Agave Nectar Vs Honey Explained
Author: Artemis A.
Skill: Raindrop Technique
Date: 07-22-2009
Views: 8,259
Word Count: 501
Questions Received: 0
Testimonial ID: 3664-OR
Brand Neutral: No
Scientific Studies: 5
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I want to share with you one of my favourite products from Young Living. It's called Agave, and it is a natural sweetener with a low glycemic index. Because it has a low GI it is very slow absorbing by the body. It is from the blue agave plant (a cactus-like plant native to Mexico).
It is a delicious and safe alternative to table sugar because it is sweet in its natural form. It does not contain any processed chemicals like sulphur dioxide, hydrochloric acid or other harmful toxins.
It is most useful for people who are diabetic, have insulin resistance or simply watching their weight. Also, because it is sweeter than table sugar (however on the downside, it has a higher fructose content) you use approximately 25% less than sugar.
Reply from a distributor: I completely agree. We never use cane sugar, maple syrup or honey any more. Where honey has a glycemic index of 110 (that's very high), and maple syrup has a glycemic index of 20 (that's quite low), Agave has a glycemic index of 11 (that's extremely low).
However the fructose from agave disrupts normal liver metabolism, leading to higher rates of lipogenesis and higher triglycerides--both of which can lead to heart disease.
So we use Agave in place of sugar in all of our cooking and desserts. If the recipe asks for a cup of sugar, we use anywhere from 3/4 cup to a full cup of Agave.
Because Agave is a lovely light, sweet nectar, about the same colour as honey but a tiny bit runnier, we drizzle it over coconut cream on sliced fruit salad, or use it in a cup of herbal tea if we wish to sweeten it. It's even nice just on a teaspoon, licked off as you would with honey. It's also wonderful that it's vegetarian.
A lot of people aren't aware that honey is regurgitated from a bees stomach. The following is some information on how bees make honey, just to prove this point:
How bees make honey: Let us go with the honeybee from her flower to the hive and see what happens. Most bees gather only pollen or nectar. As she sucks the nectar from the flower, it is stored in her special honey stomach ready to be transferred to the honey-making bees in the hive.
If hungry she opens a valve in the nectar "sac" and a portion of the payload passes through to her own stomach to be converted to energy for her own needs.
When her nectar "sacs" are full, the honeybee returns to the hive. Nectar is delivered to one of the indoor bees and is then passed mouth-to-mouth from bee to bee until its moisture content is reduced from about 70% to 20%.
This changes the nectar into honey. Sometimes the nectar is stored at once in cells in the honeycomb before the mouth-to-mouth working because some evaporation is caused by the 32.5 degree Celsius temperature inside the hive.
Its best to use both of these sweeteners in moderation
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| Supporting Scientific Studies | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Associated topics: liver,diabetes — "DHEA [a component of PD 80/20], an androstene hormone [precursor to estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, cortisone, and other hormones], has been shown to possess a wide range of beneficial biological effects mainly attributed to immune system modulation.... thus leading to beneficial effects in diverse human diseases including resistance to infection, neuroprotection, wound healing, diabetes, hepatic injury, cardiovascular disease, and cancer." | Link |
| 2. | Associated topics: blood-sugar,diabetes,insulin — "Cinnamaldehyde [in cinnamon] has antihyperglycemic and antihyperlipidemic [cholesterol-lowering] actions in db/db mice and could be useful in the treatment of type-2 diabetes." | Link |
| 3. | Associated topics: blood-sugar,liver,diabetes,insulin — "D-limonene is a major constituent in citrus essential oil.... Recently, d-limonene has been reported to alleviate fatty liver induced by a high-fat diet. Our data suggest that the intake of d-limonene may benefit patients with dyslipidemia and hyperglycemia and is a potential dietary supplement for preventing and ameliorating metabolic disorders." | Link |
| 4. | Associated topics: liver,diabetes,insulin — "Myrtle oil (MO) exerts hypoglycemic as well as mild hypotriglyceridemic activity in diabetic animals. The reduction in blood glucose level may be due to the reversible inhibition of alpha-glucosidases present in the brush-border of the small intestinal mucosa, higher rate of glycolysis as envisaged by the higher activity of glucokinase, as one of the key enzymes of glycolysis, and enhanced rate of glycogenesis as evidenced by the higher amount of liver glycogen present after MO administration." | Link |
| 5. | Associated topics: diabetes,insulin,food-/-cooking — "Z. officinale [ginger] has been used to control diabetes and dyslipidemia [high cholesterol].... The marked rise in body weights, glucose, insulin, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, free fatty acids and phospholipids in serum of the rats that followed 6 weeks of high-fat diet treatment were significantly reduced by Z. officinale treatment.... The present results provide scientific evidence to substantiate the traditional use of Z. officinale in preventing metabolic disorders." | Link |
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