For many, many years, I was a big fan of honey as a replacement for white sugar — until, that is, I met up with organic agave (pronounced ah·GAH·vay), an excellent honey substitute.
What is agave?
Both honey and agave come from plants. While honey is, of course, made by bees from the sugary liquid they gather from flowers (along with internal bee enzymes), agave comes from the agave cactus.
Agave looks like honey (although slightly thinner in consistency) and tastes pretty much like honey, but it does seem quite a bit sweeter, so a little goes a long way, and doesn't interfere with the taste of other foods as much as honey does. In short, it's delicious!
Better yet, agave is extremely low on the Glycemic Index (per answers.com: "a numerical index given to a carbohydrate-rich food that is based on the average increase in blood glucose levels occurring after the food is eaten") — my take on that is, "how much your blood sugar will rise after eating a particular carbohydrate-rich food."
Now, while glycemic index charts differ, I've seen honey listed at 50-83 and agave at 16-27, which is very low. What this means to us is that, if we consume agave, we don't get that "jacked up to the high hills" feeling with its attendant crash after the sugar rush. Your mileage may vary, but that's been our experience.
Organic Agave
And the best news is that it is possible to get organic agave. So, this gives us a low-Glycemic Index honey substitute that is delicious, doesn't interfere with the taste of foods, and doesn't bring you the sugar rush-and-crash problem.
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14 Comments for "Organic Agave: the honey substitute"
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Yuri
Comment posted on 07/15/07 @ 9:17 pm
Yay. Gonna be costly to get this stuff to Siberia, I guess, though.
Diane Vigil
Comment posted on 07/15/07 @ 9:30 pm
Maybe so; we get ours from Whole Foods Market and sometimes from Young Living Essential Oils. Looks like Whole Foods has some stores in the U.K., although I don't know if they ship. You could always try …
Kelly
Comment posted on 02/14/08 @ 9:36 pm
I came across your website and always appreciate good nutrition info. I wanted to let you know that at my new blog I mentioned Agave Nectar and a very knowledgeable commenter (Anna) left a lot of interesting information about why Agave Nectar might not be good for us after all. I was very bummed, as I had had great luck using it in my baked goods. The link to that post is here: http://www.kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/01/my-dark-secrets.html.
I look forward to reading more at your site!
Kelly
Diane Vigil
Comment posted on 02/15/08 @ 7:24 pm
Thanks, Kelly. I took the liberty of sending our friend and contributing author, Lynn Cameron, to your blog to comment on Anna's comment.
Fact is, we who are seeking better nutrition and better ways of feeding our families — and to understand the nutritional and scientific aspects of all this — may happen across information that sounds good, but may not be true, or true as stated.
As an aside, one of the things we try to achieve here at We Want Organic Food is to publish fact (or, if opinion, to identify it as opinion). To that end, I wrote Truth and Blogging from Authority in which I quoted a PhD in bacterial genetics, Pierre Far, who explains the way consensus is usually arrived at in the world of science. Pierre has this caveat:
Lastly, if I may, I'll quote a snippet from Lynn's comment at your blog:
Debra
Comment posted on 10/21/09 @ 9:46 am
Another good source of agave is from a Utah distributor at http://www.xagave.com. They use a blend of 2 agave types and I have been using the product now for a month with no blood sugar problem (I'm insulin resistant). They ship.
ann m
Comment posted on 12/11/09 @ 11:38 pm
costco has agave – $7.75 for 23 oz. probably won't be there long.
Diane Vigil
Comment posted on 12/11/09 @ 11:40 pm
Hi Ann. Is Costco's agave organic?
Trevor Nalliah
Comment posted on 02/13/10 @ 3:38 am
Thank You ;We Want Organic Food for your organic ice cream recipe. And for letting me know about the existence of
Agave. Thank You again. TN.
Diane Vigil
Comment posted on 02/13/10 @ 9:08 am
You're very welcome, Trevor. What we've found is that using fats (cream) and anything like agave (or honey, if you prefer that) makes the ice cream softer.
Organic Ice Milk
Pingback posted on 02/20/10 @ 5:17 am
[...] been using organic agave (ah·GAH·vay) as a sweetener (see Organic Agave: the honey substitute). As I said in the Organic Ice Cream article, you could use honey or –gasp!– sugar; [...]
Organic Pastures sells fantastic Raw Cream
Pingback posted on 02/20/10 @ 5:21 am
[...] cooked or pasteurized. We are consuming real, nutritious, no added "ingredients" ice cream! We use organic agave instead of processed sugar. And, so far, I haven't been putting on extra weight. Send to a [...]
Organic Ice Cream Update
Pingback posted on 02/20/10 @ 5:22 am
[...] raw organic cream, raw colostrum (cows make colostrum before they make milk; it's good stuff), raw organic agave, two organic egg yolks and organic vanilla extract. We made blackberry ice cream by smashing [...]
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Pingback posted on 02/20/10 @ 5:42 am
[...] Agave syrup is the second newest addition to my sweetening (or, saccharide) cupboard — pomegranate molasses being the newest jewel. Both agave syrup and pomegranate molasses have one of the three forms of digestible carbohydrate (all come from plant foods) termed a monosaccharide (a group name of the simplest sugars). These single-carbon monosaccharides are categorized three more times into glucose (dextrose), fructose (levulose) and galactose (from milk). [...]
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Pingback posted on 02/20/10 @ 5:50 am
[...] found out that agave is processed put a damper on our sweet tooth and our intake of "organic" ice cream. We found out [...]