Stevia and Other Natural Sweeteners

My husband and I are going to start using Stevia and Agave Syrup, on the recommendation of this doctor.

What sweeteners do you use?

This video is titled as being about Wheat but he touches on many subjects including sweeteners.

 

We use both of those - along with a little sugar. Personally I like the flavor of agave but I’m not crazy about Stevia

 

The doctor in that video says it's a genetic thing. Some people taste bitterness with Stevia and some don't.

I don't really care for it either so I was thinking of using part Stevia and part Cane Sugar.

I haven't tried Agave Syrup yet.

 

I'm sweet enough

So i rarely add sugar to anything. But I get it from cookies, cake and other processed food. Like meat too. High fructose corn syrup is almost unavoidable if one makes regular use of processed foods. Happily I rarely add sugar to anything and can use some of it (in moderation almost anything is beneficial or at least not very damaging)!

 

Brown sugar or honey.... Stevia has an odd taste to it.


The white sugar I have is only used for Hummingbird nectar. (which oddly enough is all you should use for Hummingbirds)

 

I do taste the bitterness. It’s hard for me to get past in. It might work mixed with cane sugar though. Definitely try agave!

 

I cant really stand the taste of any sugar substitutes except honey .Which isnt really a substitute, your body processes it just like sugar

I learned to love black coffee when I cut out sugary drinks a few years ago. I do add honey to tea and I eat honey on Greek yogurt

 

Honey is a great option and though it’s processed as sugar there are tons of health benefits to honey

 

Yeah I love it, I eat local honey for allergies as well. I've noticed a big difference since I started doing it

 

I still put a tiny bit of milk in my coffee. But not any kind of sweetener for like more than a decade already. I like it black too. But prefer a wiff of milk with it.
No sugar or other sweetener in my tea either.
I forgot about honey when typing my first post. I love a good piece of bread with butter and honey. Its why I have honey in my house. I don't really put it in anything else. Its for on bread and pancakes only

 

I either use unrefined sugar, honey, or stevia. I have heard that Agave is worse than sugar as it is higher in calories and is processed by the body similarly to high fructose corn syrup and has a high glycemic index. I can see using stevia, as it has no calories, but why agave?

 

Hi Aerianne,

great topic and very interesting to me,
i have researched quite a bit regarding natural sweeteners,
the 2 choices you have mentioned are excellent, stevia and agave syrup

there are several other sweeteners as alternatives to industrial sugar (which is harmful) :

honey
coconut sugar
maple sirup
date sirup
xylitol
erythritol

each one tastes different . So one must try and decide for himself. After experimenting with all sweeteners I stayed with honey which is my number 1 choice. If I could, my wish is to have stevia plants in my house but as I once mentioned it is not allowed to be sold in retail stores here in Spain. All you can get is stevia in liquid form or in dried form as herbs. So for now i just have dried stevia in my fridge which i use every blue moon. I recently met a private farmer who also cultivates stevia plants he said he can sell me each one for 3 euros. Therefore please let us know if fresh stevia plants are sold in the US in retail stores because last time i checked i did not see any. Not the seeds, not the dried herbs and not the liquid. I mean the alive plant.

erythritol contains no calories. zero. many fitness people use it . i dont because the taste is not good to me. I see my fitness health journey as pleasant and joyful, not as suffering at all.
Once you are on the keto/paleo nutrition you dont miss any food. This the good thing about paleo/keto. People never go off. Because it is not a diet. It is a nutrition. You will love it.

Also, I kind of dont trust anything that comes in powder form which i can not verify with my sensory organs what it is. tricky business in babylon. My brother uses only eryhtritol though. he loves it. also for cooking, he is also on the paleo/keto nutrition and even makes cookies and cakes with 0 carbs. Amazing you wont believe it exists, once you tasted it.

 

foods that contain lots of calories are not harmful at all hun, i used to believe the same thing and was all about "no calories" . life is an ever-progressing-learning journey. Now i know calories does not matter. What matters is whether the food is wholesome or not. I give you the key to asthetics,fitness and health for free. boom. it took me lots of years of experiments but you seem a nice person so therefore i share with you: for example i love honey ( i always buy it raw though not pasteurized from a private farmer yep industrial honey is also pasteurized, similar to milk, pasteurization of honey is also mandatory) , back: honey has loootsss of calories but that does not do any harm to me, since im in fitness and health i dont see or feel anything bad, because honey is wholesome. Industrial sugar is not wholesome therefore it is bad and cant be processed by our body. Industrial salt (table salt) is not wholesome , therefore it is bad and can not be processed by our body. Here is the link to my thread "table salt" where I mention the disadvantages of table salt.
Both, industrial sugar and industrial salt causes therefore dehydration and stimulation of the body.
Another example olive oil has loootttssss of calories but it wont harm you either because it is wholesome food. meaning nothing has been removed or artififically added - if of course you buy the real olive oil, also tricky business in here , need to be careful. lots of fraud. So there you have it . Another mickeys gumball for you. For free.

good luck,

 

What's so bad about how HFCS is processed by the body? Isn't it similar to a lot of normal sugar? I think the main concern for the average person is overindulging in it (which is easily done if one doesn't know how many products havd added HFCS)

 

Stevia made my life great..

It's plant based, so has no side effects.. which other sweetness do!
It's also workable, so when added to things, acts like a sugar, doesn't change texture..

Can be added to anything at all.. but dried canned is best.. no after taste..

How did stevia get mainstream?

 

I use Whole Earth stevia whenever I go to Starbucks. Funny, I never noticed any aftertaste. some people complain that there is an aftertaste, but I haven't noticed it.

 

Me neither, but other sweetners I do, and it's horrid! The after effects are also not nice.. sugar free stuff without Stevia, is horrible!

 

I think you are correct, for the most part. And it is difficult because HFCS is very difficult to consume in moderation, since it is in so many different foods. For some reason, I thought that fructose was worse than regular sugar for your blood sugar (higher glycemic index). But brushing up on the literature, this does not seem to be the case. So my mistake!

I think the literature on a "Calorie is a calorie" is fairly mixed, with most professionals swaying towards the opinion that if you consume more calories than you expend, you will gain weight. But again, that is up for debate, and there are undoubtedly many variables. Many people have had very good luck maintaining a healthy weight by counting calories, so I think there is a time and a place for watching your intake. I do agree that consuming whole and unprocessed foods is best practice for good health.

I know that you believe that you have found the secret to health, but you are fairly young, so it is hard to tell if you have really found the magic answer, or if your health is thanks in large part to your relative youth (I ask myself the same questions, and I think they are important ones).

And p.s., please do not call me hun. It comes across as condescending and detracts from the seriousness of your messages.

 

I don't have any sweeteners. I'll occasionally use honey here and there in cooking, but even that's rare.

I'm not a sweets person.

I do sweeten homemade gravy--that's spaghetti sauce for the uninitiated--but that's because I had whole carrots, onions, and basil springs to the sauce and boil it for hours. The natural sugars sweeten the sauce. Also, caramelize the tomato paste before adding it to the gravy. Sweet, no sweeteners

 

I ate some Stevia chocolate today.. sooo yummy!

It came in a picnic hamper from my daughter for mother's Day on Sunday, had a coffee and it was, chocolate or biscuits.. chocolate won!