The great food experiment continues. As sugar turns to fat in the body, and is also known to feed cancer (once the body has cancer), white refined sugar has been jettisoned from my house.
I do still like things sweet, so I’m taste-testing several sweetener alternatives I recently picked up at the market. The favorite, by far, is Gipson’s Golden Blackberry Honey. Raw and unfiltered, it comes from Santa Rosa, Calif. It’s delicious. But it does add its own flavor to beverages.
If the blackberry flavor isn’t one that’s desired in tea or coffee, what else will work? There are the traditional ersatz sugars, such as Equal, Splenda, and Sweet ‘N Low. Plenty of people swear by these. They’re not my favorite, so I’ve checked around for other products that might work.
There is pure cane sugar, washed and raw, from C&H--the people who bring us the white refined stuff. It comes in a resealable bag and contains molasses naturally. It does the job of the white sugar, but is a bit less sweet.
I’ve tried a brand of raw cane sugar called Full Circle. It is organic, also comes in a resealable bag, and calls itself “demerara” cane sugar. It’s a product of Brazil and Paraguay. The internet site http://www.wisegeek.com/ maintains that the sugar is named after a colony in Guyana, which first began producing and selling it in volume. According to the site, “To make demerara sugar, sugar producers press sugar cane and steam the juice of the first pressing to form thick cane syrup. The cane syrup is allowed to dehydrate, leaving behind large golden brown crystals of sugar. Because demerara sugar is not heavily refined, it has a rich, creamy, molasses-like flavor which enhances baked goods.”
My last pick is Light Agave Nectar. I haven’t yet used it. A quick taste reveals that it has a very different flavor. We’ll see how it does in tea and coffee. It’s a product of Mexico, is organic, and is extracted from the agave cactus plant. According to the label, it is twenty-five percent sweeter than sugar and has a low “glycemic index to prevent a spike in blood sugar.”
So far, to be honest, the sugar that does the job best for me is the cane sugar that comes from C&H. Breaking off the sweet stuff is hard to do.
You are completely right about cancer and sugar. I'm glad you found this piece of information. I would try stevia or truvia (made from stevia). Not only are these zero calorie options, but they are derived naturally from the leaf of the stevia plant. There is no after taste like some artificial sweeteners and they are not chemically altered either (which has been shown to increase risks of cancer). They are much sweeter than some of the other options as well. I recommend getting them in the packets, but they have in in bulk powdered form too at most health food stores. Just thought I would share my two cents.
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