Sweeteners to Avoid

Be savvy about harmful and healthful sweeteners. Here’s a list of the three kinds of sweeteners to avoid along with their various brand names.

You’ll find details for those to favor at Quality Sweetener Guidelines. Armed with the information below about the “bad” sugars, you can now ignore various marketing claims for “natural” cane sugars and all sugar substitutes. Then how comforting to know that it’s a quality ingredient that sweetens your tea!

1. Artificial sugar substitutes include Canderel, Equal, Nectresse, NutraSweet, Splenda, Sunette, Sweet & Safe, Sweet One, Sweet’N Low and Sweet Twin. These artificially synthesized compounds act as neurotoxins, contributing to ADD, ADHD, and weight gain due to metabolic damage. Avoid all products containing these harsh-tasting, intense sweeteners.

2.  Synthetic sugar alcohols like malitol and xylitol, which are produced from by-products of the plywood industry and cornstalks. They are difficult to digest and cause gas and bloating in many people. Xylitol is dangerous—even life threatening—for pets, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. While data correlates xylitol with the reduction of dental caries, there are many less toxic ways of preventing tooth decay.

3. Refined sweeteners high in fructose include agave nectar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup and refined beet, corn and cane sugar. These highly refined, empty calorie sweeteners contain no minerals. The numerous health problems associated with consumption of concentrated fructose include obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and liver cirrhosis.

While quality natural sweeteners also contain fructose, the difference is that they’re real foods with fiber, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants as well as viable energetic and medicinal properties. In moderation you may healthfully enjoy: honey, maple syrup, Whole Cane Sugar (rapadura), Sucanat and fruit juice as per our Quality Sweetener Guidelines.

In comparison to the complex and smooth taste of Whole Cane Sugar and Sucanat, other cane products taste harsh, one dimensional and overly sweet. Their lower mineral composition (see representative comparisons below) aptly indicates that they’re more refined. These not recommended sugars include: brown sugar, cane crystals, demerarra sugar, dehydrated cane juice, granulated cane juice, invert sugar, milled cane sugar, muscavodo sugar, powdered sugar, raw sugar, turbinado sugar, unbleached sugarcane and yellow D sugar.

Whole Cane Sugar,100 mg
600 -1,000 potassium
40 – 1000 mg magnesium
50 – 100 mg phosphorus.

Muscavodo Sugar, 100 mg
100 mg potassium,
23 mg. magnesium
3.9 mg phosphorus.

Brown Sugar, 100 mg
100 mg potassium,
23 mg. magnesium
3.9 mg phosphorus

Granulated White Sugar, 100 mg
0.1 mg potassium,
0.0 mg. magnesium
0.0 mg phosphorus