Misleading Nectar
Agave nectar! A sweetener that’s good for you! Let’s make cake!
The insatiable American sweet tooth may have celebrated too early. As Seattle’s Nutrition Educator Goldie Caughlan, points out in her balanced article Bitter & Sweet: Agave Syrup, there is no perfect sweetener. Close to 19% of the American diet comes from some form of sugar. That’s too much of a sweet 
thing no matter what health expert you’re interrogating. Does it matter whether it is agave, honey or plain old white sugar? It does to me. I choose my sweeteners based on ethical behavior and kitchen-ability.
Cactus Juice
True, a sweetener was once upon a time made from the juice of the agave cactus. The traditional sweetener from the agave sap/juice (miel de agave) was made by simply boiling it for several hours. The new improved nectar marketed to us in the 90’s is mostly chemically refined fructose, anywhere from 70% and higher. For comparison, the high-fructose corn syrup used in sodas is 55% refined fructose. The sugars in the nectar are converted to fructose using an enzymatic process similar to how corn syrup is converted into HFCS. Are we saps for believing it was somehow “natural”?
Low Glycemic Index
One of agave’s marketing points is its low glycemic index, meaning it won’t raise blood sugar levels as high or as fast as some other sugars. Sounds good huh? But as Joy Bauer points out in her article How Sweet it Is (msnbc news) “the reason agave has such a low glycemic index is that it is extremely high in fructose — a simple sugar that ranks low on the glycemic index, but can trigger symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome such as gas, bloating and abdominal pain. Fructose has also been shown to increase the risk of heart disease by increasing triglycerides and — due to its negative effect on several appetite-regulating hormones — weight gain and obesity.” Agave nectar is advertised as a “diabetic friendly,” raw, and “100% natural sweetener.” Misleading?
Beyond Science
I have to go back to the whole foods concept and ask the whole foods questions – what has been done to the food since it was harvested? The seed to table journey is long; making several stops in the laboratory for some enzymatic conversions. Are all of the original edible ingredients present? Truth is there are not many sweeteners where much of the food matter hasn’t been tossed. Maple syrup and honey are possible exceptions; agave is not. How long has this food been known to nourish humans? Here the operative word is “nourish”. Agave nectar may disqualify right there. I tend to distrust new and approved foods that don’t have a several decade track record. Bottom line (my flexible line in the sand) – I don’t know how I could make commercially-sold agave nectar in my kitchen. Agave has no kitchen-ability.
Tell me what you think.
Articles:
http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/0909/goldie.html
http://www.townsendletter.com/May2009/agave0509.html
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30432188/ns/today-today_health/
http://www.westonaprice.org/Agave-Nectar-Worse-Than-We-Thought.html
Tags: agave, agave nectar, fructose, Goldie Caughlin, Joy Bauer, Sally Fallon, what is a whole food
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Hey Cynthia,
I really appreciate this “reveal” on agave nectar. Care to offer your favorite alternatives (aside from honey and maple syrup)? What do you put in your coffee, for example?
Thanks!
Comment by Tessa — February 16, 2010 @ 8:03 pm
Interesting - thank you for this information.
You said there is no perfect sweetener… I’m interested to hear your thoughts on xylitol. I’ve heard about it recently and we’ve had a few cavities in our family lately so I was curious about it. THANKS!
Comment by Melissa — February 16, 2010 @ 8:43 pm
Hi Cynthia
Full disclosure here - I am a founding member of a company that uses agave as an ingredient in our products. I am also a Registered Dietitian who is focused on evidence based whole foods nutrition.
I am in full agreement with Goldie Caughlin’s take on sweeteners - less is always better!
However, the bashing of agave that we are seeing in some blogs is unfortunately not grounded in evidence based science.
You’ll notice that Fallon-Merrell’s article on HFCS and agave is excellently referenced when it comes to HFCS. However, her main agave reference is Russ Bianchi. She actually references personal conversations she had with him. Scientific reference? I think not!
Bianchi actually sells a product that is in direct competition with agave (Zija) and it is in his best interests to make agave look bad.
It is true that in the early days of the commercialization of agave syrup (early 90’s), there were unethical shenanigans such as mixing high fructose corn syrup into agave syrup to make it a cheaper product. It is very important to buy USDA organic certified agave syrup (such as the types available at PCC). This agave is not produced with chemicals and uses a process that you could easily replicate in your kitchen if you had an agave plant handy!
Sweeteners, in my opinion, are all about amount and context.
The amount of agave in a homemade medium sized cookie for example (around 150 calories) would contain as much fructose as a medium size apple. That amount of fructose per day does not raise triglyceride levels or contribute to obesity.
Now for context -
The research on fructose is typically done on beverages (e.g. fructose sweetened or glucose sweetened) which are administered in isolation (i.e. not with a meal). At that, the research has been inconclusive.
No one should be eating sweeteners of any type on their own.
I wouldn’t want anyone to be drinking a cup of honey, agave or pureed dates for that matter! Sweeteners need to be eaten (not drunk) in small quantities along with fiber, protein and healthy fats.
So have that agave sweetened cookie with your tofu, veggie and brown rice stirfry!
The American Heart Association recently released recommendations that we keep added sugars in our diets to 100 calories per day for women and 150 calories per day for men. That is very different from
the current consumption of added sugars which averages 375- 450 calories per day.
So the message is clear - 100 or 150 calories per day of an added sugar (be it maple syrup, agave, or blackstrap molasses) is not going to harm the typical person.
Our issue here in the USA is again amount and context!
We eat far too many added sugars of all types and we don’t combine them with a balanced meal.
There is no magical sweetener that will give us health benefits and allow us to eat as many cookies as our hearts desire.
Sad but true!
Let’s keep agave (and all sweeteners) in perspective.
I keep agave, maple syrup and brown rice syrup in my pantry and enjoy all of them sparingly.
Cynthia, thank you for your fantastic website and recipes. You make our family’s life more yummy!
Sandi
Comment by Sandi Kaplan — February 16, 2010 @ 10:29 pm
Hi Cynthia
Love your website and books.
One quick point of disagreement -
I really do trust the USDA Organic Certification.
Agave cannot be certified organic and still use GMO enzymes and be produced with a chemically dependent process.
In other words, to believe that organic agave is produced in the way you describe, is to believe that the organic agave producers are somehow using the USDA Organic seal illegally.
Moral of the story - when buying agave, choose organic!
Comment by Mike — February 16, 2010 @ 10:53 pm
i totally agree. a lifestyle change in the u.s, and around the world as a domino affect, is in order. i am still thinking about jamie oliver from the previous post, wow. thanks for posting some useful tidbits.
angela
Comment by angelina — February 17, 2010 @ 12:18 am
I see your point Sandi. Certainly Sally Fallon tends to adopt an extreme point of view that is sometimes weakly supported. But there are others who are suspect of the sweetener besides Sally and Rami Nagel.
I also agree that the sweetener issue is about quantity. You’ll notice very few desserts in the Cookus Interruptus catalogue and all of them contain fiber, protein and healthy fats.
I will stick to my guns on the issue of history. This product has not been on the market for very long and I remain unsure of any benefits over traditional sweeteners like honey and maple syrup.
I will also continue to be concerned about agave’s high fructose content - higher than other alternative sweeteners.
Speaking strictly as a cook, agave has very little dimension of flavor compared to honey, maple syrup, brown rice syrup or even unrefined cane sugar (love that molasses touch).
Thank you Mike and Sandi for mentioning that if you do choose to use agave as a sweetener, 100% organic will give you the highest quality.
Comment by Cynthia — February 17, 2010 @ 9:01 am
My gut always told me that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Agave has been the sweetheart of the raw foodies for a while now. They seem to think that everythings okie dokie if they use this “wonderful” sweetener.
When we put ingredients up on a pedestal, they ultimately fall from grace. (We seem to do this with sports figures too, but thats another story for another day)
What’s really blown my mind lately is the presentation by pediatric endocrinologist RobertLustig MD out of UCSF. His lecture, Sugar: The Bitter Truth, makes for an interesting discussion of the role of fructose in our diets. Not just HFCS and agave, but fruit juice too. I think Cynthia mentioned this in a previous post. Here’s the link, check it out. (Worth every one of the 89 minutes! You can chop veggies or walk on your treadmill or fold laundry while listening)
http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16717
Bottom line: drink water, eat fruit: not fancy schmancy “bars” or other processed stuff!
As a dentist, I’ve never been a huge fan of juice. It rots teeth just like soda, sports drinks and granola bars. And worse yet, it sets toddlers up with a sweet tooth. Our whole country continues to have a sweet tooth. That is why your dentist is laughing all the way to the bank!
We need to develop our palates to appreciate all flavors, not just sweet. Dessert needs to become an occasional treat, not an every day treat.
Comment by Susan Rubin — February 17, 2010 @ 7:13 pm
I actually like that agave doesn’t have much flavor other than “sweet.” Sometimes you want something distinct, and sometimes you don’t, depending on the recipe. Currently, I’m of the “use a good quality agave sparingly” camp, but I really appreciate this discussion, and I hope that more scientific research will further enlighten us.
Comment by Hilla Abel — February 17, 2010 @ 8:56 pm
I’m so glad you posted this! I’m am the mom of 5 whole eaters ;).
We just started using agave so I have a question…. what I have in my cupboard right now is Madhava 100% pure agave nectar. It says there are no additives or preservatives…… ?????? certified USDA organic…. So is this not good?
Comment by Tomena — February 17, 2010 @ 9:07 pm
Here’s Dr. Mercola’s take on agave from February 17th Huffington Post. Scroll down to get his opinion on agave.
Comment by Cynthia — February 17, 2010 @ 9:10 pm
Susan (above) remarks: “When we put ingredients up on a pedestal, they ultimately fall from grace.”
I would submit that its not that we put foods on a pedestal, its that as Americans we go completely overboard when foods appear novel. It’s a lack of moderation that is the problem, not a “pedestal” effect.
Here are two compelling scientific rebuttals to Dr. Robert Lustig’s anti- fructose piece:
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/
http://www.thebsdetective.com/
Comment by Mike — February 17, 2010 @ 9:47 pm
I really agree with Cynthia and other experts regarding agave. If I cannot make it in my kitchen I am generally not interested in ingesting the food. Since agave it is about 70% or higher chemically refined fructose produced from an enzymatic process similar to HFCS we could theoretically make it from anything with a similar sugar content. This means that we could start out with Jerusalem artichokes and in the laboratory go through the same steps to make agave and come out with a very similar product to agave. What that indicates to me is the high level of refinement that goes into its production. How similar is it to its natural source? How close is it to a whole food? I have not done the research on this however have wondered what was going on in the tequila market at the time agave syrup was starting to get produced and marketed. Was it hurting in some way where there needed to be another source of revenue from the agave plant?
Cynthia thank you for bringing up such controversial topics as the agave debate. I appreciate hearing differing opinions to become more educated on the issue.
Comment by Jennifer Adler — February 18, 2010 @ 6:05 pm
Personally? I’m giving agave a skip. My sugar levels are fine, so no need to muck around with replacements for that reason. I’ve spent the last 2 years trying to get HFCS out of my diet (about 95% successful - I still get the odd soda when I’m out) - so the similarities between it and agave give me some pause. Since I try to stick to what Cynthia calls “kitchen-ability” - I’ve climbed my share of bee trees and hiked through the woods helping to gather sap buckets as a kid. I can figure out how can sugar gets to us… but agave? Not so much.
But three even BIGGER reasons I give it a skip?
Let’s face it - its pricey as heck, it doesn’t taste very good, and its limited in its use. I can pour a little maple syrup over my pancakes - or add to a stirfry. The honey in my tea goes over my English muffins too. Agave? It’s a single note of “sweet”. No real flavor, no real distinction, meh. There are flavored version… but that just adds on to the chemical brew that creates it - so no thanks.
Comment by Jenna — February 20, 2010 @ 10:00 am
Hi Cynthia-what do you think of the raw agave product sold at Wildnerness Family Naturals? I have used this product for some time and really like it. They explain at the site how the product is produced so that it is considered raw. Please let me know what you think.
Comment by LoriH — March 10, 2010 @ 6:21 pm
Natural enzymes break the complex carbohydrates into monosaccharides, or simple sugars, mainly composed of fructose (70-75%) and dextrose (20-26%). This comes directly from the Wilderness site. My question: what enzyme? Sounds very similar to HFCS where the glucose molecules are converted into fructose molecules using an enzyme. The high fructose level of the product may be more harmful than regular sugar. See our post with video: The Bitter Truth about Sugar. At best., I do not see how this sweetener has any advantages over others.
Comment by Cynthia — March 10, 2010 @ 6:36 pm
[...] And regular old cane sugar is about 50/50 glucose and fructose. The new natural foods darling, agave, can have anywhere from 55-97% fructose, depending on who made it. Fruit juice can be as high as [...]
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