Ah, the wonderful world of so-called “healthy” or “alternative” sweeteners! A food blog that I follow faithfully, Pinch of Yum, has just finished up its “sugar-free January” stretch for at least the second year, with the idea that for one month you’ll stay off “refined” sugar. So what does that term mean for this website? Anything that can be called a “natural” sugar, as opposed to a refined one, including maple syrup and honey, is allowed in small amounts.
Folks, I hate to break it to you, but:
Maple syrup and honey are just sugar.
To quote from a totally great website I just ran across, Real Mom Nutrition:
I see so many recipes that claim “no sugar” but contain honey, maple syrup, or molasses. These are all forms of sugar. Though you may prefer to use them because of how they taste or because you believe they’re not as processed as regular table sugar, you should know the facts: When these sweeteners hit your intestines, they break down into glucose and fructose, just like table sugar does. Blackstrap molasses does contain some iron–but like all sweeteners, it should be used in small amounts. So when you hear advice about limiting added sugar, remember that not only goes for white sugar and high fructose corn syrup, but also honey, maple syrup, and molasses too. (“Five Myths about Clean Eating”)
May I be really obnoxious here and point out that maple syrup isn’t all that “natural”? It starts out with a natural product, sure, the sap from a sugar maple, but then it’s processed. It takes 40 gallons of the sap to produce 1 gallon of the syrup, so that’s a boatload of boiling. After that it’s filtered. That’s a lot of processing! There aren’t nearly as many steps to make maple syrup as there are in producing white granulated sugar, but we’re not drinking the stuff straight from the tree as the term “natural” might imply. After all, regular old white granulated sugar comes from a natural source, too: either sugar cane or sugar beets. And molasses is the by-product of the sugar refining process, being produced almost at the end. It’s fair to say that it’s in no way something that can be called “natural.” What about honey? Its processing can vary widely, with true “raw” honey having been exposed to minimal heat, going all the way up to the more industrialized product. All sorts of health claims are made about raw honey and its various benefits; I will leave that for others to fight over and just emphasize once again here that, however it’s processed, it still has the same basic content as the stuff in the sugar bowl.
So are there any legitimate reason to use one or more of these alternative sweeteners if they’re not really “natural”? Yes, there actually are:
1. They’re more expensive, so you’re very motivated to use less. If you have real maple syrup on the table when you serve the kids waffles you’re not going to let them fill up all the little cavities with syrup! (Ann Hodgman says in her cookbook One Bite Won’t Kill You that you should ALWAYS pour your kids’ pancake syrup yourself, until they’re so old they won’t let you. And I don’t think she’s even talking about real maple syrup here.) The maple syrup I buy at Costco weighs in at $.39/oz. as opposed to around $.10 for Mrs. Butterworth’s, which is mostly high-fructose corn syrup. A very light drizzle of the real stuff will do just fine, thank you.
2. They each have distinctive tastes, so you won’t want as much. I like honey in tea and maple syrup in coffee; the flavors just seem to go together well. I use a mixture of honey and maple syrup in my homemade granola. Table sugar is a completely neutral-tasting sweetener, making it more easily overused.
3. They don’t work well in recipes that call for regular sugar, so in order to bake with them you have to make a lot of adjustments to the original recipe or find a new recipe using the syrup. That’s a pain, so you’ll probably just bake less. Those brownies that you usually make are simply not going to work with honey. So maybe you won’t bother.
4. They are at least some of the time from small, independent producers, so you’re supporting those individuals as opposed to big agribusiness. You can’t be sure of the true source, unless you do some research, but it seems kind of virtuous, I guess. I usually buy the cheapest possible honey at Costco, but they do have a brand that’s produced here in Colorado and claims to be raw, so maybe I’ll buy that next time.
Interestingly, there’s another liquid sweetener that could be used and that is, at least in theory, a better alternative than any of the “natural” sweeteners that I’ve been discussing: corn syrup. Not high-fructose corn syrup, mind you, which you can’t buy directly anyway—it’s available only to industrial clients. I mean plain old Karo syrup or its generic equivalent. This type of corn syrup is pure liquid glucose, so it doesn’t have the fructose that is causing so much of the sugar-related health issues we’re seeing today. (I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: fructose cannot be metabolized by the aid of insulin, as that hormone doesn’t recognize it. Instead, fructose has to be processed in the liver, putting great stress on that organ and producing undesirable by-products.) In Eve O. Schaub’s Year of No Sugar (which I’m re-reading—what a hoot that woman is) she and her family use glucose to make some desserts and they like the results quite a bit. There are several problems with using glucose like this, though:
1) glucose isn’t as sweet-tasting as fructose, so you have to use about 50% more of it to get the same sweetening affect, and
2) pure glucose, in either powdered or liquid form, is still a refined carbohydrate and will still lead to blood sugar spikes, and
3) you’re still feeding your “sweet tooth.”
I actually tried some corn syrup in my coffee this morning, and even though I overfilled the tablespoon with it I detected very little if any sweetening effect. I’d have had to use yet another generous tablespoonful to get what I get with my usual tablespoon of maple syrup. I’m therefore going to stick with the maple syrup, not because it’s somehow healthier than the equivalent amount of white sugar but because I like it. I count that small amount (about 12 grams) in my daily sugar limit, and it adds to my enjoyment every single morning. So there!
Up tomorrow: a syrup you can make yourself, plus some ideas for fresh-juice substitutes.
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