Let’s Talk About Health

What are the health issues regarding the consumption of refined sugar?

Posted by Dolores

KJ asked:


What are the healthiest, natural alternatives to refined sugar? Is there a conversion chart to allow me to substitute these healthy alternatives into my cooking and baking recipes?

JULIETTE

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 2:50 am and is filed under Diet & Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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One Response to “What are the health issues regarding the consumption of refined sugar?”

1. M T Says:
   February 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

   Besides the straight calories, it is mostly bad for the teeth (by “feeding” the bacteria in the mouth, lowering surface pH, thereby enhancing tooth decay via de-mineralization), so there is a reason to avoid it for all, even those who do not have any issues with unwanted weight gain.

   The purely natural sugars that come to mind, besides those in fruit, are honey and maple syrup. Honey has virtually no sucrose (being mostly fructose and glucose), and maple syrup is mostly sucrose. They may be less of a contributor to tooth decay, but sugar is sugar as far as calories go (except for glycemic index, where the basic thought is that lower is healthier). If anyone is going to eat sugar, though, at least with natural you get all the natural nutrients that come with them, as opposed to refined sugar, where all that other stuff has been stripped away. Molasses is a precursor to refined sugar that at least retains its nutrients/minerals.

   Here’s some conversion info: