Light your torches, there’s a new witch hunt in the grocery store. The target? Agave syrup. After hitting the mainstream several years ago as the new “healthy sweetener of choice,” agave recently has been under fire with negative backlash all across the health-food spectrum, with many companies even considering pulling agave from their products due to the extent of customer concern.
But is agave really that bad? Can it be compared to high fructose corn syrup? Should we go out of our way to avoid it? Let’s take a look.
What happened with agave?
It really wasn’t all that long ago that many people were just beginning to fall in love with agave – using it often in the place of cane sugar, corn syrup and honey for its intense and clean-tasting sweetness. Agave’s brief history in the North American marketplace has relied upon being marketed as a “raw healthy sweetener.” This sweet syrup extracted from the agave cactus proved especially valuable to the diabetic community, who embraced agave’s low glycemic index. Then, suddenly, agave was everywhere – in recipes, in drinks, in packaged foods, in restaurants, and of course, in desserts. Between a solid stamp of approval from the health food community, and a new excuse to get simply get some sugary goodness on, the mantra of healthy sweet food became “no sugar . . . just agave.”
So when the story broke that agave was actually not healthy at all and was actually comparable to corn syrup, it’s no wonder there was a strong outrage. After all, agave was sold to us as a “healthy sweetener,” and we were paying a premium price tag to enjoy its benefits. Health advocate Dr. Mercola released this adamant and influential article, which was posted and reposted in just about every health-oriented nook and cranny. Suddenly agave was the bad guy, leaving consumers feel betrayed . . . and confused.
Is agave really worse than high fructose corn syrup?
Most of us understand that high fructose corn syrup is something we should avoid entirely. And it’s true that both syrups have very high levels of fructose (the type of sugar that is primarily found in fruit), making the comparison understandable. But high fructose corn syrup is really quite bad – it’s a (mostly) genetically modified, highly processed product that often contains mercury. In comparison, agave is much a less processed product (depending on the source), not to mention free of toxic mercury. Plus, it’s also about twice as sweet as corn syrup – so even though ounce per ounce the fructose levels are the same, you can get away with using significantly less thereby reducing the total sugars.
Unfortunately, using half as much has not been in the game plan for most people. Initially influenced by that “healthy sweetener” tag, liberal use of agave became acceptable and even celebrated — we seemed to forget that at the end of the day, agave syrup is really just a highly concentrated liquid sugar. Clearly, agave was marked misleadingly as “healthy,” but at the same time many companies and individuals failed to use restraint when including it in foods. Sugars – fructose included – are not bad; we just don’t want an excess of them.
If there is one food philosophy that I connect with more than any other it is simply making better choices — which is where agave takes a seat in my kitchen. I find “better choice” agave exceptionally useful in some recipes because it is so efficiently sweet . . . but I avoid using it in large quantities, and try to get away with using as little as possible when formulating recipes. Often, I will use agave in conjunction with another healthier sweetener like stevia to help round out the sweetness, while allowing the other sweetener to do most of the legwork. For healthy culinary purposes, agave ranks amongst the lowest of the sweeteners. But that still doesn’t mean it’s bad — agave just has to be used more consciously then many of us have been accustomed to using it in the past.
Alternative useful sweeteners for a healthy kitchen:
There’s no need to be as obsessively dependent on agave as we’ve become, because let’s face it — there’s a treasure trove of other healthy sweeteners which each bring their own unique benefits to the table. Fresh or dried fruit is always a first option sweetener because it has nutrients and fiber that it brings along for the sweet ride. But fruit simply doesn’t “work” in every recipe, which is why we’re so lucky to have variety. Here’s a short list of some other sweeteners I find particularly useful in making healthy, natural recipes:
Stevia
Palm Sugar
Date Syrup/Sugar
Yacon Syrup/powder
Maple Syrup/Sugar
Jerusalem Artichoke Syrup
The Bottom Line
Agave is not what I would consider to be a “best choice” sweetener – that’s where fruit and stevia step in – but it is unquestionably still a “better choice” in comparison to refined cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup (which make up 99.9% of the sweetener choices that occur every day). As for the best choice in the pursuit of optimum health, perhaps simply maintaining a healthy perspective on the role of sugar in our diets is the most important and beneficial practice of all.
For further reading on why agave isn’t as bad as it seems, I highly recommend this detailed and well researched article: The “Agave Is Bad For You” Fallacy.
Undoubtedly: eating organic foods is a good thing. With every organic bite, you’ve just made such a friendly action towards both the planet and your own personal health. I also love that through funneling the money in our food budget towards companies and farmers who respect the earth, we get both a healthier product, and we diminish the amount of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and chemical pollution that leech into the delicate ecosystems around us.
But is it necessary to eat foods with organic standards all the time? Well, ideally, yeah. (And in a perfect world the idea mixing chemicals and food would be absolutely egregious in the first place). However, if a tight wallet, lack of availability, or just unfamiliarity with the organic movement is an issue, chuck the idealism at the door and instead start out by taking on baby step #1: saying NO to the Dirty Dozen list – the worst of the worst non-organic offenders. Sounds kinda like a group of serial killers . . . (just sayin’).
Non-profit research organization Environmental Working Group (EWG) does the bad-food-news homework for us. Each year, EWG puts together a list of the most atrocious crops – the ones that are truly must-avoids in a “conventional” state due to the scary-high amounts of chemical saturation they contain. The foods change a bit from year to year, so it’s not a bad idea to bookmark a site like this to stay in the know.
Sadly, this year’s list includes many of my personal favorite natural foods – but all the more opportunity to support local organic farmers. My general rule is to look for these in organic form, and if it’s not available, I consider a different produce substitution. I take the dirty dozen pretty seriously. Not buying these foods is a statement that this adulterated form of farming is unacceptable to be considered as “food.” And by directing the demand monetarily speaking, we promote the changes in our farming standards so that organic practices may become the profitable norm.
THE 2010 DIRTY DOZEN:
1. Celery
2. Peaches
3. Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Blueberries
6. Nectarines
7. Bell Peppers
8. Spinach
9. Kale
10. Cherries
11. Potatoes
12. Grapes
Two more foods I add on my “always organic list” — Soy and corn products. 90% of conventional soybeans are genetically modified, and above 60% of corn products are as well. GMO’s are a whole new level of dirty, and a person’s health is nothing to gamble.
Get the details on the “why’s” of the dirty dozen at Daily Green.
At this point in the game, if you’re seriously unaware there’s a full-swing green movement going on, I’d be hard-pressed to believe you even live under a rock — perhaps you’re under a sea of styrofoam packing peanuts, or maybe a stretch Hummer (with some obnoxious personalized license plate, I would assume).
For the rest of us, the question continues to nag: how can we most efficiently make a difference in cleaning up the environment? We’re all busy. But we’d also like to do something. So do the reusable grocery bags cut it? How about taking shorter showers? Buying a sweet new Prius? By all means, these are good, positive choices, and these efforts have good, positive effects. But there’s one solution that truly puts us on the fast track to a more sustainable lifestyle: stop eating meat.
Let’s put the ethics and health benefits of a plant-based diet aside for a moment. A recent major McLeans feature Save the planet: Stop eating meat explains just how extensive the environmental benefits of eating greener really are. Within the article, Ethical Vegetarian Alternative (Belgium’s largest vegetarian organization) explains, “If everyone in Flanders does not eat meat one day a week, we will save as much CO2 in a year as taking half a million cars off the road.” Laying out the full toll of our fleshy fixation, the article continues, “livestock accounts for 18 per cent of worldwide greenhouse gases, more than those emitted by all forms of transportation combined, and is a leading cause of deforestation and water pollution.” And let’s not forget the inefficiency and waste in feeding nutritious plant-based foods to animals raised for slaughter, the disturbingly high amounts of toxic methane emissions released from our digestion-challenged cattle, and the increasing loss of farmland (which if used to grow plant-based nutritious foods instead of housing livestock, could alleviate much of the global food crisis).
Personally, I’m optimistic. Why? Because doing something exceptionally good for the planet lies in one action step that most of us already have immense talent in: EATING. A cleaner environment is as simple as getting some seriously good chow on – with fresh, vibrant foods like portobello burgers, a bowl of cheesy broccoli, or protein-rich quinoa sushi. Swap out cow’s milk for some luscious hemp milk or rice milk in your next recipe. Or take a take a ride on the superfood brownie train and I’ll meet you in the land of gastronomic paradise. Environmentalism was seriously never so easy. And a healthier planet is served.
Chef Jamie Oliver is the newest recipient of the TED Prize, “One wish to change the world.” After recieving $100,000 to strengthen his battle against America’s obesity epidemic and dietary-related disease, Jamie says:
I wish for the TED community to create a movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and bring people together everywhere to fight obesity…..My hope is that millions more people will learn, as so many have already, that it is a happier, healthier life that is built around eating good food, together with family and friends.
With all my heart, I couldn’t agree more. Take a moment and watch Jamie’s impassioned acceptance speech, and his simple call to action. We are responsible for re-teaching one another the benefits of a natural diet, empowering the next generation with the fundamental knowledge of whole foods and organic cooking. Help others embrace responsibility of their health, and share the power of good food with those you love.
Not that I ever really need an excuse to eat chocolate, but I have to admit the recent media blitz regarding cacao’s “extreme vitamin C content” had me reaching for an extra piece or two. Night-time newstations buzzed, and highly trafficked websites such as MSNBC featured special reports touting raw cacao as a food with “extraordinarily high [levels of] vitamin C.”
Extraordinarily! Well, perhaps just ONE more bite then . . . (but last one for real FOR REAL this time) . . .
Yet despite this popularized news, superfood company and cacao manufacturer Navitas Naturals has just released what they consider “the honest truth” — exposing that even when processed at low temperatures (i.e. “raw”), there is actually no vitamin C (ascorbic acid) present in cacao.
Oh.
Since 2004, Navitas Naturals has meticulously conducted lab tests directly looking for vitamin C content in raw cacao — each test coming up consistently negative. Always seeking new exciting health advantages of the natural foods they sell, having a firm grasp on nutrition is an important part of the company’s platform. Yet with the current media claims on cacao’s high vitamin C content pointing directly against their own findings, the Northern California-based company decided to let science settle the score.
The multi-platform test performed included using two separate laboratories and three different analytical methods: High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Capilary Electrophoresis (CE) with UV detection, and Titration. Though all three methods have their place in the scientific community, Titration is the most commonly used method in the food industry when determining vitamin C (ascorbic acid) content. However, there is a critical detail within the Titration method which is easy to miss when testing raw cacao’s vitamin C content: Titration is unable to differentiate the vitamin C (ascorbic acid) from the vitamin’s analogs. Consequently, many companies experience test results known as a “false positive.”
Navitas Naturals has a different preferred method – HPLC – which looks directly for vitamin C (ascorbic acid), and not just the analogs. And although the analogs in the Titration test predictably showed a “high vitamin C” false positive, the HPLC method clearly documented a negative vitamin C reading. After utilizing the CE method for a third round of testing, the reports again returned consistent with the negative HPLC results.
To cross all their t’s and dot all their i’s, Navitas then tested their cacao products against one of the largest raw cacao brands in the United States using the Titration and HPLC methods. True to all previous findings, the results confirmed raw cacao, regardless of source, has no vitamin C (ascorbic acid) present.
So here’s the honest truth: cacao is a tremendously beneficial superfood — serving as a rich supply of antioxidants, one of the highest natural dietary sources of magnesium, and containing an impressively high iron content alongside many other essential minerals. Navitas Naturals’ raw cacao powder, for example, has a documented score of a 950 ORAC units per gram (95,000 per 100g) — which is huge! You only need 6g of this organic raw cacao powder to exceed your daily ORAC need as per USDA recommendations. This “real chocolate” is 100% a health food. But as nutrition is a quantifiable science, it is important to be clear on one thing: vitamin C is one benefit cacao does not provide.
And now, yes, back to your regularly scheduled chocolate consumption.
No doubt, there’s been plenty of backlash against High Fructose Corn Syrup. And the Corn Refiners industry has been feeling it where it hurts: its pockets.
The guys and gals over at the Corn Refiners Association need to turn this idea of “bad” around. So rather than change their crappy product, they’ve hired a fancy marketing team to help give them a new, fresh spin. Hence, the birth of the ad campaign: “Sweet Surprise . . . providing factual information about high fructose corn syrup – an ingredient that’s more than just a natural sweetener.“ Because, you know, that really explains a lot. Enjoy your 30 seconds of greenwashing:
Let’s look back in time for a moment. In 1882, America saw the invention of corn syrup. Corn syrup is made through an enzymatic conversion of cornstarch, into a syrupy concoction that contains primarily glucose – the form of sugar the body uses as energy. Because of its relatively inexpensive cost, tastelessness and potent sweetness, corn syrup quickly became a vastly popular sweetener in foods throughout the world. Just about every product imaginable began to include it – from energy bars and bread, to soup and drinks.
In 1958, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) was invented using different enzymes that converted the sugars into fructose instead of glucose. The advantages to this version included further inexpensiveness, and its ability to prevent drying and also preserve the product in which it was used as an ingredient. By the 1970’s, now notorious HFCS was the corn syrup cousin that had taken over the market.
Sweet Surprise claims that HFCS contains that same calories as sugar, and is a “natural” product derived from corn. Since that’s really all the good things they could come up with, the rest of their campaign is more an attempt to portray non-HFCS consumers as idiots.
Although Sweet Surprise attempts to make the product sound harmless and silly, High Fructose Corn Syrup is potentially an incredibly toxic ingredient. One of the reasons for this health hazard status its “high fructose” content: 42%-90% according to sources. Author and nutrition guru Dr. Weil explains, “Never before in history have so many people been consuming so much fructose. I am concerned about its possible disruptive effects on metabolism, including its potential to cause insulin resistance. Along with a growing number of experts, I believe that HFCS is a chief driver of the obesity epidemic in this country, particularly of childhood obesity. I deplore our government’s role in making HFCS so cheap through federal subsidies of corn production.” With sugar metabolism diseases like diabetes at an epic high (and rising), I’d say Dr. Weil is onto something.
Additionally, “natural” high fructose corn syrup was recently found to be contaminated with toxic mercury. Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported, “Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.” Although I wouldn’t tout cane sugar as “good,” it certainly does not contain mercury.
And of course, Sweet Surprise’s claim that “everything is ok in moderation” is ridiculous, as it’s very difficult to achieve moderation when HFCS is in just about every packaged food imaginable. The American consumer continues to enjoy an average of 12 teaspoons a day of HFCS syrup, with teenagers averaging up to 80% more.
I have nothing against the corn industry (when the corn grown is organically and non-genetically modified). What I take issue with is the refined and nutrient-void foods that are a result of the industry . . . and their damaging effects on our body. Meanwhile, there are a plethora of delicious, healthy, truly natural sweetener alternatives to be enjoyed — including agave nectar, stevia, palm sugar, and yacon syrup, just to name a few. They may cost a tad more than high fructose corn syrup, but they also come without the tax of long-term degenerative disease.
At the end of the day, I’d rather have my sweet WITHOUT the surprise.
I wish I had a brownie for every time I’ve been informed that eating naturally is simply too hard. While making fancy shmancy meals can be a fun project, uber delicious healthy food doesn’t have to be complicated…
Undercover health benefits like antioxidants, good omega fats, potassium, magnesium (and more) nutritionally rank this dessert as more of an energy bar than an “extra 20 minutes on the treadmill indulgence.” Best of all, five ingredients plus five minutes is all it takes to go from zero to brownie.
One of my favorite experiments thus far turns out to be one of the easiest: Red Raspberry Popsicles – enhanced by date syrup that’s added just before freezing so it stays in tight little flavor pockets throughout the popsicle. Heaven brought to you by your freezer, and an ideal summertime treat. Here’s how to make them.
Agave recently has been under fire with negative backlash all across the health-food spectrum. But is agave really that bad? Can it be compared to high fructose corn syrup? Should we go out of our way to avoid it? Let’s take a look.
Not that I ever really need an excuse to eat chocolate, but I have to admit the recent media blitz regarding cacao’s “extreme vitamin C content” had me reaching for an extra piece or two. Night-time newstations buzzed, and highly trafficked websites such as MSNBC featured 
`
Subscribe in a reader
