Sweeteners: The worst and the best

Today, I will share with you guys the good and the bad sweeteners. Yes, the good guys and bad guys in sweetener world. I'm sure some of you might ask and wonder which sweeteners are bad and which ones are safe to consume. For whoever read my previous sugar posts, you will not be surprise what I'm going to reveal in this post. I know almost all of us are 'sugar addict' and most of us just can't stop eating sweetened foods and beverage, and the cravings just gotten worst overtime. Reason? Read my sleep and sugar posts,  you will learn much more about why do you often crave for sugary foods and the addiction doesn't seem to improve at all. Before we proceed further, please bear in mind, the sweeteners I'm discussing today, does not involve artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are the most dangerous of all the sweeteners out there. And by the way, it DOES NOT promote weight loss! 

Now, I'm sure a lot of you realized that eating too much of sugar is bad, but you may not know which specific type of sweetener that does the most damage to your body. We have whole list of sweeteners such as table sugar(sucrose), glucose, fructose, lactose, stevia, high fructose corn syrup, etc. How about artificial sweeteners? Well, I DO NOT recommend any artificial sweeteners at all. They are dangerous and cause much more damaging to our body and health. If you have read my previous posts or did you own research on sucralose and aspartame, you will know what I meant. 

There are also some of my friends asking me about glycemic index and glycemic load on foods, how do these foods affect the conversion of sugar into our blood stream. Well, glycemic index is measure upon a single piece of food, how fast it converts to sugar in your blood stream. As for glycemic load, it is the combination of more then a single food at that point of time (meal), as they modulate one another. So, if you eat a meal with combination of avocado, raw nuts, olive oil and popcorn and white rice, you can't measure the meal with glycemic index. It has to be measured by glycemic load. 

Anyway, I now present to you, the 'best' and 'worst' sweeteners available. Be cautious when buying packaged foods in the supermarkets or any grocery outlets, as sugar, is one of the culprit in weight gain, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and other diseases. 

Worst:

-High Fructose Corn Syrup (about 45-55% pure fructose, one of the worst sweeteners)

-Agave Syrup/nectar ( 90% fructose!!, highly concentrated and processed sugar, it's not a whole food) - the worst of all sweeteners!

-Fructose (the culprit!)
- Sucrose ( 50% fructose, also known as table sugar)

** Avoid any food/beverage products which contains "fruit sweetened, fruit juice sweetened, fruit juice concentrate".  

Best:

- Stevia (natural sweetener, it's a herb)

- Yacon (Large root, cut and boiled to concentrate FOS, it also has prebiotic, feeds good bacteria)

- Lou Han Guo (It has prebiotic, soluble fiber) - It is safe for diabetics and doesn't cause insulin resistance.

** Sugar alcohols such as Xylitol, mannitol and maltitol are acceptable for small amount of usage. 

Stevia plant

Agave nectar/syrup