Healthy Sweeteners: What Are They And Why Should I Use Them?

The problem with "normal sugar"
First of all, I would like to put your heart at ease. It is not totally correct that sugar is unhealthy and making you fat. As with all other things, it’s a matter of how much sugar you eat. A bit of chocolate every now and then or a delicious dessert once in a while for a special occasion is not going to harm you. Trouble only starts when your sweets are taking over the ruling in your life, driving healthier and more nutritious foods out of your diet.

The problem is that if your diet contains too much sugar, your fat metabolism will change negatively. Our body needs calories to produce energy and those calories we take in either in form of fat or carbohydrates like starchy foods and sugar. Unfortunately, our body first has a tendency of first using the carbo-calories for energy and, if there is enough, rather storing the fat-calories as a reserve for times of undersupply that might occur. If you eat a lot of sugar, your body will meet most of its calorie need from the sugar you consume, with the result that many of the fat-calories will be stored in form of body fat and you pick up weight. If your sugar intake is low, your body won’t have a chance but to burn fat for energy.

Alternatives: Fruits and natural sweeteners
It is though a fact that sugar does not contain any vitamins or minerals and therefore does not benefit your body in any way. A great alternative, maybe the best, are fresh fruits. Besides the fructose they contain lots of vitamins, fiber and other nutrients. And because they fill you much quicker than sweets you are very unlikely to eat too much of them. Dried fruits, e.g. dates and raisins are also a good sweetener. Please notice that their fructose (fruit sugar) is more concentrated so you need to eat less to get the same effect.

Another alternative are the so called natural sweeteners. They are not necessarily greatly nutritious but these whole food sugars contain at least some nutrients like minerals helping your sugar metabolism. If we speak about taste, they offer you more different and more intensive flavors than white sugar. Doesn’t that make them worth a look? I’m going to give you a short overview over the natural sweeteners that you can find the easiest. Any large and good equipped supermarket should stock them.

• Fructose: A product derived from fruit sugar that looks similar to granular white sugar. It has little nutritional value, but it seems to cause less blood sugar level disturbance as sucrose (simple sugar). As it is more concentrated you need less (only about half the amount).
• Honey: Notice that honey is 20% to 60% sweeter than white sugar so use less. Try to use half or a third of the amount of sugar. Make sure you buy unpasteurized honey without added sugar.
• Maple syrup: It has twice as much calcium as milk. The best thing is to buy organic products as not all maple syrup is pure.

Here are some other natural sweeteners that sound great, but you might need to look around a while to find out where to get them:

• Agave nectar: A natural liquid sweetener, less viscous than honey. Because of its sweet but neutral taste it’s a good alternative for maple syrup or honey whose stronger flavor might interfere with certain recipes. Agave nectar is about 1 ½ times sweeter than refined sugar.
• Date sugar: It is not really a sugar but ground from dehydrated dates. These fruits are high in fiber and rich in any vitamins and minerals. Use it just like sugar for cooking and baking but not for sweetening beverages (it won’t dissolve properly).
• Frozen juice concentrates (e.g. pineapple, apple and orange): The ones in the supermarket have been pasteurized, but are still much healthier sweeteners than white sugar. They are great for salad dressings. If you have the time, you can make them yourself (see the link below).
• Molasses: The most nutritious in this group is blackstrap molasses, the residue of cane syrup after the sugar crystals have been separated. It contains much calcium, iron and potassium.
• Sucanat: Sugar Cane NATural, a product of intense flavor, made from evaporated sugar cane juice. It contains less sucrose than white sugar and more vitamins, minerals and other nutrients of cane sugar, thus it is highly nutritious. Sucanat can be used instead of white and brown sugar, just replace it 1-to-1.

You can change the amount of sugar in a meal as long as the sugar is not an essential part of the recipe. If you want to replace the sugar with a natural sweetener, follow these guidelines for best results:

• Cookies: Use dry, granular sweeteners like date sugar, otherwise you will have to add too much flour to make up for the liquid increase.
• Breads and pies: Liquid sweeteners like fruit juice concentrates
• Cakes: Sucanat, so that the original flavor won’t change much.

Helpful links

• http://www.livrite.com/sweeten.htm
• natural sweeteners, including a short description, how to use them and what you can use them for
• http://www.care2.com/greenliving/directory-of-natural-sweeteners.html
• information about natural sweeteners, their nutritional value and how to use them, including a chart of equivalents and a recipe how to make frozen juice concentrates
• http://www.freedomyou.com/recipes/natural%20sweeteners.htm
• Excerpt from” Whole Foods & Healing Recipes”, a complete guide to natural, delicious recipes. There is a direct link to purchase the book in paper form or as an ebook.

If you are on a diet and need to cut down on sugar, you might also be interested in this:

Naturally Sweet Desserts: The Sugar-free Dessert Cookbook, by Marcea Weber
It’s a book with various dessert recipes free from refined sugar and artificial sweeteners. I have not read it and most likely many of the recipes will not necessarily be as quick to make as we would like to, but maybe you still want to take a chance. After all, even people searching the net for quick recipes sometimes have time…
Check http://www.amazon.com/Naturally-Sweet-Desserts-Sugar-free-Cookbook/dp/0895294435, ask Google or your local bookstore.

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