On the heels of Dr. Mercola's negative article yesterday (see my post below), more bad news today about agave nectar from an even better source: vegan dietician Jeff Novick who has become one of the go-to guys in the plant-based world for nutritional advice. He makes the interesting point that some of the same "natural food" stores that outlaw HFCS products (high fructose corn syrup)—like the Earthfare chain of stores in the southeast—sell agave nectar as a recommended sweetener even though agave has a higher fructose content than HFCS! There is also misleading information regarding agave's (low—lower is better) glycemic index scores that Novick addresses.
Read the article here. Bottom line: agave isn't all it's been cracked up to be.
Addendum, same day: I was at Costco this afternoon and stopped by the booth where a guy was demonstrating and selling the BlendTec blender, making and giving away fruit smoothies. He was also selling QUARTS of agave nectar! Why would anyone need to further sweeten a fruit smoothie with agave—or anything else? (Full Disclosure: in September, 2008, I posted on this blog my recipe for the fruit smoothie I make almost daily. At that time, I included in the ingredients one Tbsp of agave nectar. It was not long after that that I began reading about agave and stopped using it in my smoothies. It just wasn't necessary given all the natural sugar in the fruit. I have since deleted it from the recipe I posted. Live and learn! I need to update that recipe and repost it since I have tweaked it a good bit since Sept 2008. It was good then, but is even better now—with the addition of kale, spinach, and some other goodies.)
Read the article here. Bottom line: agave isn't all it's been cracked up to be.
Addendum, same day: I was at Costco this afternoon and stopped by the booth where a guy was demonstrating and selling the BlendTec blender, making and giving away fruit smoothies. He was also selling QUARTS of agave nectar! Why would anyone need to further sweeten a fruit smoothie with agave—or anything else? (Full Disclosure: in September, 2008, I posted on this blog my recipe for the fruit smoothie I make almost daily. At that time, I included in the ingredients one Tbsp of agave nectar. It was not long after that that I began reading about agave and stopped using it in my smoothies. It just wasn't necessary given all the natural sugar in the fruit. I have since deleted it from the recipe I posted. Live and learn! I need to update that recipe and repost it since I have tweaked it a good bit since Sept 2008. It was good then, but is even better now—with the addition of kale, spinach, and some other goodies.)
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