Courtesy of the
Nutrition Research Center
Sugar can be a poison if you eat too much. And most Americans eat too much.
As health-conscious consumers, we’re always looking for better alternatives, but is there a difference between sugar and some of the sweetener choices like agave that we perceive as healthier?
Sometimes not as much as we think.
Marketing hype
Marketing steers American consumers into deciding what to put in their pantries. Unfortunately, marketing doesn’t have anything to do with common sense or good health.
Marketing made refined sugar popular and a staple of the American diet. Marketing put Sugar Frosted Flakes on the breakfast table and Oreos in every snack machine.
And marketing most recently gave rise to the agave craze.
Agave is no better.
People think they’re eating a healthy form of sugar when they eat agave. Not true.
Agave is a natural plant hailing from Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States. In the 1990s it burst onto the scene thanks to marketing magic.
Once a succulent known to ancient indigenous cultures, agave, after modern refining, is transformed from natural to a refined sugar. A long heating process breaks down the plant to isolate and concentrate its sugars.
Agave is missing its original nutrients
Agave syrup, the end product you get in the squeeze bottle, is missing many of the nutrients that the original plant had to begin with. Plus, it’s devoid of enzymes.
Advocates of agave say that the syrup is low on the glycemic index, meaning that it’s a safer sugar, especially for diabetics. Don’t let this fool you.
As one raw food guru, John Kohler, shows from his research, agave has a “high concentration of fructose (90%) compared to the small amount of glucose (10%). Nowhere in nature does this ratio of fructose to glucose occur naturally.”
“Research suggests that fructose actually promotes disease more readily than glucose. This is because glucose is metabolized by every cell in the body, and fructose must be metabolized by the liver. [
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November 2002 Vol. 76, No. 5, 911-922.] Tests on animals show that the livers of animals fed large amounts of fructose develop fatty deposits and cirrohosis of the liver. This is similar to the livers of alcoholics.”
Alternative Sweeteners that are Actually Better for You
Stevia, a naturally sweet plant, is the preferred sweetener.
Raw honey, which contains glucose and fructose sugars, has half the amount of fructose of agave. Raw honey, unlike agave, still retains some of its minerals such as iron, copper, potassium, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, and calcium.
The best idea is to stop eating sugar whenever you can. Read labels carefully. Sugar should not be in your drinks, peanut butter, whipped cream or breakfast cereal.
Above all, do not switch to artificial sweeteners. With every passing year, researchers are finding they cause problems from nerve damage to cancer.
