It’s not a bad thing to look at your sugar. It is also not bad to have a sweet treatment in moderation. The theel for both balancing is to focus on the type of sugar you eat. There is no need to completely eliminate sugar from your life – after all, our bodies use sugar to make energy.
For women and children, the recommended amount is six tablespoons of sugar daily. For men, it is nine teaspoons. In terms of the type of sugar you should consume, natural sugar substitutes are a better option because they are easily processed or pre -processed. We described popular natural sugar alternatives below to help you figure out who you like best.
What are sugar substitutes or alternatives?
Before getting into sugar substitutes, it is important to clarify that sugar is not essentially bad for you. Vital vital to your health. Your body turns carbohydrates into glucose, a form of sugar, which is a major source of energy to keep your body in motion and your brain to function. Despite what some known diet advocates, without carbs and sugars you can experience health problems and symptoms such as low energy, sleep problems and brain fog.
The goal should not be to avoid sugar but to consume the right KIND of sugar. Most of today’s American diet consists of added sugars, which are processed and refined to add strong sweetness without much substance. Ultra acrened white sugar and high fructose corn syrup are common ingredients in soda, pastries, bread and lotions. These are quickly delivered to your blood flow without adding other nutritional values. Excessive consumption of these sugars can lead to serious health complications, including high blood pressure, diabetes and fatty liver disease.
You can find the amount of sugars added to the label of the nutrition facts and the list of ingredients of each food item. The higher the added sugar in the ingredient list, the more sugar is in the product. Added sugars go with many names, such as brown sugar, corn sweeteners, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, high fructose syrup, malt syrup, maltose and sucrose.
In contrast, natural sugars are prefixed or only easily processed and are naturally found in many foods. For example, fruits contain fructose, but they are also rich in fiber, providing a balanced combination of nutrients for your body. Honey and maple syrup are of course sweet, but rich in minerals, vitamins and antioxidants.
There are also various natural sweeteners and sugar substitutes that you can add to food and drinks that offer sweetness without weakness of refined sugars. Examples of these alternative sugars include sugar alcohol like sorbitol, artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and natural sweeteners such as stevia.
6 best natural sugar substitutes
Here’s the good news: if you want to cut the sugar, you still have a lot of options to keep things sweet. Below are six of the best natural sugar substitutes that you can add to your diet instead of refined sugars.
Honey
Honey has long been valued not only for its natural sweetness but also for its nutritional value. Bees make it from the nectar of plants to the pollination process and contains a variety of useful plant and antioxidant compounds.
Raw and darker honey, which are minimally processed, are rich in flavonoids and phenolic acids, in particular. These provide many benefits, including positive effects on cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and respiratory health. It is even shown to reduce seasonal allergies.
Maple syrup
Another natural popular sweetener, maple syrup, has claimed his place on top of many pies. If you are cutting the sugar, you may want to skip the pancakes, but hang on the syrup, which is produced from the sail of sugar maple trees.
This is because maple syrup, such as honey, contains antioxidants and minerals that can be beneficial to your health. Many of the unique compounds found in maple syrup have been shown to help fight cancer and diabetes. The darker the maple syrup, the less refined it is, and the more of these benefits can provide.
Stevia
If you are not a lover of maple or honey syrup aroma, but still want a way to sweeten drinks and recipes, Stevia is a great alternative to natural sugar to try. This sweetener is made of Stevia plant, and is 200 to 400 times sweeter than sugar on the table.
As a sugar substitute, Stevia is non-food, meaning it contains almost no calories. It adds sweetness without much other things, which may be what you are looking for when you cut the sugar again. Stevia has also been associated with lowering blood sugar and cholesterol. Remember that many stevia products on the market contain other processed ingredients or sugar alcohol, so it is important to do your research before using them.
Cleaned fruit
If you are looking for a more balanced nutrient form of sugar, it is difficult to overcome raw fruit. Dietary fiber present in raw fruits helps digest and slows sugar metabolism, reducing blood sugar drops that you can see from fruit juice or sugar additives. Eating fiber -rich foods can also help you reduce your total calorie intake and reduce your risk of heart disease.
Cleaned fruits give you many of the same benefits, and they can serve as sweeteners to add other foods. Apples work as an egg substitute in many recipes, for example, and cleaned berries make a great addition to plain, unsaturated yogurt.
Monk fruit
Monk fruits are another plant -based alternative sugar. This is extracted from the monk fruits, also known as Luo Han Guo, a small round fruit usually found in Southeast Asia. Although monk fruits themselves contain fructose and glucose, these are actually removed in the extraction process, creating a non-food sweetener that is about 100 times sweeter than the sugar on the table.
Monk fruits are relatively new to the market, so further study needs to determine all its possible health benefits. Research on other non-authorive sweeteners show promising results in terms of weight management and diabetes protection. Of course sweet mogrosides in monk fruits also contain antioxidants, which can help immune health and prevent cancer.
Fruit juice
Fruit juice is a natural sweetener that you can drink yourself or add to other drinks or creams or even use in cooking. 100% fruit juice is a much better option than refined table sugar or high fructose corn syrup because fruit juice is natural and raw. It also contains loads of vitamins and nutrients.