[KimS]

This thread came to be at obt because there were quite a few of us who noticed that, though we were okay with fruit, honey and maple syrup and other 'sugar' sources, we would notice reactions to the use of refined sugar.

Reactions would range from diarrhea, behavioural disorder (including bipolar swings), right through to seizures.

It will take a while for us to get this built up again. But it will come with time.

[KimS]

Great on their own or in a pie shell, there are an unlimited number of flavours and uses for puddings/custards.

Here's a basic recipe that can be flavoured any way you like. One thing to note is that if you flavour with anything acidy... like lemon... you will need to put a heat-proof glass bowl over a pot with boiling water and use a wooden or plastic stirring device. If you do the acid flavours directly in the pot, it will pull out the flavour of the pot and you will end up with metal flavoured pudding. Yuck!!

It took me about 7 tries to realized that it's only my lemon or orange flavoured pudding that does this.

Anyway, onward and upward:

Throw this (double batch) all into a pot (or glass bowl) that is not yet on any heat:

8 eggs
1 cup coconut milk (you can use two cups of any type of 'milk')
1 cup water
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup arrowroot
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Whip it up with a wisk. Place on burner (med./high heat). Stir constantly for about ten minutes so that you don't end up with a special kind of scrambled eggs (until bubbles form) .

Take pot off heat (turn off heat), continue stirring so that the bottom doesn't start turning into scrambled eggs.

Enjoy warm.
Enjoy over top of cereal.
Enjoy over top of stewed fruit and nut dish.
Chill and turn it into a cool pudding or pie filling.
The list is endless.

I'll come back later to try and post some flavours we've done.

[jamietwo]

Raw Cranberry Sauce

2 cups fresh cranberries
1 orange
1 apple
1 cup dates
drizzle of pure maple syrup (optional)

Process all ingredients to desired consistency (for smoother processing, thaw any frozen cranberries and cut dates into quarters).

[sleepingbean]

we use raw local honey for most everything we make. It is easier to digest then sugar (easier on the gut, as a simpler sucrose). It takes a bit of time to get used to, but honey subs well in most every recipe. It just takes a bit of practice to find the right balance

The SCD cookbook (breaking the vicious cycle) has some great starter recipes that are grain and sugar free. Once you play with those you can build off into your own recipes. For examle, we started with their monster cookies, which I changed and tweaked and made my own version (Laura's Choice - on the GlutenChallenge page)

It gave me a good ground to start from in sugar free, gluten, soy, dairy free baking.
LOL

[wendy s]

I was so glad to read this thread. My 22 yr. old daughter has real problems with refined sugar, mentally and physically, but not with any other kind of sweetener. I believed her, but found it hard to understand. Do you have any idea why just refined sugar would be a problem, and not "organic cane sugar" and all the other ways they write down sweetener on packages?

[KimS]

I've been thinking and thinking on this question for a week.

For starters... no one really knows... yet.

Here are the possibilities I've come up with:

For the body to process refined sugar, it uses up almost every vitamin and mineral in the body but offers the body nothing. It is a biochemically, very expensive food, for the body to digest.

Another thing is that because it is a long chain sugar, it feeds bad bacteria in the gut which can lead to leaky gut et al.

Lastly, this is just a theory I've been throwing around...

It may be equal to the purest of water... like distilled water. Water that is so very pure as distilled water can do all kinds of damage to your body. It can even kill you because it is so nutritionally deficient. Refined sugar may possibly be in that same category.

[diamondheart]

I recently took a gluten free baking class and learned about baking with unrefined sugars. Agave nectar is now one of my favorites. It has a milder flavor than honey, and doesn't spike my blood sugar as much. Below is some information I compiled while researching what these unrefined sugars are composed of.


“The Use of Nutritive Sweeteners in Organic Food Processing Operations”

The following article has some interesting information on sugars.
http://www.agavenectar.com/CRMart/CRMart1.html

Table 4 compares the sugar composition of some of the unrefined sugars:

Agave: 70% fructose, 30% glucose
Evaporated cane juice: 99% sucrose
Honey: 55% fructose, 43% glucose, 2% sucrose
Maple Sugar: 2-4% fructose, 2-4% glucose, 92-96% sucrose
Molasses: 7-11% fructose, 7-11% glucose, 45-52% sucrose

Another website I found listed Maple Sugar as: 11% glucose, 88-89% sucrose

Fructose, glucose, and sucrose are all simple sugars.

Highlights from the article: Glucose is absorbed rapidly, spiking blood sugar, which is not ideal for diabetics. Fructose is metabolized directly to fat, and therefore does not require insulin and is preferred by diabetics. Fructose if the main simple sugar found in most fruits. However, some people are fructose intolerant, meaning that they can’t metabolize fructose. I’m sensitive to my blood sugar rising, which is probably why I like any sugar, like fructose, that has a lower glycemic index than white sugar.

“Maple, honey, molasses and rice contain significant quantities of minerals and proteins that , while affecting flavor, also provide magnesium and phosphate, which are metabolically advantageous for the digestibility of the carbohydrate.”

Rice syrup has a combination of complex carbohydrates and simple sugars. Some rice syrups are made with barley malt, so you have to be careful to read the labels when buying it.


Sugar Conversions:

The Whole Foods website has sugar conversions on their web page.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/reci...weeteners.html

Sugar Equivalency Chart
I included this chart because it had conversions for date sugar. Date sugar is just dried up ground dates. When substituting a liquid sweetener for a dry one, don't forget to reduce the other liquids in the recipe. The Whole Foods chart above gives conversions for reducing liquids.

1 cup white sugar = 1 cup maple syrup, date sugar, honey
1 cup brown sugar = 1 cup maple syrup, date sugar, honey
1 cup powdered sugar = 2/3 cup maple syrup, honey = 1 cup finely ground date sugar


Other Common Natural Sugar Substitutes
Note: these are not necessarily unrefined
(Reference http://www.nutricoach.net/sweeteners.html )

Stevia is a naturally sweet plant native to Paraguay that is 30 times sweeter than sugar in its unprocessed form. With more than 1,000 studies and patents on Stevia, it is known to be all-natural, contain zero calories and have a zero glycemic index. Through a patented process the pure glycosides can be extracted from the Stevia leaves and turned into an intensely sweet powder that is 300 times sweeter than sugar. Stevia is claimed to be safe for diabetics and hypoglycemics. 2 drops = 1 tsp. of sugar. Personal note: I buy the stevia herb in bulk and grind it up as I need it.

Xylitol is a natural substance derived from the xylan of birch and other hardwood trees, berries, almond hulls and corn cobs. It was discovered in 1891 by German chemist, Emil Fischer, and has been used as a sweetening agent since the 1960's. Xylitol is a substance that occurs naturally in many fruits and vegetables, and in fact, is produced in small amounts (5-15 grams per day) in the human body during normal metabolism. Xylitol enjoys wide acceptance in Japan, Finland, and the Scandinavian countries. In the Soviet Union it has been used for decades as a sweetener for diabetics. Numerous clinical and field studies performed over the past 30 years have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of xylitol as a healthy alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners.

Xylitol is a sugar alcohol. Sugar alcohols were given their consumer-friendly name because part of their structure resembles sugar and part is similar to alcohol. Sugar alcohols do not contain ethanol, which is found in alcoholic beverages. Sugar alcohols occur naturally in small amounts in fruits and vegetables, including berries, apples, and plums, but for large-scale commercial use they are manufactured from common sugars. While they are chemically very similar to sugars, they are less sweet than sugars and have fewer calories per gram.

Personal notes: I buy pure birch sugar xylitol. It looks like regular sugar, and is used the same way. Xylitol can have a laxative effect, so I use it in half the amount as called in a recipe.

Palm sugar comes from sugar palms. I haven’t found any yet, but I imagine it can be purchased at an Asian food store. It is used in Thai cooking.


Other Websites on Sugar

Here’s an interesting website discussing sugars, refined, partially refined, and unrefined.
"Rose’s Sugar Bible", by Rose Levy Beranbaum
http://www.thecakebible.com/articles...ugarbible.html

The blog version of this article has interesting comments at the end about how chefs use unrefined sugars, such as one baker substituting 1/2 of the sugar called for in a pumpkin pie recipe with date sugar:
http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2005/12/sugar.html

Claire