Agave bad for you?

[hapahaole]

So I'm new to all of this but I've been doing my research and it seems agave is not a good thing. Here's the article I read...

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/HFCSAgave.pdf

So I'm thinking I shouldn't even consider this in my diet. I'm thinking to stick with honey and dates.

What does everyone else think?

-K

[kidkid]

Very interesting, thank you for posting this. For me, it's coming at an interesting time. I have been using agave nectar for a while now because I wanted a lower glycemic sweetener, but i have often suspected that it might not turn out to be so great. For one thing, if it were easy and natural to extract it from the plant, it would have been done way before the 90s. Another thing that told me it might not be good is that I get yeast infections when I eat sugar or high fructose corn syrup, and i notice I get them when I eat a lot of agave as well. That's not imperical evidence that something is wrong or anything, but for me it's a problem. For me it signals that agave isn't a magical sweetener.

Recently, I have been hearing a lot of talk about how Agave nectar might not be a good thing -- my brother has been telling me about how unsustainably it is grown and harvested (he's a permaculture designer by trade, and I hold his opinion in high esteem). Also I have been hearing from other people how it goes through all kinds of horrendous chemical processing.

I feel like it's really just not worth it. More and more, I am realizing that if the food I am eating doesn't look like it did when it came out of the ground or off the tree, it's just not worth the risk of eating it.

We should support local beekeepers anyway. :)

I was a little sad because I thought I had found a really good low glycemic sweetener in agave syrup, and for this PCOS, insulin resistant girl that was really something. But you know, it's actually kind of liberating: perhaps if I get rid of my agave use, I can finally take the bull by the horns and kick this suagr addiction! I'm pretty excited actually.

[T-Bird]

I have made the same decision.


Other elect to include agave.

[ruffsongraw]

i think you can find a bad review or opinion on ANYTHING we eat if you look. i think if you put gobs of it on all your food, that is a bad practice anyhow.
i scrolled thru the article and i got to several pages in and only saw it talking about Hi fructose corn syrup, which is something a Raw person would not eat anyhow. i probably didnt get to the Agave info.
there have been a few threads on certain brands of Agave being NOT raw and other brands being raw. Mahadma (sp?) is truly raw, or so i was told before.

i use so little of it that i am not concerned and IF i get time i will try to find mention of Agave in the article but frankly i am exasperated with all of the "this is bad, that is bad" we hear every 5 seconds. the source of that info might be a competitor or have an interest in steering ppl away from something.

i beleive a person should not believe everything they read or ppl will eliminate one by one just about everything we eat.....

shrug.

jen

[Veronica01]

i've used agave in small amounts for thin dressings, but any kind of sauce or soup that needs sweetening dates work great. Dates have a nice creamy texture too and too much agave in a recipe can make it sickly sweet and not taste good at all.

i'm torn on honey. I don't want to hurt the bees or be part of it, but sometimes honey makes things taste so much better.

Thanks for the article, totally makes sense. I never believed it could be raw and taste so similar in sugar content to corn syrup.

[Eva]

I use agave and haven't found that I get the same sugar rush as I do with dates, honey, or maple syrup. I haven't used maple syrup in ages (honey either), but I tend to alternate between agave and dates, depending on why I'm using the sweet...

I don't use either of them every day or anything, but both seem fine to me and have for a few years now. :)

[kidkid]

i beleive a person should not believe everything they read or ppl will eliminate one by one just about everything we eat.....

haha or I guess in your case people shouldn't believe everything they didn't read! ;)

I TOTALLY agree though, there is a lot of "this is bad, that is bad" out there, and some of it definitely has alterior motives. and sometimes it is downright ridiculous and annoying. But give the rest of this article a try. it's really interesting. :)

personally I know that in order to be healthy I need to be informed, and sometimes that means I have to wade through opinions (especially when it comes to certain newly invented, man-made, refined syrup products that I am ingesting. Where does it come from? who extracts it? How does it affect the environment? How much petroleum does it take to get it to me? and once it HAS arrived, is it good for me?)

[T-Bird]

kid kid....


Basically - if you don't have to wash or peel it....What the heck is it????


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