Agave = HFCS

[LisaCorine]

Hi,

I've been using a little bit of agave on my grapefruits and recently bought some raw bars that contain it.

I found out from the following 2 links that agave ISN'T raw (even if it is labelled as such) and it is just as bad as high fructose corn syrup.

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/agave.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/HFCSAgave.pdf

Was anyone else aware of this???? :confused:

Not only that but the process also creates msg because it hydrolyzed. I am very sensitive to msg so finding this out is extremely frustrating!!!! :eek:

[HolyGuacamole]

Yeah, we don't eat the stuff at my house.

[RaeVynn]

It really does depend on which brand of agave nectar you are buying.
There is more information out there, and, personally, I don't trust "weston price" for any health information.

[ruffsongraw]

so is there a "bad" brand, and if so, what is it? and is there a "good" brand, and if so what is it? i am @ wk so cant check what brand i have but i bought at the Co-op and its in huge letters RAW, PURE, NATURAL AGAVE SYRUP.

this IS frustrating. if all this stuff is packaged in lies just like the supposedly healthy SAD stuff, then WTH are we supposed to do?
seems like only un-touched, pure organic raw fresh fruits & veggies are the only truly safe choices!!

UGH!!!
jen

[Veronica01]

ooh thanks for telling me... i use it sparingly and preffer to use dates instead. Good to know!

[RawKnitster]

Don't believe everything you read. A few bad apples should not taint the whole barrel. Too say that they are all bad is misleading and wrong.

There are some brands that are truly raw (less than 118). I don't trust the grocery store products. The raw vegan store I shop at doesn't sell the same brand I see in the grocery store. If you don't trust the source, don't buy it. Madhava makes several different types, some cooked, some flavored, and some raw. If the label on a bottle of Madhava Agave Nectar say it is raw, then it is.

Whether to use it or how often to use it is a personal choice. I prefer to use it for sweetening special recipes and would not want to use it everyday.

Have you tried eating the grapefruit plain? Once you get used to it you may find it tastes sweet all by itself. :)


"Interestingly, the production of agave nectar is very similar to how a bee creates honey. The bee adds enzymes to the complex sugars of nectar, which changes it into the simple sugars making honey. It is also through enzymatic action that the complex sugar found in agave juice is changed into a simple sugar sweetener - Agave Nectar.

The raw agave juice is regularly harvested from living plants by Indian peoples native to central Mexico. To do so, they must slice off the top of the plant and hollow out its core. Then the plant is capped with a stone. The pineapple shaped agave plant secretes its nectar into the center of the plant, rather than into flowers like most plants do. It collects in the hollow center for several days, after which the milky white "juice" is removed by ladle, one plant at a time. In a way it is similar to tapping a tree for maple syrup collection.

Agave nectar is a newly created sweetener, having been developed during the 1990's. Originally, the blue agave variety was used. This is the same plant used in the manufacture of tequila. During the late 90's, a shortage of blue agave resulted in huge increases in cost and a sweetener based on this plant became uneconomical. Further research was done and a method using wild agave was developed. Overcoming the language barrier between the Indians able to supply the nectar from the wild agave on their land and the Spanish speaking local manufacturer was the key that finally unlocked a supply of raw material and has led to our bringing this wonderful new product to market.

Limiting glucose consumption is a contemporary concern for many people. The introduction of this new sweetener is timely as it has a relatively low glycemic index due to its higher proportion of fructose and lower levels of glucose. This fact should prove attractive to those with special diet considerations or who monitor glucose intake. "

[ruffsongraw]

My brand is Madhava, and it says raw. i also dont use big amounts of it, just here & there..
i am just frustrated like the OP that "Raw" on the label can be a lie. i also think it is frustrating to have to pay a LOT more for the Co-op stuff than the GS brands....why should it cost more to eat healthy? seems like raw & organic would be CHEAPER b/c there isnt so much stuff on it or stuff DONE to it!! : / but that is for another thread...... thx!

jen

[contessa20]

Don't believe everything you read. A few bad apples should not taint the whole barrel. Too say that they are all bad is misleading and wrong.

Amen!!!! I personally tend to ignore this kind of thing and just listen to my body. I tend to trust the packaging of things that say Raw, while at the same time listening to the cues my body gives me. If I react badly to some raw food item (and I have on more than one occasion) then I will stay away from it in the future. Easy peasy. In my opinion, life is too short to get caught up in the "what if's" and "maybe's" when listening to my own body will tell me all I need to know. My body reacts pretty quickly and specifically if I eat something it doesn't appreciate.

[HolyGuacamole]

If I react badly to some raw food item (and I have on more than one occasion) then I will stay away from it in the future. Easy peasy.

Me too, and agave is on that list for me, even if it's never made me sick per se, it just feels bad to me energetically. Always has.
Plus, agave is the only food and habitat for a certain species of bat, and it's destroyed when harvested for human consumption.
I'd just as soon leave it to the bats. :)

[Veronica01]

i've added agave to chocolate mousse or marinara sauce when i didn't have dates around and the flavour actually made me naseous... I threw the concotions out after that and only use it sparingly. Anything more than a teaspoon makes me feel sick and tastes bad.

[raweater]

Amen!!!! I personally tend to ignore this kind of thing and just listen to my body. I tend to trust the packaging of things that say Raw, while at the same time listening to the cues my body gives me. If I react badly to some raw food item (and I have on more than one occasion) then I will stay away from it in the future. Easy peasy. In my opinion, life is too short to get caught up in the "what if's" and "maybe's" when listening to my own body will tell me all I need to know. My body reacts pretty quickly and specifically if I eat something it doesn't appreciate.

That's not always true, for example tylenol and cocaine probably make people feel much better, that in no way means they are good. Many foods or ingredients cause disease over the long term after 10-30 years of consumption, so even though you may not have problems for the first 5 years you're eating a certain food doesn't mean it's not slowly causing severe damage. I know as I had crohn's disease which like most chronic diseases is caused by long term consumption of extremely toxic foods.

[contessa20]

Plus, agave is the only food and habitat for a certain species of bat, and it's destroyed when harvested for human consumption.
I'd just as soon leave it to the bats. :)

Hmm... that's an interesting fact. I had never heard that before. Now I have something to Google. :D

I love learning new things.

[rawbabymama]

Bats! I love bats. I love them considerably more than I love bees, which is the reason I switched to agave in the first place.

I don't need the agave or the honey, but my son hates dates as a sweetener in smoothies and such. Any other wonderful sweetener out there that is raw I don't know about???

Weston Price (don't excommunicate me!) actually had a lot of good information. Unfortunately, he only compared indigenous diets to nasty modern food diets, of which the former of course excelled - no raw vegan diets for comparison (or even 100% raw omnivorous diets) in his travels, so I forgive him. I have the Nourishing Traditions book, and there are some good raw recipes in there (not enough for a raw vegan to buy it)...I particularly like the fermented veggie recipes. Those WAP people loooooove their animal fats, let me tell ya! :eek: But they have in common with raw vegans an importance placed on fresh food, whole foods, avoidance of modernized foods (they like to call them "newfangled"), enzymes, probiotics, properly preparing nuts & seeds, etc, so their information isn't all poppycock.

Take care ya'll!

Michele

[HolyGuacamole]

It's long-nosed bats, Leptonycteris.
Upon further reflection, I think I have overstated the case above, actually, but not by a lot.

OK, a quick Google for clarification reveals:

Loss of food sources may be another threat contributing to the decline of the Mexican Long-nosed Bat. Agaves are an important food source, and are the primary blooming plants available in northern Mexico during their northern migration in the spring, and again in August when they move south. Harvest of agaves for the production of liquor, and in northeastern Mexico, for preparation of "quiote," a traditional sweet, may be contributing to the decline of this important food source. However, the extents to which these harvest activities affect the bats in unknown.

Agave plants are harvested just before they bloom by removing the "cabeza" or carbohydrate-rich meristem (actively growing tissue) and leaf base at the center of the plants. When agaves are harvested, not only are they removed from the bats' present food supply, but future generations of agave plants also are eliminated. This is especially critical, since a single plant grows for 10 to 20 years and flowers only once then dies.
www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/mexlongnose/


The endangered Mexican long-nosed bat, Leptonycteris nivalis, is a nectar feeder.

1997: The cause of concern for Leptonycteris nivalis is apparently due to habitat loss, degredation, and/or fragmentation (Schmitt, 1997) *28*.
http://www.thewebsiteofeverything.com/animals/mammals/Chiroptera/Phyllostomidae/Leptonycteris/Leptonycteris-nivalis.html

[rawbabymama]

Thanks for posting this HolyGuacamole...it definitely is something to think about.

[tkxii]

I have some blue agave nectar, but i don't use it often, i would motitor how much you are using, since it is mostly fructose, it cn fill up the liver glycogen quickly, something that cna be of concern, since fructose converts to fat 4 times as quickly as glucose will. Grapefruit has a high concentration of fructose toos o just don't have too too much.

[HolyGuacamole]

Thanks for posting this HolyGuacamole...it definitely is something to think about.

You are very welcome. :)

[raweater]

You can use green ground stevia leaf powder as a sweetener, thw white powder is refined. The green one may be dehydrated at above raw temperature but you only need a minuscule amount to make something sweet, less than 1/4 teaspoon. If you want it really raw you could grown your own stevia and dry and grind the leaves yourself, but it would be farless than 0.1% of your daily intake so for it it does not matter if it's dehydrated above raw temp.

[rawbabymama]

You can use green ground stevia leaf powder as a sweetener, thw white powder is refined. The green one may be dehydrated at above raw temperature but you only need a minuscule amount to make something sweet, less than 1/4 teaspoon. If you want it really raw you could grown your own stevia and dry and grind the leaves yourself, but it would be farless than 0.1% of your daily intake so for it it does not matter if it's dehydrated above raw temp.

We use stevia to cut the need for agave way down...I use stevia by itself, no problem, but my son doesn't like it alone. We'll figure something out, one step at a time.

Thanks :)

[Veronica01]

what about liquid stevia??? i have some of that from the hfs..

[rawbabymama]

what about liquid stevia??? i have some of that from the hfs..

That's what we have, since he really didn't like the powder. He is an extremely picky eater:rolleyes:.The only thing that saved him is that he started out on raw fruits and veggies & has my stubborn self as a mom...otherwise, he would have been like my nephew (poptarts, fruit loops and mac n'cheese). Instead, he lives on my raw fruit ice creams w/flax seeds, buckwheat cereal, red peppers, "perfect" apples (cameo or gala only) & a few whole food cooked staples he likes. :o

Thanks :)