so it cannot be used, for example, to make candy. But it's fine to use when all you need is sweetness, such as to sweeten whipped cream, for example, or a salad dressing.

Vegetable Glycerin

Vegetable glycerin is derived from palm (coconut) oil. It is colorless, odorless, calorie-free, does not make blood sugar rise, and is about half again sweeter than sugar.

It is a liquid used in many cosmetic preparations and in commercial food preparation, but is not yet widely sold as a sweetener. Your natural food store may carry it, or you can order it online.

Xylitol

This is another new sweetener that is very interesting to me.

It looks and tastes a lot like white sugar, and can replace white sugar in most recipes cup-for-cup. It has the same sweetness and bulk as cane sugar, with one-third fewer calories. Xylitol is metabolized independently of insulin and is slowly absorbed, making it a low-glycemic sweetener, safe for diabetics.

Xylitol is a naturally-occurring sugar alcohol, not a sugar. The sweetener is found in many foods, including fruits, berries, mushrooms and lettuce. It is not a strange or artificial substance to our bodies, but is a normal part of everyday metabolism. Our bodies produce up to 15 grams of xylitol from regular food sources.

It has been used since the 1960s in foods such as chewing gum, gum drops and hard candy, and in pharmaceuticals and oral health products such as throat lozenges, cough syrups, children's chewable multivitamins, toothpastes and mouthwashes. It was not marketed as a sweetener because the price was twenty times that of sugar. Lower prices have made it possible to make xylitrol available to the home cook.

The white crystalline powder is made from plants such as birch and other hard wood trees and fibrous vegetation such as corn cobs.

Xylitol has many health benefits, including preventing cavities and many types of infections.

The safety of xylitol has been proven in long-term clinical studies. It is approved as a sweetener in more than 35 countries. The World Health Organization and the FDA have given Xylitol their safest ratings for food additives. Babies and small children can use it without restriction.

I'm experimenting with xylitol in recipes. So far, it hasn't always behaved like white sugar. So even though the packages say you can substitute, I'd say be prepared to have it possibly not work. I'll be experimenting more with xylitol and posting more recipe using this sweetener.

And there are more sweeteners to come...

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