Alternatives to Sugar

Increased consumption of sugar per person over the last century is huge.  In 1900 it was seven pounds per person per year and today the average is around 220 pounds. Directly related to the consumption of sugar and simple carbohydrates (which change to sugar in the body) are diseases such as obesity, hypoglycemia, and diabetes. Indirectly related are many forms of under-nutrition, since sugars too often replace nutritious food in the diet, and a reduction in bone density, since the body releases minerals from the bones when sugar is in the blood, in order to correct the acid/alkaline balance. Sugar also has a very bad effect on the immune system, so it’s especially important to avoid it when ill.

Typical sweeteners, included in processed food as well as added to food by consumers or used in cooking and baking, may be divided into four basic types:

• Sugars that have been refined from a natural plant to the point where they contain few or no nutrients. These include commercial white and brown sugars and refined, pasteurized honey, fructose, and corn syrup. These are all stripped of most nutrients. Brown sugar used to be less refined than white sugar (less of the molasses removed). In the U.K., this may still be the case, but in the U.S. most brown sugar is made by spraying completely refined white beet sugar with molasses. The one exception I know of is C&H brand brown sugar, which is still made the old way, of cane sugar with some of the molasses left in.
• Sugars that are less refined, including raw sugars (turbinado, demrarra, etc.), organic raw sugar, and evaporated cane juice.
• Natural sugars and sweeteners, close to their natural state, with minimal processing. These include:  date sugar, blackstrap molasses, maple syrup, granulated maple sugar, sugar cane juice (not evaporated), amasake (rice sugar), barley malt syrup, concentrated apple juice, apple juice, grape juice, raw honey, brown rice syrup, and agave nectar.  Stevia is actually not a sugar but a sweet herb and has a glycemic index rating of zero.  Xylitol is a sugar alcohol usually made from birch, with health benefits including the reduction of dental caries.
• Artificial or man-made sweeteners and sugar substitutes, including high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, maltodextrin, aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, neotame, and acesulfame potassium. Other sugar substitutes have been banned in past years by the FDA, or are pending approval now.

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