Restoring a Healthy Relationship to Sweetness: A Guide to Nourishing Sweeteners
Understanding our Taste for Sweet
Human beings are designed to appreciate sweetness. Sweet is the taste of the first nourishment we know (breastmilk being somewhat sweet), and the flavour most prevalent in foods. This connection between the sweet flavour and mother’s milk reflects the way many cultures see the earth itself as a mother. It also highlights Traditional Chinese Medicine’s (TCM) association of the earth element with the sweet taste.
TCM finds a medicine in naturally sweet foods, understands them to be nourishing, strengthening (especially where there is a deficiency or depletion), calming and soothing to our systems (having properties that also ease coughs, spasms and pain).
The sweet taste is attributed to a range of foods that fortify us: from meat, beans, nuts, dairy, starchy and orange vegetables (such as carrots, yams and hard squashes) on one end, to cleansing fruits and sweeteners (more on this side of the spectrum below).
In Yin-Yang theory, which is the study of the relative energies of Yang (what is warmer, brighter, drying, expansive) and Yin (what is cooler, darker, moistening, contracting), these foods tonify our Yin, and build Qi and Blood (our vital energy and fluids), when eaten in moderation.
*photo by freddie marriage
Balance is Everything
So if the sweet taste is inherent in nature, and our bodies (and spirits) need it for our full wellbeing, where do things go off track?
First, harm occurs when, depending upon our constitution and the season we are in, we overindulge. Given sweetness’ ability to alleviate pain, this may be why we turn to it so often, especially when in emotional discomfort. Sweet in excess creates dampness, phlegm, inflammation, can make us feel spacey and ungrounded, and stresses our spleen, kidney and bones.
But even though we can overdo even naturally sweet things like fruit and honey, just as importantly, the quality of that food does matter. There is a huge difference between whole foods that have a sweet flavour, and the many degrees of refined sugar. We encounter problems when we take what starts out as a real food, and turn it into something else.
*photo by Tijana Drndarski
From Nourishing to Harming: the process of processing sugar
The sugarcane that grows from the earth begins as a relatively nutritious plant: its sugars exist along with vitamins, minerals and fibre. However, as the cane juice is stripped of its nutrient-rich molasses and subjected to extreme temperatures that destroy its enzymes (resulting in what is considered “raw sugar”), and then further refined with chemicals and bleaching agents, its vitality and original integrity is lost. This is the case even when some of those molasses are added back as “brown”, “turbinado” or “demerara” sugars.
The further the refining process, the more exacerbated are the effects on our bodies, which can extend into interfering with our absorption of nutrients, suppressing our immune system, and feeding cancer cells. Most insidiously:
The more we eat refined sugars, the more we crave them.
So, how do we interrupt this vicious cycle? We get acquainted with the wholesome sweet options that most humans are better equipped to handle.
*photo by Roberta Sorge
7 Healthy Natural Sweeteners to Try
The sweeteners (and foods in general) that are most health-supportive are the ones that remain closest to their whole state, minimally altered (or raw where possible), with their nutrients intact.
Something to note: eating healthy fats along with any sweetener slows down the rate at which the sugar is absorbed by our bodies, effectively lowering its glycemic index and mitigating that “spike and crash” in our system.
Here are some healthier ways to add sweetness when needed or desired:
Rapadura sugar: is produced by evaporating the water from whole sugarcane juice. It remains high in minerals and can be used in equal measurement to white sugar in baking.
Raw honey: is best used unheated to preserve the amylases, nutrients and enzymes it contains that help digest carbohydrates. According to TCM, honey neutralises toxins, nourishes Yin and strengthens our Lungs and Spleen. It’s also super helpful in easing dry, lingering coughs.
Maple syrup: is the concentrated sap of maple trees, rich in trace minerals that travel from below the ground through deep roots.
Molasses: as mentioned above, this thick syrup results from the processing of sugarcane (or sugar beets). Blackstrap is the least sweet, yet most nutritious, of the molasses varieties, with significant amounts of vitamins and minerals (especially iron, which accounts for its use as a blood tonic).
Coconut Sugar: is a traditional sweetener in South and Southeast Asia that can be used as a 1:1 substitute for white sugar in baking. The best versions are made by evaporating the sap of coconut blossoms at a low temperature (instead of boiling it), keeping its enzymes intact.
Stevia: is extracted from the leaves of a South American shrub. It does not raise blood sugar levels, nor does it produce dampness when used in moderation. It is highly concentrated - a pinch is as sweet as a spoonful of sugar - making it more useful for sweetening drinks and dressings than in baking.
Monkfruit (or Luo Han Guo): the juice of the fruit of this plant is likewise much, much sweeter than sugar yet does not affect blood sugar levels. It is stable at high temperatures, however, making it an option for baking.
There are other sweeteners (date sugar, brown rice and barley malt syrups, for example) that retain vitamins, minerals and amino acids when produced using traditional means. Unfortunately, many commercially available versions are more processed. Similarly, most of the health benefits of agave nectar are lost due to the amount of processing required to make it.
*photo by Heather Gill
Healing our Relationship with Sweetness
There is an addiction to the sweet taste that many of us have developed after eating these refined, no-longer-food, sugars. However, our bodies have an intelligence: they hold the memory of health and seek to restore balance always. We inherently know what flavours we need, when and in what amounts, and we can access this information once we start paying attention to the effects in our bodies of the foods we eat.
Nature provides an abundance of nourishing foods that offer the sweet taste. As we re-educate our sense of taste and reconnect with nature’s gifts, we come to appreciate sweetness as one of several flavours (and perhaps this extends to our experiences in life as well), but not the only one, through which we come to know and heal ourselves.