Blue Agave as a sweetener: article claims just as dangerous as High Fructose Corn Syrup!

[pink-o]

Lately I've spoken to some people who've been touting the wonders of Blue Agave, a liquid sweetner from the same plant that gives us Tequila. The claims are that this is the only sweetner that doesn't spike your insulin levels, therefore making it safe for diabetics and those who're insulin sensitive. But according to this one article, there's reason to be cautious about the miracle claims. I'm inclined to believe it, because a high concentration of anything is toxic in our bodies, even those substances that are purportedly good for you. Some snippets and the link:


..."The principal constituent of the agave is starch, such as what is found in corn or rice. The process in which the agave starch is converted into refined fructose and then sold as the sweetener agave nectar is through an enzymatic and chemical conversion that refines, clarifies, heats, chemically alters, centrifuges, and filters the non-sweet starch into a highly refined sweetener, fructose. Here, a distinction must be made. Fructose is not what is found in fruit. Commonly, fructose is compared with its opposite and truly naturally occurring sweetener, known as 'levulose'. There are some chemical similarities between fructose (man made) and levulose (made by nature), and so the synthetically refined sugar fructose was labeled in a way to make one believe it comes from fruit. Levulose is not fructose even though people will claim it is"...


..."Once eaten, refined fructose appears as triglycerides in the blood stream, or as stored body fat. Elevated triglyceride levels, caused by consumption of refined fructose, are building blocks for hardening human arteries. Metabolic studies have proven the relationship between refined fructose and obesity.(11) Because fructose is not converted to blood glucose, refined fructose doesn't raise nor crash human blood glucose levels -- hence the claim that it is safe for diabetics. Supposedly, refined fructose has a low glycemic index, and won't affect your blood sugar negatively. But the food labels are deceptive. Refined fructose is not really safe for diabetics. "High fructose from agave or corn will kill a diabetic or hypoglycemic much faster than refined white sugar," says Mr. Bianchi. "By eating high fructose syrups, you are clogging the veins, creating inflammation, and increasing body fat, while stressing your heart. This is in part because refined fructose is foreign to the body, and is not recognized by it."...


Whole article:

http://naturalnews.com/024892_fructose_food_health.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[tabatha]

7. Where is the scientific study

that indicates that HCFS is not dangerous?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. You mean besides the last forty years of millions of people consuming it safely?

Despite the fact that it's just an aqueous solution of fructose and glucose, which humans have been safely consuming for a million years (and other organisms for 4.5 billion or so)?

You mean besides that?

[tabatha]

16. That is not a scientific study.

Yes, I mean besides that.

[EOTE]

18. Last time I provided you with scientific studies, you ignored it handily.

I think you're not much interested in science at all.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. Bullshit.

[EOTE]

21. Brilliant scientific reply there!

But it still doesn't change the fact that you claimed multiple times that processed foods don't cause cancer, then when I provided you with the studies that proved that, you were oddly silent. You can still believe that there's no link between processed foods and cancer, but you'll just be pushing more of your anti-science, dogmatic bullshit.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. Oh, right, that's what you're on about.

You claimed that processed foods were carcinogenic and your "scientific evidence" was a few links to ascientific websites about carcinogens in foods that form naturally, mostly from the cooking process.

Talk about anti-science bullshit.

[EOTE]

23. So you still assert there's no link between processed foods and cancer?

Funny, I would have thought you'd be so confident in your scientific expertise that you'd have responded in that particular thread instead of taking your ball and going home when it was so clear you were just talking out of your ass (if you have no other way of talking, I humbly apologize).

[EOTE]

25. Delete. Wrong place.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. No.

Nor is there some FDA conspiracy to allow corporations to add carcinogens to processed foods.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

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[HiFructosePronSyrup]

39. Talk about strawmen.

Processed foods don't cause cancer because they're processed. Can foods cause cancer? Sure, you put a big piece of red meat on the barbeque and it will char and form nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic. Is cooking things a form of processing? Sure, but if that's what you mean then it's a ridiculous degree of intellectual dishonesty.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

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[HiFructosePronSyrup]

43. There is no link between HFCS and cancer.

That's pseudoscience.

"Some processed foods increase the risk of cancer merely because they are processed"

LOL, the act of processing food makes it carcinogenic. Like some kind of witchcraft.

"You are not a scientist, you should stop trying to play one."

Well, first off, you'd be surprised.

Secondly, it doesn't matter what I do for a living, or what your dad does for a living.

I'm right, you're wrong.

[bemildred]

45. Dang, so you are not accepting the appeal to authority from a poster on the internet?

Good for you!

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

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[HiFructosePronSyrup]

47. Post the actual article and I can tell you why I disagree with it.

It probably doesn't even say what you think it says.

I disagree with the notion that HFCS causes cancer. Why? Because all it is is a solution of fructose and glucose in water. There's nothing in HFCS that isn't in corn, or apples, or oranges, or agave, or anything else that is perfectly natural.

Same principle goes for white flour.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

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[HiFructosePronSyrup]

30. My dad could beat up your dad.

[Name removed]

35. Deleted message

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[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. But my dad's a super ultrademiologist.

He outranks your regular epidemiologist dad, therefore I win.

[EOTE]

44. Do you always get this sarcastic when you're proven to be wrong?

You'd think you'd just be able to admit it and proceed like an adult. Adults are wrong all the time, children have to be right. Thinking people see your reliance on snark as a substitution for all that you lack.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

48. Prove me wrong and we'll see what happens.

All you've done is dug yourself further into that hole.

[pink-o]

12. I don't consider myself a woo woo

and I'm fully aware that the human body is adaptable to anything in moderation. But it's the shear ubiquity of HFCS in every processed food around that should concern us. I'm sure there are many scientific studies (depending on who's funding them) that will come up with contrary results about HFCS and every other substance on earth, but personally, I will take my chances with those found in Nature as opposed to those filtered through a Chem lab that end up in a box or a bottle.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. They usually don't.

[HopeHoops]

2. Um, wrong - stevia.

We grow our own. Damn is it a good sweetener!

[Javaman]

4. Same here...

Do you powder yours or do you make an extract?

[HopeHoops]

27. We just hang dry it and mostly use it in tea.

We don't tend to use sweeteners for anything else (other than baking).

[Javaman]

51. We've been drying it as well.

I'm looking into making extracts at the moment.

[pink-o]

17. Yup! You got me there, Stevia does seem to do what it claims

Also, I love dates, which don't exactly have a low glycemic index, but there's nutrients such as magnesium and potassium in dates. If you have foods with a high sugar content and no fat, the way to avoid the insulin spike is to pair them with nuts. A tasty snack, full of vital nutrition, and the good fat in the nuts helps time-release the sugar into your body.

And BTW, I only posted the article because so many people are flocking to the Blue Agave as a miracle sweetner. I lived thru the 90s when every food was touted as being no-fat, and everyone got fatter. I can easily see this happening again if Agave goes mainstream.

[shanti]

19. is it easy to grow?

i strictly use stevia (love it), and would attempt to grow some.

[HopeHoops]

28. It grows like a weed in the summer months, but doesn't survive the winter.

At least it doesn't in PA. I get two starter plants from the garden center that carries them and they provide more than enough to make it through the winter months.

On Edit:

Silly me. Most herbs ARE weeds - just ones we like.

[Retrograde]

36. very tender plant

It won't survive a Bay Area winter outdoors either. I find stevia way too sweet, so no big loss.

[MattBaggins]

49. and bitter

[negativenihil]

3. so really...

the moral of the story is to just use sugar, right? Right tool for the right job and all that.

[Lex]

5. the moral of the story is for us all to eat less sweetened crapola

whether it's stevia or agava or cane sugar or splenda

[paulsby]

6. there's a time and a place to spike insulin

such as post training

but in general, not a great idea

[pink-o]

9. exactly! Fruit is sweet enough.

Once you wean your palate away from the artificial tastes of chemicalized food!

[cali]

10. Sweets in moderation are not a problem

I'm making maple apple crisp for dessert.

And maple syrup is a fantastic sweetener. So is honey.

[trotsky]

52. Bingo! n/t

[peacetalksforall]

8. I want to rave about it. I never get the sugar shakes since using it and I went cold

turkey on a soft drink (not diet) that I was addicted to. I refuse to use sugar free anything that involves aspartaame, etc. I love it, but it is expensive. I believe it's worth it in the long run. I think it is a natural enemy of the sugar and corn growers.

[Lorien]

55. +1. We have a bakery here in town that only uses agave

Their tasty vegan, gluten free agave sweetened brownies, cupcakes and cookies are entirely safe for those of us with blood sugar issues. It's amazing to be able to eat something like a cupcake and not feel like crap three hours later!

[MattBaggins]

13. You can have my Splenda when you pry it from my cold dead fingers

[KittyWampus]

15. Stevia, Xylitol, Erythritol are sugars that do not spike insulin level. Raw agave syrup processed at

low temperatures does have a lower glycemic level and is different that that which is more highly processed.

From what I understand, diabetics need to be careful because the agave syrup may be cut with corn syrup or may NOT be raw/low processed.

[rucky]

41. I've noticed a wide price difference between brands of agave nectar.

I'm guessing the cheap stuff is suspect. The raw is always more expensive.

[MattBaggins]

50. Stevia is not a sugar... Technically it's a glycoside.

[supernova]

53. Anything ending in -tol is a sugar alcohol

not a sugar proper. These are often used in sugarless foods as a sugar replacement and are not used the same way by the body. You can safely eat them in moderation. You don't want to eat them in quantity because they tend to have a laxative effect.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. The number of elementary errors in the article is astounding

Levulose is fructose. http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/levulose

Of course fructose is found in fruit. That's where the name come from.

"Levulose, on the other hand, is naturally occurring in fruits, and is not isolated but bound to other naturally occurring sugars"

When it's bound to glucose, the 2 form sucrose. They are separated to form fructose and glucose early in the human digestion process. One can question whether that means them being already separate (as in HFCS) makes a difference in the rate at which the fructose hits the bloodstream, but it's not clear. But fruit also contains free fructose.

" Refined fructose is processed in the body through the liver, rather than digested in the intestine.(5) Levulose is digested in the intestine"

As we've already established, levulose and fructose are one and the same. All nutrients, including fructose, are digested in the intestine. Levulose (aka fructose) is then 'processed' in the liver, as is glucose.

The person who wrote this would fail high school biology. I have no idea if anything he's written about agave is correct, but if you want to know, find out from somewhere else.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. It's NaturalNews.

World net daily for the astrology crowd.

[semillama]

56. NaturalNews is your one-stop shop for all your anti-science "health" needs!

It's about as reliable a source for information on health as Newsmax is for, well, anything.

Plus, the guy who owns the site is a real piece of work, anti-vaccination, anti-science nutbag.

[FarCenter]

32. levulose is l-fructose

However, when sucrose is split by sucrase in the brush border villi of the intestines, it is split into d-glucose and d-fructose.

So you get the same fructose isomer molecule from sucrose that you get from the agave syrup.

The sucrose molecule can be split by the plant enzyme invertase so that you get a d-glucose and l-fructose molecule. This is called "inverted" sugar.

[cherokeeprogressive]

33. Please... Please don't use the Blue Agave plant for anything other than Tequila!

You'll make my favorite Tequilas too expensive.

[bemildred]

37. What a load of horseshit.

Ask yourself how they know all this? Answer: they don't, they pulled it out their ass because they wanted to.

[Lorien]

54. Nonsense. I'm violently hypoglycemic and agave doesn't effect my blood sugar at all

HFCS does, so does sugar, honey, dried fruits and fruit juices. If it doesn't spike blood sugar it's nowhere near as bad for you as HFCS.

[Abq_Sarah]

60. It's good for your blood sugar levels

Not so good for your liver.

[pink-o]

57. Hey, I agree with the Tequila guy. I'd hate to see a shortage of Margaritas because the agave plant

is being used for sweetners! Let me tell you my reason for posting the article, which is one person's analysis: In the 90s, Americans were told (marketed to, really) that FAT was the enemy and we could eat anything we wanted as long as it was fat-free. So we gobbled down those Nabisco non-fat cookies, those hideous potato chips with Olestra that gave us diarrhea, and that put us on the fast-track to the obesity epidemic.

I just have visions of products suddenly appearing on the shelves with Blue Agave, and the labels telling us that it's insulin safe and diabetic friendly. My only dog in this fight is that we PROCEED WITH CAUTION. We as a progressive group were the first ones who understood the tactics behind ginning up the Iraq war; we should be able to recognize that the corporations who manufacture our food have similar strategies. We must always remember that the Food corporations own the FDA, and they are NOT interested in our health or nutritional education. They are only interested in getting us to buy their product, and if we overindulge and end up with health problems, well then sux to be you, doesn't it?

Bottom line: one man's nutrition is another man's poison. I try to eat only foods I recognize, but that's navigating a minefield as well, what with E Coli and disgusting GMO and those evil bastards at Monsanto trying to fuck up my fruit. I would never be so intrusive as to tell another what to eat, but we need to educate ourselves as best we can in order to not become victims of the food industry.

They're not there to feed us. They're there to exploit us. Don't let 'em.

[diamidue]

58. I've been reading this too.

I'll never use it again. But hey, if others want to eat it, it is up to them.

[Codeine]

59. I'm beginning to think linking to NaturalNews

should be one of those bannable offenses.