Question from Angus
Hello,
You have covered Agave and its inherent drawbacks, what about Sucanat ( evaporated cane juice)? Perhaps just plain old organically grown raw brown sugar may turn out to be the least harmful out of all the touted alternatives to sugar!
Then of course there is Stevia. What may start out as a perfectly innocuous plant, by the time the ‘scientists’ get hold of it and start isolating particular elements to exploit ( read patent it to exclude anyone else using the plant) its native and natural properties into a commercial gold mine, we all become the losers.
My wife Marjorie forwarded your article about Agave, and so I thought I would ask whether any of the other alternative sweeteners posed serious health risks. The main reason we would want to use any sugar at all is that particular recipes require some kind of sugar/sweetener for the activation of certain chemical processes to produce a desired result. I certainly do not use sugar externally on any food or drink.
If we squeeze lemons to add the juice as the sour additive, is there a whole natural sweet fruit one could do the same thing to and just add that juice as the additive sweetener??
Perhaps there are already answers to all these questions and I just have not discovered them yet?!
Debra’s Answer
This is a good question. I like your logic!
From my viewpoint, whole natural cane juice that has been evaporated to remove the water only is much more healthful than any so-called natural sweetener (such as stevia) where the sweet component is removed from the whole plant.
Since you are looking for a sweetener to “sugar-activate” a process (like feeding yeast to bake bread), you need a sweetener that will feed the yeast. Stevia and xylitol won’t do that. It has to be a real food.
Sucanat would be a great sweetener for your use, or honey, or maple syrup.
Now, as far as “squeezing a fruit,” of course! Apples in particular are very suited to this. You can cook the apple juice down to concentrate it and even dehydrate it. I don’t know if it would be able to feed yeast, but you could give it a try.
