Replacement for Honey and Agave

[skier2]

So since several people have been concerned lately about agave and honey being (un)verifiably raw, I thought I would post a recipe for something better.

In a vitamix or other no-nonsense blender, blend:

2 cups dates, perferably deglet noor or soft medjool
1 cup water. With blender running, stream in water until the consistency of agave is reached. Blend until pulp is nearly completely pulverized. You might consider adding a bit of lecithin and maybe some vanilla. Then, remove this mixture to a nut-milk bag and strain any large particles. The remaining nectar can be sweetened with a little liquid or powdered stevia (literally fewer than 10-20 drops liquid) and should be nearly as sweet as agave. Store in refrigerator.

[Green_Woman]

Yummmm.... dates = very, very sweet sweetener. :D

I'm not one of the concerned parties. I purchase an Agave Nectar that has been processed under 105degF, and I buy my honey from local beekeepers who verify its rawness, as well. :)

I LOVE fresh, local, raw Honey!!!

I was raised next door to a beekeeper, raised a bee-loving girl. To this day, I love throwing my front door open so that the neighborhood honey bees can trundle on inside and check out my fruity counter-tops. If they want to taste my Green Smoothie before I get to it, that's fine!

I respect the bees, and the bees respect me. I've never been stung - no reason on my part for them to ever feel threatened by me. My beekeeper neighbor even taught me how to separate the honey from the comb when I was little, but I forgot years ago. :D

That was a rambling aside, wasn't it?

Well, what can I say. I love HONEY... and I'm fortunate to have access to truly-raw Agave nectar, as well. Furthermore, I LOOOVE dates.... I guess I'm just one easy-to-please young Rawbie. ;)

[Rick2009]

I have no issues with honey either. Its been considered a healing food since at least the egyptians. I particularly like honey with bee pollen in it.

Organic garlic (tastes way better) sliced and exposed to the air for 10 minutes then mixed into honey is a good way to consume garlic. I drink a small amount of parsely juice shortly after to not get "garlic breathe". As for BO from garlic...no worries..the chlorophyl from lots of greens eliminates that.

Raw honey is very high in enzymes.

PS. Green woman...neat hearing about the bees.

[RawKnitster]

I could use that instead of agave. :cool:

Though, nothing will ever take the place of honey for me. :)

Another sweetener I like is agave. I bought a stevia plant last summer and brought it in the house for the Winter. A fresh or dried leaf from the plant adds a pleasant, sweet flavor without the aftertaste of the white stevia powder. I've never tried the liquid stevia. Does it have any aftertaste?

[rawererin]

I use agave, but am concerned about using too much- so this was a great thread!
How long does the date sweetener last?
Agave has a floraly/honey taste, what does the date sweetener taste like?

[skier2]

In the fridge, this lasts a while, if airtight. The taste varies depending on the type of date used. If you use medjool, it is slightly maple flavored, and if you used deglet noor, which I do, it tastes more like caramel or honey.

[DebB]

So since several people have been concerned lately about agave and honey being (un)verifiably raw, I thought I would post a recipe for something better.

In a vitamix or other no-nonsense blender, blend:

2 cups dates, perferably deglet noor or soft medjool
1 cup water. With blender running, stream in water until the consistency of agave is reached. Blend until pulp is nearly completely pulverized. You might consider adding a bit of lecithin and maybe some vanilla. Then, remove this mixture to a nut-milk bag and strain any large particles. The remaining nectar can be sweetened with a little liquid or powdered stevia (literally fewer than 10-20 drops liquid) and should be nearly as sweet as agave. Store in refrigerator.

Thank you skier2 for posting your recipe! I bought DN dates just to make a sweetener. I haven't made it before and now here's your post.

Did you soak the dates first? I think I will. I'd like to give this a try. I wouldn't have thought to strain it, neat idea! *Ü*

[marc]

dohave a question.

ok mabe raw food people is deferent but i taught that hoeney was out for vegetarian and vegan diet no..? its a product frome animals..or insect dont count???

thanks

marc:confused:

[skier2]

Raw foodism has weak ties to the animal rights side of veganism. It has more to do with health; lets' be frank, of all the sweeteners, honey is one of the best.

[marc]

i do love henoe and love maple bits...its maple sirop..but its kind off dry and its in powder..very very good. and its still naturel..frome maple tree...

marc

[joyce09]

I read somewhere a while ago that honey is unsanitary, that it may contain bees' body part. That scared me off honey. Does anyone have sure information on this?

[ShantiDass]

Honey is not vegan, plain and simple. Vegan has a definition and it includes not taking the honey from the bees.

People like myself can get a tad upset when people call themselves vegan and eat honey. It makes it difficult for us when other people make or buy food for us and it contains honey. Then they say, "My cousin, friend, neighbor, etc. is vegan and they eat honey." It's the same thing as when people call themselves vegetarian and eat fish and/or chicken.

Donald Watson coined the term "vegan" in 1944 and founded The Vegan Society. Direct from their website -


Definition of vegan food
A vegan will not eat any animal products, for example:

No meat, fish nor other products that come directly from killing an animal, such as animal fats and gelatine

No dairy products such as cows milk, cheese and yogurt; nor goats milk

No eggs nor foods containing eggs such as Quorn

No honey

[marc]

so what is vegan,?

because i tell you there is a lot more to be right in this world then just what we eat.and wear





it might not be vegan..but honey is natural.

you sher dont hurt the bee by eathing the honey.

i dont call myself a vegan or vegetarian...by standard..i eat veg/grain/fruit and do eat honey.

not worst for humanity then eat vegtable that as been grown in a multi million dollar farms that polute like crazy are planet.

there something a bit od in all that vegan thng...i do think its ok not to hurt animals....no wearing animal furs and so on..and i am against..animal cruelty and all that stuff.

but there still animal by product that dont efect the animal itself.



there is not only what we eat that makes us..its what you wear what you read what you do everyday..where your stuff come frome and so on.


some push that vegan or vetarian word to far for nothing...just do what is right for you.

marc

[marc]

what can i say....honey is a guift frome nature. vitamines and minerals


hney= calcium/copper/zink and iron and so on.

flavovoieds and phenolic.

bees are very very important to us all...a lot off your fruits and vegtable are there because off them.

so by eathing your local honey..frome your local beekeeper you help the environement around you pure and simple.

but hey, its a personal choice.

this vegan holy thing is sometime out off reality.


joco

[marc]

hi zella.
dont no if its me you are refering..?

me i was talking about what i hare read before in this tread like the..........People like myself can get a tad upset when people call themselves vegan and eat honey. It makes it difficult for us when other people make or buy food for us and it contains honey. Then they say, "My cousin, friend, neighbor, etc. is vegan and they eat honey." It's the same thing as when people call themselves vegetarian and eat fish and/or chicken.


this kind off statement is sutch :rolleyes:.


for me you can call yourself wathever and do wathver you want...i would like to see people do what is the best for the world and the nature and for themself.

but some like to call themself a certain style or wathver to be cool or look cool or wathever...not the best way to go...do it to be good for your body not to look cool or helse.

marc

[LoverOfLife]

Regarding using honey, I found the following three paragraphs on a website: (just thought I'd throw it out there because I like bees and would personally be very upset if I were somewhere such as a potluck where "vegan" food was served and found out that a dish I had eaten had honey in it)

"Old-guard vegans have no patience for this sort of equivocation: Animal products are off-limits, period. Indeed, the first Vegan Society was created in 1944 to counter the detestable, flexitarian tendencies of early animal rights activists. Founder Donald Watson called their namby-pamby lacto-vegetarianism "a halfway house between flesh-eating and a truly human, civilized diet" and implored his followers to join him in making the "full journey." That journey, as the society has since defined it, takes no uncertain position on honey—it's summarily banned, along with bee pollen, bee venom, propolis, and royal jelly.

The hard-liners argue that beekeeping, like dairy farming, is cruel and exploitative. The bees are forced to construct their honeycombs in racks of removable trays, according to a design that standardizes the size of each hexagonal chamber. (Some say the more chaotic combs found in the wild are less vulnerable to parasitic mites.) Queens are imprisoned in certain parts of the hive, while colonies are split to increase production and sprinkled with prophylactic antibiotics. In the meantime, keepers control the animals by pumping their hives full of smoke, which masks the scent of their alarm pheromones and keeps them from defending their honey stores. And some say the bees aren't making the honey for us, so its removal from the hive could be construed as a form of theft. (Last year's animated feature, Bee Movie, imagined the legal implications of this idea.)

So, any vegan who eats honey but avoids milk is making the tacit assumption that the pain experienced by a bee counts for something less than the pain experienced by a cow. It's exactly the sort of compromise that so appalled Watson and the early vegans. Once you've allowed yourself to equivocate on animal suffering, how do you handle all the other borderline cases of insect exploitation? What about silkworms and cochineal bugs? Come to think of it, does a bee feel any less pain than a scallop or an oyster? Why can't we eat them, too?"

[Diana Cda]

How long does the date sweetener last?
Agave has a floraly/honey taste, what does the date sweetener taste like?That's a good question. I've been using date paste for many, many, many years. It's one of the first things I, like probably many others, stumbled upon in the beginning. I guess many of us find dates too hard to work with, we decide to soak it only to find we get soft dates and date syrup at the end.

I no longer separate the two. That phase didn't last long. I rarely make pancakes so it just seemed easier to blend everything together once the dates softened. And that's what I've done for maybe 17-18 years on my now 20-year journey to raw (yeah, it's been a he** of a long time!).

As to how long it lasts, well, that's a tough one. Even though I don't use excessive amounts of the paste and it's practically my sole sweetener, I'd say the jar lasts me 5-7 days. In that time it still tastes fresh with no funny flavour so it's always seemed safe to me. The odd time only have I not used it as much and I believe it will last a bit longer. But I would say that a week is the outside of the limit I'd give for a jar. But as one person, it doesn't last me that long. I have an almond mylk/carob smoothie twice a day and I use the date paste in that so that's why it goes as quickly as it does.

Well, in most foods, the date paste doesn't really add anything to the flavour. You can't taste it, in other words. But it's a good flavour, to me. In cases where it is a major ingredient like the rare dessert I've had, I've never minded the taste. It was exotic and foreign all those years ago, at first, but I've been using it for so long I don't notice the flavour. I add it to salad dressings and salads and such, etc., etc., when a sweetener is called for, and it's not discernible over the rest of the ingredients.

Good luck. :)