You don’t have to give up all your sweet pleasure foods on the Total Health Makeover®, but you do need to choose the ones made with the healthiest sweeteners.

Here are our favorites.

• Raw Honey * Extracted from flower nectar by bees. Look for different “flavors” based on different flowers – for example, clover, buckwheat, lavender. These aren’t added flavors; just what the bee ate. Honey is 20-60% sweeter than sugar, so you can use less.
• Maple Syrup * Drawn from the sap of a maple tree. Look for Grade B (less processed, contains more minerals). Use organic to avoid formaldehyde and additives.
• Maple Sugar * The dried (crystallized) form of maple syrup. It’s expensive, but can often be found in bulk bins, so you only need to buy what you’ll use. Try it for half the sweetener in oatmeal cookies or pumpkin pie.
• Barley Malt * Made from sprouted barley. This has a strong, distinctive flavor. Best in savory dishes that need a little sweetener. Store in the fridge (keeps for a long time).
• Brown Rice Syrup * Made from brown rice and various enzymes. Mild flavor that works well in desserts. Store in fridge (keeps for a long time).
• Fruit Juice Concentrate * Grape, peach, pear, apple, and pineapple juice concentrates can be used as sweeteners. These are especially good in fruit-based desserts.
• Molasses * A byproduct of sugar cane in the processing of refined sugar. Light and Barbados molasses have a lighter taste than sorghum or blackstrap molasses. The latter two have more minerals. Mostly used in conjunction with milder sweeteners.
• Date Sugar * Ground, dehydrated dates. Available in different size crystals/particles. Use the finest date sugar for baking.
• Sucanat * Crystallized cane sugar that has been minimally processed, never having the molasses removed. The flavor is a bit like refined brown sugar. Crystals are not shiny or consistent in size. Sucanat stands for SUgar CAne NATural.
• Rapadura * Similar to Sucanat. More commonly available in Europe.
• Stevia * From a perennial shrub of the aster family. Available as a powder in small packets, or as a liquid. Extremely sweet. Often used to sweeten beverages. Find specific recipe substitutes for baking, as the volume required is so different.
• Agave Nectar * From a cactus. Look for organic agave for the best quality.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 2:56 am and is filed under Articles - Ten Steps and THM Basics, Sugar and Sweeteners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.