Cooking with Sugar Substitutes that are Healthy and Natural Sweeteners

Natural Sweeteners substitute sugar in foods and beverages making them healthier while retaining their sweet flavors. When they are manufactured and packaged, they don't go through the amount of refining and high processing as white or brown sugars do, so they are more natural. This is because refining removes nutrients and other essential vitamins from the sugar cane juice.

To sweeten foods use a sweetener that is plant-based or honey. These are natural sweeteners because they are not processed and or filtered. For example, unfiltered honey has not been processed so it keeps its natural beneficial healing properties such as vitamins, and other elements that come directly from nature. Manufacturers tend to avoid most using the same refining processes as the ones used when refining regular sugar. This is in order to retain as much of the natural properties as possible. Additionally, minimally processed sugar cane juice has micro nutrients that aid in the proper digestion of sweeteners. Sugars that are refined, such as regular white sugar, and brown sugar, are stripped of micro nutrients, which in turn gives us empty calories in non-nutritive and potentially hazardous foods.

When choosing a sugar substitute for tea or coffee and other recipes, there are many healthy choices that can make a big difference for your health. In general, natural sweeteners contain micro nutrients, and both glucose and fructose in about equal ratios, which allows our bodies a healthy control of the blood sugar. For example, honey gets its sweetness from the mono-saccharides fructose and glucose. In equal amounts, it has the same sweetness factor as granulated sugar (regular and brown). This ratio of glucose and fructose makes them sweet but healthy, so they sweeten like sugar. Using artificial sweeteners to substitute sugar is not a good health decision because they contain high amounts of fructose. Fructose can block healthy digestion and does not allow the body to regulate the blood sugar appropriately.

There are many health benefits when you replace regular granulated white or brown sugar with natural sweeteners. You get unrefined foods as they have not been highly processed or filtered in a harmful way. Also, you will be more awake and not suffer from sleepiness during the day, will enjoy better digestion and your will more in touch with nature's foods. Granulated white or brown sugar, has been through a process that strips all the nutritional value and when consumed in large amounts can be very harmful to your body and lead to diabetes.