Sweeteners

Sweeteners are sugars, or sugar substitutes, used in food preparation to give foods a sweet taste and to enhance the flavor of other ingredients and to preserve foods. With the exceptions of simple chemical compounds like salt, vinegar and water, everything we eat and drink will contain sugar of some sort - even meat. All plants and animals need sugar in some form for the energy needed to survive. Even meat, which is made of protein, will contain sugar which was being used to fuel the cells of the animal. Plants create sugar with photosynthesis, and all of their cells require sugar as well. Although sugars are an important source of energy in the diet, consumption of too much sugar can negatively influence our health. The invention of non-nutritive sweeteners makes it possible to consume intensely sweet foods without some of the consequences listed above; unfortunately, most of these sweeteners have their own side effects. Moderation is vital in the consumption of all sweet foods to prevent obesity and to live a healthy life.

Caloric Sweeteners

Processed:

  • Confectioner's sugar (also known as powdered sugar) is finely ground sucrose.
  • Corn sweeteners are sugars obtained from corn (for example, corn syrup). Corn syrup is used frequently in carbonated beverages, baked goods, and some canned products. It is a liquid that is a combination of maltose, glucose, and dextrose.
  • Dextrose is glucose combined with water.
  • Invert sugar is a sugar that is made by dividing sucrose into its 2 parts: glucose and fructose. Sweeter than sucrose and used in a liquid form, invert sugar helps in maintaining the sweetness of candies and baked items.
  • Sucrose includes raw sugar, granulated sugar, brown sugar, confectioner's sugar, and turbinado sugar. It is made up of glucose and fructose. It is made by concentrating sugar beet juice and or sugar cane.
  • Turbinado sugar is made by refining sugar and making it more pure.

Non-processed:

  • Raw sugar is granulated, solid, or coarse, and is brown in color. It is obtained by the evaporation of the moisture from the juice of the sugar cane.
  • Brown sugar is made from the sugar crystals obtained from molasses syrup.
  • Fructose is the naturally occurring sugar in all fruits. It is also called levulose or fruit sugar.
  • Glucose is found in fruits but in limited amounts. It is also a syrup made from corn starch.
  • Honey is a combination of fructose, glucose, and water, produced by bees.
  • Lactose (milk sugar) is the carbohydrate that is in milk. It is made up of glucose and galactose.
  • Maltose (malt sugar) is produced during the process of fermentation. It is found in beer and in breads.
  • Mannitol is a by-product of alcohol production but does not contain any alcohol. It does have a laxative effect when consumed in large quantities. It is used in dietetic food products.
  • Maple sugar is obtained from the sap of maple trees. It is made up of sucrose, fructose, and glucose.
  • Molasses is obtained from the residue of sugar cane processing.
  • Sorbitol is used in many dietetic food products and is extremely hazordous to diabetics. It is produced from glucose and it is also found naturally in certain berries and fruits. It is absorbed by the body at a much slower rate than sugar. Known Hazards in using Sorbitol:
    • Diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy may be related to excess sorbitol in the cells of the eyes and nerves. The source of this sorbitol in diabetics is excess glucose, which goes through the polyol pathway. Conversion of glucose to sorbitol is greatly accelerated in diabetics, and can cause dangerous complications over time. Since sorbitol can't exit from your cells very fast, and is not used in the body, it accumulates and attracts water. This causes the cells to swell, which can result in nerve, eye, kidney and blood vessel damage, as well as development of cataracts.
    • Ingesting large amounts of sorbitol can lead to some abdominal pain, gas, and mild to severe diarrhea.
    • Sorbitol can also aggravate irritable bowel syndrome and fructose malabsorption.

 Organic Sweeteners

Agave Syrup has a similar consistency to honey and tastes delicious! Organic Sweet Cactus Nectar is an exciting new sweetener naturally extracted from the pineapple-shaped core of the Agave, a cactus-like plant native to Mexico. agave contains the plants natural minerals Iron, Calcium, Potassium & Magnesium. With 90% fruit sugar content, Agave Nectar absorbs more slowly into the body decreasing the highs and lows associated with sucrose intake. Sweet Cactus Nectar is at least 25% sweeter than sugar. When baking, replace 1 cup sugar with 3/4 cup of Agave Nectar. Reduce recipe liquids 1/3 and oven temperature 25°F. The Glycemic index is very low.

Confectioners or powered sugar does not substitute well for granulated sugar in baking. In other uses, substitute 1 and 3/4 cups confectioners sugar for 1 cup granulated sugar.

Demerara, Muscavado, Turbinado and Jaggery - Sugar Cane

Fructose - A very sweet sugar, C6H12O6, occurring in many fruits and honey and used as a preservative for foodstuffs and as an intravenous nutrient. A sugar that is the commonest of ketoses and the sweetest of the sugars. It is also known as D-fructose, D-fructopyranose, and levulose fruit sugar. It is found in free state, usually accompanied by D-glucose and sucrose in fruit juices, honey, and nectar of plant glands. D Fructose has approximately the same caloric value measure for measure as granulated sugar, but tastes sweeter. Sugar substitution - replace 2/3 cups of fructose for each cup of granulated sugar. In baking, it is best to use a recipe that has been formulated for fructose.

Fruit juice and rice syrup - are common sweeteners used for many health-store packaged cereals, cookies and other products. Since both still contain sugar, albeit natural with some vitamins and minerals, they are still potentially a problem for diabetics and hypoglycemics.

Honey - Honey is natural and unrefined sugar, and contains a host of nutrients and enzymes that have a multitude of beneficial attributes. Honey consists of numerous types of sugars, but will not cause the rapid rise and fall of blood sugar levels as does white sugar. Honey can be stored for a long time without any nutritional loss.  Crystallization does not affect the nutritional value of honey and it can simply be warmed to melt back down.  Honey is a mixture of sugars and other compounds. The specific composition of any batch of honey will depend largely on the mix of flowers consumed by the bees that produced the honey. Honey has a density of about 1500 kg/m3 (50% denser than water), which means about 12.5 pounds per US gallon.

Typical honey analysis:

The varieties or flavors of honey are determined by the kind of flowers from which the bees gathered nectar.  These are six different varieties of honey.

Toxic (Mad) Honey

There are several types of honey that are known to be toxic to humans.

Sugar to Honey Substitution

When substituting honey for sugar, you should add 1/2 tsp of baking soda for every cup of honey used and bake at a temperature of 25 degrees lower than the recipe calls for. You will also need to use a little less honey than sugar. In recipes such as bread dough with only a small amount of sugar in proportion to flour, substitute the same amount of honey for the sugar. In recipes where large amounts of sugar are called for in proportion to flour, such as cakes, cookies, brownies, or quick breads substitute ¼-½ the honey for the sugar. Example: Recipes for Banana or Zucchini Bread usually call for 2 cups of sugar; use ½ cup honey.

Maple syrup is a natural sugar but the heating process used to obtain the proper consistency destroys much of its nutritional value.  It should therefore be used in moderation.

Molasses is a by-product of the refining process of table sugar.  Blackstrap molasses is the only form that contains any substantial amount of nutrients; 1 tablespoon has 14% of the U.S. RDA of calcium and 28% of iron. When using molasses, substitute 1 and 1/3 cup molasses for each cup of sugar, reduce other liquids in the recipe by 5 tablespoons, add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and omit or decrease baking powder by 1 teaspoon.

Sucanat (SUgar CAne NATural) is a registered trademark of PRONATEC AG Switzerland and of NutraCane, Inc.. It is made from fresh cut, nutrient-rich, sugar cane that has not had the molasses removed from it like refined white sugar. The juice is pressed from the cane, then concentrated into a thick, rich syrup that retains the nutritious mineral salts, vitamins and trace elements. Without refining or adding harmful chemicals, the syrup is dehydrated, then milled into a powder. Nothing is added or removed from the juice except water. is non-refined cane sugar It is essentially pure dried sugar cane juice. The juice is extracted by mechanical processesSucanat has a mild molasses flavor and is not so sweet as white sugar. Nutritional Analysis of Sucanat, approximately 150g (one cup):

 Non - Caloric Sweeteners

 

Cooking with sugar Substitutes

SWEET ONE (Acesulfame-k) - Can be used in cooking and baking without losing sweetness.

4 calories per packet 12 packets = 1 cup sugar 1 packet = 2 teaspoons sugar

EQUAL (Aspartame or Aspartylphenylalanine-methyl-ester) has been approved by the FDA for diet soft drinks but not approved for cooking. Loses sweetness when heated to high temperatures for long periods of time. 1965 - NutraSweet® brand sweetener was discovered at G.D. Searle and Company. 1985 - Monsanto acquired G.D. Searle and Company. The NutraSweet Company operated as part of the Monsanto Company Life Sciences Division. May 25, 2000 - J.W. Childs Equity Partners II L.P. purchased The NutraSweet Company from Monsanto, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pharmacia Corporation. Certain people with the genetic disease phenylketonuria (PKU), and pregnant women with hyperphenylalanine (high levels of phenylalanine in blood) have a problem with aspartame because they do not effectively metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine, one of aspartame's components. High levels of this amino acid in body fluids can cause brain damage. Therefore, FDA has ruled that all products containing aspartame must include a warning to phenylketonurics that the sweetener contains phenylalanine. Full story located at the FDA website - http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/03/Jan03/012203/02P-0317_emc-000202.txt

4 calories per packet 24 packets = 1 cup sugar 1 packet = 2 teaspoons sugar

EQUAL SPOONFUL (Aspartame or aspartylphenylalanine-methyl-ester) has been approved by the FDA for diet soft drinks but not approved for cooking. Loses sweetness when heated to high temperatures for long periods of time. 1965 - NutraSweet® brand sweetener was discovered at G.D. Searle and Company. 1985 - Monsanto acquired G.D. Searle and Company. The NutraSweet Company operated as part of the Monsanto Company Life Sciences Division. May 25, 2000 - J.W. Childs Equity Partners II L.P. purchased The NutraSweet Company from Monsanto, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pharmacia Corporation. Certain people with the genetic disease phenylketonuria (PKU), and pregnant women with hyperphenylalanine (high levels of phenylalanine in blood) have a problem with aspartame because they do not effectively metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine, one of aspartame's components. High levels of this amino acid in body fluids can cause brain damage. Therefore, FDA has ruled that all products containing aspartame must include a warning to phenylketonurics that the sweetener contains phenylalanine. Full story located at the FDA website - http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/03/Jan03/012203/02P-0317_emc-000202.txt

2 calories per teaspoon 1 cup = 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon = 1 teaspoon sugar

SPLENDA (Sucralose) - Trichlorogalactosucrose or sucralose, a new chemical substance that Tate & Lyle calls a 'water-soluble chlorocarbohydrate.' Chlorinated carbohydrates belong to a class of chemicals known as chlorocarbons. It is 500–600 times as sweet as sucrose, making it roughly twice as sweet as saccharin and four times as sweet as aspartame. It is manufactured by the selective chlorination of sucrose, by which three of sucrose's hydroxyl groups are substituted with chlorine atoms to produce 1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-ß-D-fructo-furanosyl 4-chloro-4-deoxy-a-D-galactopyranoside or C12H19Cl3O8.

0 (zero) calories 1 cup = 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon = 1 teaspoon sugar

SWEET 'N LOW (Saccharin) - Saccharin's sweetness was accidentally discovered in 1879 by Ira Remsen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Constantin Fahlberg, a research fellow working in Remsen's lab while working with coal tar derivatives (toluene). In 1901- John F. Queeny founds the original Monsanto, his wife was Olga Monsanto Queeny, and the first product of that company was saccharine. Saccharin is about 300 times as sweet as sucrose, but has an unpleasant bitter or metallic aftertaste, especially at high concentrations. Unlike aspartame, saccharin is stable when heated, even in the presence of acids, does not react chemically with other food ingredients, and stores well. Blends of saccharin with other sweeteners are often used to compensate for each sweetener's weaknesses. A 10:1 cyclamate/saccharin blend is common in countries where both sweeteners are legal; each sweetener masks the other's off-taste. In its acidic form, saccharin is not particularly water-soluble. The form used as an artificial sweetener is usually its sodium salt. The calcium salt is also sometimes used, especially by people restricting their dietary sodium intake. Both salts are highly water-soluble: 0.67 grams per milliliter water at room temperature. saccharine can be used in cooking and baking without losing sweetness.

4 calories per packet 12 packets = 1 cup sugar 1 packet = 2 teaspoons sugar

SWEET 'N LOW, BROWN (Saccharin) - Saccharin's sweetness was accidentally discovered in 1879 by Ira Remsen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Constantin Fahlberg, a research fellow working in Remsen's lab while working with coal tar derivatives (toluene). In 1901- John F. Queeny founds the original Monsanto, his wife was Olga Monsanto Queeny, and the first product of that company was saccharine. Saccharin is about 300 times as sweet as sucrose, but has an unpleasant bitter or metallic aftertaste, especially at high concentrations. Unlike aspartame, saccharin is stable when heated, even in the presence of acids, does not react chemically with other food ingredients, and stores well. Blends of saccharin with other sweeteners are often used to compensate for each sweetener's weaknesses. A 10:1 cyclamate/saccharin blend is common in countries where both sweeteners are legal; each sweetener masks the other's off-taste. In its acidic form, saccharin is not particularly water-soluble. The form used as an artificial sweetener is usually its sodium salt. The calcium salt is also sometimes used, especially by people restricting their dietary sodium intake. Both salts are highly water-soluble: 0.67 grams per milliliter water at room temperature. saccharine can be used in cooking and baking without losing sweetness.

20 calories per teaspoon 4 teaspoons = 1 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon = 1/4 cup brown sugar
  

  

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