Question from Tamara
I’m in a trial period of giving up refined sugars, but I’m also including any sweetener that is digested quickly (right now my okay list includes agave and brown rice syrup, though mostly I’m just avoiding sweeteners as much as possible). I assumed that fruit spreads, even those without added sugar of any kind, would be off limits because of fruit pectin. To me it seems fruit pectin would have a high glycemic index because of the way it is processed, and so isn’t very healthy. Thoughts?
While I’m here, any thoughts on the best sweetener for someone who wants a “whole food” sweetener that is also easy on the body and environment? Maybe agave or barley malt syrup?
Thanks for your response!
Tamara
Debra’s Answer
You bring up some interesting points that I actually hadn’t thought about. I hadn’t considered how processed fruit pectin might be (it sounds so natural, like “fructose”) but in fact, it is an isolated substance that is very processed, and mostly standardized with sugar (I’m assuming that’s refined white sugar). This is the problem with food labeling. Labels are only required to state the final ingredients used in the food product, and not the ingredients that are contains in the ingredients. So here, someone thinking a fruit spread is all fruit (because it is labeled as such), is actually buying a product that contains at least a bit of sugar.
So if this is the case, the pectin one would use to make one’s own fruit spreads would be that same pectin.
I think one needs to consider how much of a substance one needs to ingest before it becomes harmful, and that would be different for each person’s body.
Fruit spreads bring up another issue as well, and that is the concentration of the fruit sugar.
If one wishes to be “natural,” natural would be an apple, for example. An organic apple–whole and fresh in the state it is in on the tree. As soon as you cook it, it’s no longer in it’s natural state, and the sugars are concentrated. If you separate the juice from the fiber, again less natural and more concentrated. And then you cook that down, and it’s even more concentrated. But it is thought to be natural because it originally was an apple. But concentrated apple juice doesn’t exist in nature. Our bodies are designed for fresh organic apples.
When I started this website, I was looking for sweeteners that were a step away from refined and artificial sweeteners. Now, more recently, I’m wanting to eat whole, sweet foods.
