A Look at Agave Syrup

Last week I discussed stevia, the natural alternative to sugar. I gave the pros and cons of it, and said there were some issues with stevia and it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Because of my criticism of stevia, I have had people ask me about agave syrup, and wondering if that was any better. So I thought I would take a look at agave and tell you more about it.

As I’ve discussed throughout this series on sugar and all its variations, sugar is just flat out not good for your health.

So maybe agave, as a natural product is better for you? Let’s find out.

Agave syrup is a sweetener commercially produced in Mexico, from several species of agave plant, including Agave tequilana (also

called Blue Agave or Tequila Agave), and the Salmiana, Green, Grey, Thorny, and Rainbow varieties. Agave syrup is sweeter than honey, though less viscous.

It is a common misconception that Agaves are cacti. Agaves are closely related to the lily and amaryllis families, and are not related to cacti.

Agave syrup consists primarily of fructose and glucose, and has a very high fructose concentration.

The extremely high percentage of fructose (higher than that of high-fructose corn syrup) can be deleterious and can trigger fructose malabsorption, metabolic syndrome, hypertriglyceridemia, decreased glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, and accelerated uric acid formation.

Agave syrup was originally used to make tequila. When agave syrup ferments, it literally turns into tequila. In Mexico, there are three major producers of agave syrup. Some of these companies have other divisions that make tequila.

Some of the agave syrup producers water down agave with corn syrup in Mexico before it is exported to the USA. Why is this done? Most likely because agave syrup is expensive, and corn syrup is cheap.

Agave syrup is a low glycemic food and as such is marketed to diabetics. The reason agave syrup is low glycemic is because of the unusually high concentration of fructose compared to the small amount of glucose in it.

Nowhere in nature does this ratio of fructose to glucose occur naturally. One of the next closest foods that contain almost this concentration of glucose to fructose is high fructose corn syrup. Even though fructose is low on the glycemic index, there are numerous problems associated with the consumption of fructose in such high concentrations as found in concentrated sweeteners.

Eating a food with a high concentration in fructose like agave syrup (and high fructose corn syrup) is hard

on the liver. Whereas glucose is metabolized by every cell in the body, fructose is metabolized primarily in the liver, and this can lead to the formation of fats in the liver.

Studies have shown changes in circulating lipids when subjects eat high-fructose diets, and triglyceride levels that rose when people consumed foods containing more fructose than glucose, such as agave syrup.

Another study found that fructose consumption raised blood levels of uric acid, which can foster “metabolic syndrome,” a condition of insulin resistance and abdominal obesity associated with heart disease and diabetes.

So there you have it about agave syrup. I will conclude this article by saying the same thing I said when I concluded my article on stevia:

The truth about sugar is that the best types of sugar are the natural occurring sugars that are in whole foods. These are complex carbohydrates: whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits, and legumes.

Any other form of sugar is much harder for the body to process and metabolize, so if you are to use sugar, you want to use as natural a source as possible, and to use it lightly.

Agave syrup is a natural type of sweetener, but as you read, it has its drawbacks. If you use it, as I said, go lightly.

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Too Much Soda Drinking Can Damage Your Muscles

For the last two weeks I’ve written articles telling you about the downside of sugar in all its variations – sugar, high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners.

I even told you of the controversy surrounding the natural sweetener stevia.

All of these sweeteners are harmful to your health, and will hinder you in your attempt to experience healthy living and health and wellness.

And as a result, they will also deter your ability to live a Low Density Lifestyle.

I thought I would move on from talking about sugar, but because sugar is consumed in such high quantities – in the U.S. per capita sugar intake is around 175 pounds a year – I’ve decided to spend this week continuing to talk about sugar.

For the next few days, I want to talk about sugary soft drinks. After all, we are inundated with advertising telling us how great our lives can be the more we consume the sugary drinks.

I figured since I don’t have the advertising budget of the soft drink companies that would allow me to run endless ads promoting my point of view, I would just have to tell you some negatives about soft drinks.

For instance, did you know drinking soda can screw up your muscles, leading to anything from mild muscle weakness to severe muscle paralysis?

This was the findings of doctors writing in a medical journal. They said soda does this because it causes blood potassium levels to drop dangerously low.

The author of the research paper said it appeared that hypokalaemia (low blood potassium) can be caused by excessive consumption of three of the most common ingredients in cola drinks – glucose, fructose and caffeine.

The author, Dr Moses Elisaf from the University of Ioannina in Greece wrote, “The individual role of each of these ingredients in the pathophysiology of cola-induced hypokalaemia has not been determined and may vary in different patients.

“However in most of the cases we looked at for our review, caffeine intoxication was thought to play the most important role.

“This has been borne out by case studies that focus on other products that contain high levels of caffeine but no glucose or fructose.”

Despite this, he warned that caffeine free cola products could also cause hypokalaemia because the fructose they contain can cause diarrhea.

“We believe that further studies are needed to establish how much is too much when it comes to the daily consumption of cola drinks.”

Excessive consumption of soda has already been linked with obesity, diabetes and tooth and bone problems.

A spokeswoman from the British Soft Drinks Association said in response to the journal article: “The soft drinks industry is committed to encouraging responsible consumption of all its products. Nutrition labeling is included on the pack so people can make an informed choice about the products they are drinking.”

What? Did you expect them to say something different?

Like, that drinking soft drinks can cause your health to suffer and take you off the path of health and wellness?

Fat chance.

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How Much Sugar Do You Eat?

I’ve been talking about sugar and all its variations for the last two weeks, and pointing out that sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners are not good for health.

I’ve even pointed out that there are questions about stevia, the natural herbal sugar.

So now the question is: how much sugar do you eat?

I’m going to show it in pictures. In the following pictures, each sugar cube shown is 4 grams. The cubes are stacked, and the more sugar, the bigger the stack.

If, for example, the picture shows 10 sugar cubes, that means that eating that food is equal to eating 10 cubes of sugar.

A Look at Stevia

I’ve been discussing sugar in all its variations – sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and all the artificial sweeteners – and I’ve been saying all along that all of these are detrimental to health.

Eating sugar and all the sugar substitutes will not allow you to experience healthy living and live a life of health and wellness. In other words, eating a sugary diet won’t allow you to live a Low Density Lifestyle.

People have asked me though, what about stevia?  Stevia comes from a plant, so isn’t eating stevia a healthy alternative?

So I thought I would take a look at stevia and see.

Stevia (STEE-vee-uh) is a South American shrub whose leaves have been used for centuries by native peoples in Paraguay and Brazil to sweeten their yerba mate and other stimulant beverages.

Stevioside, the main ingredient in stevia (the two terms are often used interchangeably), is virtually calorie-free and hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar. Because of this, it appeals to many people as a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners.

While Japanese manufacturers have used stevia since the early 1970s to sweeten pickles and other foods,

the FDA has turned down three industry requests to use stevia in foods in the U.S.

That’s why you don’t see stevia on supermarket shelves next to the Sweet and Low or Equal. But you can buy it in health food stores as a dietary supplement. The FDA has little control over supplements.

It does seem rather ironic that the FDA has approved the artificial sweeteners, even when the evidence is sketchy at best, as is the case with acesulfame K and neotame, while they have refused to approve stevia.

It would make you wonder if Monsanto, makers of Nutrasweet (aspartame) and neotame, and McNeill Nutritionals, maker of Splenda (sucralose), have an in with the FDA. If you are wondering that, you wouldn’t be the first.

But regardless of the FDA’s slant, there are some questions about stevia.

When the FDA first turned stevia down in 1994, they said, “we don’t have enough data to conclude that the use in food would be safe.”

And the U.S. isn’t alone in turning it down. Canada doesn’t allow food companies to add stevia to their products. Nor does the European Union.

Last year, the scientific panel that reviews the safety of food ingredients for the EU concluded that stevioside is “not acceptable” as a sweetener because of unresolved concerns about its toxicity. In 1998, a United Nations expert panel came to essentially the same conclusion.

To stevia’s boosters, there’s no debate. The herb has been consumed without apparent harm in different parts of the world for many years, they argue. No reports of any adverse reactions have surfaced after 30 years of use in Japan, for instance.

“But the Japanese don’t consume large amounts of stevia,” notes Douglas Kinghorn, professor of pharmacognosy (the study of drugs from plants) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“In the U.S., we like to go to extremes,” adds toxicologist Ryan Huxtable of the University of Arizona in Tucson. “So a significant number of people here might consume much greater amounts.”

Here’s what troubles toxicologists:

Reproductive problems. Stevioside “seems to affect the male reproductive organ system,” European scientists concluded last year. When male rats were fed high doses of stevioside for 22 months, sperm production was reduced, the weight of seminal vesicles (which produce seminal fluid) declined, and there was an increase in cell proliferation in their testicles, which could cause infertility or other problems.

And when female hamsters were fed large amounts of a derivative of stevioside called steviol, they had fewer and smaller offspring.  Would small amounts of stevia also cause reproductive problems? No one knows.

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. “This may be of particular concern for children,” says Huxtable.

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.

And in December 2008, the FDA agreed that rebaudioside A, an extract from the leaves of the stevia plant, is safe to add to food and drinks, opening the door for stevia to be consumed by millions of people, and in the process, possibly posing a public health threat.

Two of the biggest backers of stevia-based sweeteners, Cargill and Whole Earth Sweetener Company, earlier this year began rolling out packets of stevia-based sweeteners, called Truvia and PureVia respectively.

The extract is in the companies’ drinks, too. Among the new stevia products marketed as naturally sweetened are Sprite Green from Coca-Cola and Trop50, from the PepsiCo subsidiary Tropicana. It’s essentially half water and half orange juice doctored with stevia.

To underline their natural claims, stevia products come packaged in green. Manufacturers are blending stevia with other sweeteners to achieve a flavor closer to sugar’s. That dovetails with another trend: mixing different sweeteners, including good old sugar.

The makers of Splenda, which holds more than 60 percent of the retail market, have just introduced Sun Crystals, a mix of sugar and stevia that has five calories per serving. Sugar has 15 calories per teaspoon.

Stevia is being added to some soft drinks that also contain aspartame. And aspartame is being tamed with other, newer and less well-known artificial sweeteners. One is the potent neotame, which is as much as 13,000 times as sweet as sugar and came on the market in 2002.

Another is acesulfame potassium, called Ace K. It’s considered a blending sweetener that helps improve the flavor of other low-calorie sweeteners. It was first used in soft drinks in 1998, but its biggest success is its marriage with aspartame in Coke Zero.

So is stevia something that is good for you? It depends on the source of stevia and how much you use. It appears if you are to use it, it’s best to buy stevia in its unadulterated form, as opposed to one of the blended hybrid forms, and to use it sparingly.

The truth about sugar is that the best types of sugar are the natural occurring sugars that are in whole foods. These are complex carbohydrates: whole grains, fresh vegetables and fruits, and legumes.

Any other form of sugar is much harder for the body to process and metabolize, so if you are to use sugar, you want to use as natural a source as possible, and to use it lightly.

Lightly is also the way to live if you want to live a Low Density Lifestyle, which is the lifestyle of healthy living and of health and wellness.

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