Thursday, February 23, 2012

Agave Nectar - You Did Me Wrong!

Agave Nectar is supposedly this great natural sweetener from the Agave plant grown in Mexico and South Africa. It’s kind of a syrup and is a little pricey. I was in heaven, though, because I found it to be a good substitute for sugar in some of the recipes I was making. I posted something about my use of it on facebook.com and my hopes and dreams were dashed by one of my neighbors. She, Becca, sent an article about how it’s really not “natural” or even from the actual plant at all! The article even said that after it’s processed in your body it ends up being worse than the high-fructose corn syrup we’re told to strictly avoid! This was practically devastating for me! I’ve been sort of following this diet called The Perfect10 by Dr. Aziz. He’s where I’ve gotten a lot of my information about eating naturally and the effects of chemicals on your body in relation to losing weight. So much of what he says about how different things affect your body make total sense. And, it really follows along with the guidelines in the Word of Wisdom (which gives me more confidence that what he says is true). So back to Agave Nectar…what to do? What to do? I’m guessing honey is probably the next best sugar substitute, and probably cheaper and less processed, so we’re “picking our poison” so to speak. I had had high hopes to be able to use the Agave and still be able to have sweets, yet not feel guilty about it, but I guess we really don’t need them that often. I’m sure we’ll still have good things (tasting, not for us) occasionally since we’re not super-fanatical about all this. We’re trying to take baby steps and make changes where we can without making our lives miserable.

2 comments:

  1. I've heard conflicting things about agave nectar too. First it was all good, then everywhere I looked people were saying it's high on the glycemic index so diabetics are supposed to avoid it.

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  2. I use Stevia and really like it. It comes in powder form. I thought it was reasonably priced when I bought it at Sam's Club (in the Pharmacy department)! You can buy it most anywhere!

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