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Pantry Audit: Sweeteners

May 30, 2007 |

This is a follow-up on our post on Artificial Sweeteners. While convinced that they need to be avoided, we’ve also come to realise that all natural sweeteners are not made alike. Some, though marketed as ‘natural’, are not.

Among natural sweeteners, some are superior to others in terms of flavour and health benefits.
We did an inventory of the sweeteners in our pantry, and here’s what we found:

We prefer some natural sweeteners to others. In our order of preference:

Numero Uno in the flavour department. A good natural source of manganese and zinc - important allies of the immune system. Nutritional Profile.
Grade B is darker, has a richer flavour, and is usually better for cooking.
Bonus: it’s also cheaper than Grade A, which is lighter, milder, and used mainly for candy making. Maple syrup can be substituted for sugar in just about any recipe, except in dry dishes (like laddoos) where the sugar is added in the end.

Jaggery is sugar in its most unprocessed form - chemical-free and with a host of mineral salts missing in processed sugar. Sold in cakes or loaves, jaggery or gur as it is called in India is known as pingbian tang in China, and panela, panocha, pile, piloncillo and pÃo-de-acar in various parts of Latin America.The closest substitute in the European and North American context is Muscovado sugar (also called Barbados sugar).

Pic: Cane Jaggery

In addition to cane jaggery, there is palm jaggery , and the most delectable of them all - date jaggery. Jaggery is also produced from the sap of the coconut palm and the sago palm. Indian Ayurvedic medicine considers jaggery to be beneficial in treating throat and lung infections.

Powdered jaggery is a great sugar substitute and has a rich, caramel flavour.

How jaggery is produced

We get it in different flavours. Our favourites are orange blossom and blackberry. Honey is rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. To benefit from the enzymes present in honey, it should ideally be consumed in raw, unprocessed form.

For at least 2700 years, honey has been used to treat a variety of ailments through topical application, though it was not until modern times that the cause of infection was understood. Now, it is understood that the folk remedy of using honey to treat wounds has a scientific explanation: it acts as an antiseptic/antibacterial agent. As an antimicrobial agent honey has potential for treating a variety of ailments …
Antibacterial properties of honey are the result of the low water activity causing osmosis, hydrogen peroxide effect, and high acidity.

Honey should not be fed to infants.
It frequently contains dormant endospores of the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. These endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant’s immature intestinal tract, leading to illness and even death.

A sweet syrup made from the Agave plant. It is what we add to tea, coffee or lemonade. It comes in the light and dark varieties and is less viscous and more neutral-tasting than honey.
It is suitable for vegans who avoid animal products like honey. It is sweeter than sugar, and hence you need less if using it as a substitute in cooking or baking. Agave nectar is a newly created sweetener, having been developed during the 1990’s. It has the lowest glycemic index among all the natural sweeteners, and is suitable for diabetics.

How it is produced:

Interestingly, the production of agave nectar is very similar to how a bee creates honey. The bee adds enzymes to the complex sugars of nectar, which changes it into the simple sugars making honey. It is also through enzymatic action that the complex sugar found in agave juice is changed into a simple sugar sweetener- Agave Nectar.

The raw agave juice is regularly harvested from living plants by Indian peoples native to central Mexico. To do so, they must slice off the top of the plant and hollow out its core. Then the plant is capped with a stone. The pineapple shaped agave plant secretes its nectar into the center of the plant, rather than into flowers like most plants do. It collects in the hollow center for several days, after which the milky white “juice” is removed by ladle, one plant at a time. In a way it is similar to tapping a tree for maple syrup collection.

or turbinado sugar.

Raw cane sugar is minimally processed, granulated cane sugar that has not been tortured or molested in unmentionable ways unlike its white counterpart. Has a richer flavour, and more nutrients.

Cane sugar vs. beet sugar. What’s the difference?

One comes from the sugar cane plant (which grows mainly in warm climates), one comes from beets (which grows in cooler climates). They are comparable in terms of sweetness and nutritional value.

Why is ~~white~~ vile sugar banned in Jai and Bee’s home?

It has empty calories. The processing of sugarcane to make white refined sugar strips it of its vitamins and essential minerals.

White sugar can cause critical growth-hormone deficiency, and depletes the body of potassium and magnesium. As mentioned above, white sugar gets into the bloodstream very quickly, causing rapid elevations in blood sugar levels. The constant rapid rise and fall of blood sugar levels from the continuous consumption of a never-ending supply of white sugar products, in addition to the physical damage caused, also wears the pancreas out. An excessive use of white sugar can cause hypoglycaemia and a host of other serious disorders. See The Dark Side of White Sugar.

The processes used to convert raw yellow or brown sugar to refined white sugar are harmful to health and the environment. This ‘refining’ process has many components.

1. The raw sugar is bleached white. The impurities in the sugar are not removed. They, are rather, bleached by exposure to sulphur dioxide to look colourless, and make the sugar cosmetically look ‘pure’. This form of sugar is called mill white, plantation white, and crystal sugar, and is the most common form of sugar found in sugarcane-producing countries. Bleach is corrosive and known to have serious long-term health effects.

2. In India and other parts of south Asia, the form of white sugar used is called blanco directo. It comes from precipitating many impurities out of the cane juice by using phosphatation - a treatment with phosphoric acid and calcium hydroxide.

3. The white refined sugar we commonly find in Europe and North America is often made of beets. How is beet sugar processed?

Refined sugar can be made by dissolving raw sugar and purifying it with a phosphoric acid method similar to that used for blanco directo, a carbonatation process involving calcium hydroxide and carbon dioxide, or by various filtration strategies. It is then further decolorized by filtration through a bed of activated carbon or bone char depending on where the processing takes place.

A quarter of all the white sugar in the U.S. market is filtered using bone char. What is it?

Bone char is made from the bones of cattle from Afghanistan, Argentina, India, and Pakistan. The bones are sold to traders in Scotland, Egypt, and Brazil who then sell them back to the U.S. sugar industry.

When they are not passing sugar between cattle bones, they filter it using either granular carbon, or an ion-exchange system using resins. The resin is regenerated chemically, which gives rise to large quantities of unpleasant liquid effluents.

Simply stated, in the quest for ‘whiteness’ associated with ‘purity’, most people are willing to have their food treated with nasty chemicals, then probably passed through layers of animal bones or resins that cause great ecological damage.

Sugar: Addiction and Dangers

There are a host of minimally refined sugars that have a better flavour and nutrient profile than white sugar, and can be substituted 1:1 in lieu of white sugar in any dish.

1. Muscovado or Barbados sugar - moist texture, rich caramel flavour. Excellent in gingerbread or chocolate cake. Comes closest in taste to jaggery.
2. Demerara - tastes like mild molasses and is a coarse medium-grain. Perfect for tea and coffee.
3. Raw Cane or Turbinado Sugar. Slightly more refined than the above two. See pic above.
4. Unrefined Dehydrated Cane Juice or Sucanat. Sugar cane juice that is dehydrated and crystallised.

What is confectioner’s sugar/powdered sugar/castor sugar/icing sugar?

Confectioners’, powdered, or icing sugar is granulated sugar that has been beaten, crushed, trampled, stomped, trodden, squashed, and ground into a fine powder. Because it tends to form clumps, confectioners’ sugar is augmented with about 3 percent cornstarch to keep it loose and flowing.

Grind raw cane sugar to a fine powder and add 1 tsp cornstarch per cup of granulated sugar.

It is a by-product of the sugar-making process.

It is high in iron, calcium and a host of minerals, and quite good for you. It is the element that gives gingerbread its rich deep flavour.

There are three types of molasses - unsulfured, sulfured and blackstrap. Stick to unsulfured.

Pic from here.

In Britain, molasses is sold and used as ‘treacle’. Other types of molasses are pomegranate molasses, sorghum molasses, and bead molasses, used to colour many Asian dishes.

We avoid buying brown sugar for two reasons:
1. The brown sugar one commonly finds in the market, is simply white refined sugar with some sulphured molasses added.

2. It clumps up and is hard to use after a while.

We used to keep a bottle of unsulphured molasses.

Whenever a recipe calls for ‘brown sugar’, add 2 tbsps unsulfured molasses per cup of raw cane sugar - more molasses for dark brown sugar, less for light.
A bottle lasts a long time. We lugged one bottle of molasses across several states over seven years.

Now, we simply substitute brown sugar in a recipe with maple syrup, or 50:50 sugar and jaggery.

Also called sweetleaf, this member of the sunflower family has been used for centuries by native peoples in Paraguay and Brazil to sweeten their yerba mate and other stimulant beverages. It seems to have been a familiar herb in parts of south Asia as well, as its Sanskrit name madhura patra (sweet leaf) indicates.

As Paati demonstrates, it’s quite easy to grow in a pot on your windowsill. Stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar, and a leaf is enough to sweeten a cup of tea or coffee.

Stevia is calorie and carbohydrate free, and is interesting from the medical perspective as a natural sweetener for diabetics and those on carb-controlled diets. Ift is supposed to actually enhance glucose tolerance, and help in the treatment of obesity and high blood pressure. Stevia has been widely marketed and used in Japan since the ’70s.

However, the FDA (U.S. Food and Administration) has turned down three industry requests to use stevia in foods in the U.S. The alacrity with which the FDA banned stevia (based on an anonymous complaint) and its reputation for being an arm of the agricultural and big business lobbies led many to believe that the FDA ban is merely to protect the interest of the artificial sweetener industry. After all, artificial sweeteners have documented ill effects that the FDA seems not to mind.

See more about the “stevia chronicles” here.

Pic from here

As of now, in the U.S. and Canada (as also the European Union), stevia cannot be added to food products, nor can it feature alongside artificial sweeteners on food shelves. However, it can be sold in health food stores as a dietary supplement.

There’s a lot of confusing and conflicting information about stevia. We turned to our most credible source - the CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest). Their newsletter Nutrition Action has this to say about stevia:

Here’ what troubles toxicologists:

Reproductive problems. Stevioside “seems to affect the male reproductive organ system,” European scientists concluded last year. …

Cancer. In the laboratory, steviol can be converted into a mutagenic compound, which may promote cancer by causing mutations in the cells’ genetic material (DNA). “We don’t know if the conversion of stevioside to steviol to a mutagen happens in humans,” says Huxtable. “It’s probably a minor issue, but it clearly needs to be resolved.”

Energy metabolism. Very large amounts of stevioside can interfere with the absorption of carbohydrates in animals and disrupt the conversion of food into energy within cells.

The bottom line: If you use stevia sparingly (once or twice a day in a cup of tea, for example), it isn’t a great threat to you. But if stevia were marketed widely and used in diet sodas, it would be consumed by millions of people. And that might pose a public health threat.

alias yucky, unhealthy, genetically modified crap marketed as ‘natural’ and subsidised by the U.S. tax payer.

(In May 2006, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) threatened to file a lawsuit against Cadbury Schweppes for labeling 7 Up as “All Natural”, despite containing high fructose corn syrup. While the FDA has no definition of “natural”, CSPI claims that HFCS is not a “natural” ingredient due to the high level of processing and the use of at least one genetically modifed (GMO) enzyme required to produce it. On January 12, 2007, Cadbury Schweppes agreed to stop calling 7 Up “All Natural”. Source: Wikipedia)

HFCS is everywhere - in sodas, in sports drinks, in cookies, in savoury products, third on the ingredient list on a packet of ordinary bread.

Until the 1980s, Coca Cola was made with cane sugar. Then, they switched to high fructose corn syrup. Coke in Mexico is still made with cane sugar. It supposedly tastes much better than American Coke. Same company, two products. It is perfectly legal to bring a bottle of Mexican Coke to the U.S.

However, Coca Cola has been fighting tooth and nail to stop its own product from another market being brought here, using some legalese.

Why are the Coke executives having a cow? The answer lies in the fact that HFCS is so much cheaper than sugar. The reason is two fold - artificially inflated sugar prices and heavy subsidies to the corn lobby from the taxpayer to the tune of $22.7 billion in 2005. That’s why it’s cheaper for Coca Cola to make Coke with cane sugar in Mexico, and HFCS in the U.S.

Kate at the Accidental Hedonist explains it better than we can:

A 1/10th of a cent increase in sweetener, per serving, would cost Coca-Cola roughly $122,423,790 per year.

How does this elaborate system of scamming the tax payers and damaging their health to pad corporate pockets work? She explains it in detail.

In a nutshell:

We inflate the cost of sugar, lower the cost of corn, and Archer Daniels Midlands buys an excessive amount of corn at excessively low costs in order to make HFCS.

If you want to get HFCS out of our foods, have the government take care of the Tariffs, the subsidies, or both.

What are the health effects of fructose?

Studies are investigating how unlike other types of carbohydrate made up of glucose, fructose does not stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. Fructose also fails to increase the production of leptin, a hormone produced by the body’s fat cells.

Both insulin and leptin act as signals to the brain to turn down the appetite and control body weight. And in another metabolic twist, fructose also does not appear to suppress the production of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger and appetite.

In short, unlike other carbohydrates, fructose fails to activate the hormones that tell the body that it is satiated. Consuming a diet high in fructose can lead to over-eating and asociated risks like obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Links:
“Sugar Coated: We’re drowning in High Fructose Corn Syrup”
The double danger of High Fructose Corn Syrup
The Murky World of High Fructose Corn Syrup

Disclaimer: Unless expressly noted in the article, the comments and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author(s) of jugalbandi. Please do not interpret the information as any form of advice or endorsement of a product, service, or practice.

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42 Comments so far

Raaga on May 30, 2007 9:22 pm
Hey Bee,

I just on my own started replacing white sugar in recipes with demerara sugar, which until now, I thought was the same as brown sugar. This article’s been an eye opener. Thank goodness I was using the “good” ingredients though.

Cheers!
sra on May 30, 2007 10:15 pm
good work, bee and jai. thanks.
viji on May 30, 2007 10:22 pm
Very informative post Bee. you saved our time in searching for some food info. Good job. Thank you so much for sharing those valuable info. Have a good day. Viji (Saved for future reference).
Anita on May 30, 2007 10:58 pm
Hopefully, the market for unrefined sugar will grow in India and we will be able to replace our white sugar with that. Right now I don’t have a choice but to use it. Thankfully, our sugar consumption is very low, and I find gur a good substitute for sugar in many of the traditional Indian sweets.
Already, brown rice is freely available, and not too much more expensive then polished rice.
Santhi on May 30, 2007 10:59 pm
Very informative post, Bee and Jai..thanks
Meeta on May 30, 2007 11:30 pm
This is wonderfully informative Bee and Jai. Love the write up. You guys really ROCK!
Rachna on May 30, 2007 11:50 pm
HI Bee and Jai, so much useful information… …thanks sooo much for all the effort. Im gonna save it as a reference.
nandita on May 31, 2007 12:16 am
Very good detailed info guys! No white sugar in my kitchen either! We drink our tea and coffee sans sugar and use jaggery for most baking projects and as a last resort sucralose…We get brown sugar in some organic outlets but maple syrup, agave nectar, etc etc are yet to find a way into the country
AA on May 31, 2007 12:42 am
Hi Jai and Bee,

Thanks for a really informative post. The links are great too. There’s this other great link about jaggery in India at http://thecookscottage.typepad.com/curry/2006/01/sweets_for_my_s.html
in case you’d like to add it into this post.

Do you have a recommendation for which sweetner would work best for diabetics?

maybe, stevia in small amounts. frankly, don’t know. thanks for the link. we’ve added it to the post. –Jai
Anjali on May 31, 2007 1:00 am
1. “Honey should not be fed to infants” shocked me because here many people who have the tradition of drawing an OM on the tongue of a newborn with a silver /gold spoon. Many ayurvedic medicines for children are given with honey. It has been used for thousands of years in India for infants.

2. Not just endospores if one has seen honey extraction one will never use it. Literally you will see larve floating in it and most of the time they are not whole.

It is good idea to use purified honey though I don’t know the exact process used.

B & J good compilation it is thought provoking though accuracy could be analysed. This is not to deter you from further such posts but it is good to have a disclaimer that this should not be considered as advice. I hope you understand my views.

Good point. Will add a disclaimer to this and similar posts. (now that i think about it - why not a general disclaimer at the entry into the blog “Enter at your own risk” or something like that ) :-) –Jai
roopa on May 31, 2007 3:17 am
wonderfull info! great work!
indosungod on May 31, 2007 4:51 am
Thanks for the very very informative post. We love Maple Syrup too but have not tried using it in place of regular J&B banned sugar.
Asha on May 31, 2007 4:55 am
WOW!! That’s a great info.Except Agave nectar ,I have other four in my pantry and Molasses too.LOVE pure Maple syrup from Canada!
richa on May 31, 2007 5:22 am
well compiled! i use sugar only for my tea and mostly try to use other substitutes for rest of the sweet preparations. I find gur to be a great substitute though I do not get too good a quality here. Where do u get ur stock of gur, any website, if i may ask?
thanks!

our local indian grocer - hasmukh bhai. the gur is a bit hard but we make do with what we get. –Jai
pelicano on May 31, 2007 6:26 am
Quite an interesting overview I must say! I am really re-thinking white sugar right now, though, up to now, I had only used it sparingly for baking…I’ve been using brown sugar for coffee for quite awhile because of the extra nutrients, but I will now consider better alternatives. That’s really too bad about stevia… :-(

Thanks for the enlightenment, I enjoyed the post!
sandeepa on May 31, 2007 8:54 am
Thanks Bee, very informative post. I use honey and maple syrup but not as a sugar substitute
Pravs on May 31, 2007 9:32 am
Oh what a informative post…got to learn alot about sweeteners. Didn’t know white sugar is bleached…gosh! Great post bee & jai !
Suganya on May 31, 2007 11:05 am
Wow! I dint know that Stevia is Madura Patra .. What a beautiful name.. The knowledge of our ancestors is endless..
Sharmi on May 31, 2007 11:15 am
thanks for so much info. the raw cane sugar is the one used for sukku malli coffee right? have you heard of it? do we get this raw cane sugar here in the US.

sharmi, raw cane or turbinado sugar is available in any grocery store in the u.s. - b.
Radhika on May 31, 2007 11:56 am
Hello Jai & Bee,
I really enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work!
On the subject of sweeteners, using fruit puree works out well too, especially in muffins, cakes etc.
Cynthia on May 31, 2007 12:41 pm
Another insightful and thought-provoking post. Thanks for taking the time to do the research, compile and post. It is really appreciated.
pelicano on May 31, 2007 2:21 pm
Madhura=sweet? Is there a similar word in modern Hindi? So Madhur Jaffrey’s first name then…

madhur = sweet in hindi and most indian languages (madhura in malayalam). derived from sanskrit. meetha is also sweet in hindi, quite akin to ‘mishthi’ in bengali. - b.
Sukanya on May 31, 2007 2:23 pm
Hay guys lots of great information…Love it…
Manisha on May 31, 2007 3:59 pm
White sugar sucks. :lol: I had no clue about how it was processed until a few years ago but our sugar consumption is so low that it matters not. I usually have cane sugar and organic brown sugar at hand. Not that I use much of that either. But I can’t bring myself to substitute jaggery or maple syrup for sugar as both have their own distinct flavor. Cane sugar, brown sugar or demerara, yes; not maple syrup or gur.

Gur with ghee on a roti is a snack of choice in our house. :-D

I like the idea of a disclaimer. There is a growing trend to be alarmist about the food we eat and the lives we lead. Your post is wonderful as it offers alternatives. We don’t usually see that. What we see are red flags and what not to eat. For instance, now that I know that Kraft cheese is not real cheese, what do I use in my child’s cheese sandwich? She does not like thick slices of cheese, which is the best I can do with real aged cheese or how I can buy slices of real cheese. I can’t always shop at Wild Oats or Whole Foods, which incidentally do stock products that are not organic or all natural.

Fat-free was the way to go a few years ago. Common sense dictates that fat free is more harmful because it is not natural! Then along came trans-fat. Coconut oil was considered bad for health. Now it’s in again - as far as marketing it is concerned anyway. Although all the doctors in my family don’t agree.

I’d rather stick with everything in moderation. Sure we will consume some foods that are more processed than others and some that will have more chemicals than if they were substituted with something else. I already lead a stressed life. I try to make better choices but I can’t always

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