There are a wide variety of truly natural raw, unfiltered honeys available. Bees visiting the flowers of specific plants will produce honey with distinctive flavors and colors.
Only Two Truly Natural Sweeteners
Honey and stevia leaves are the only two sweeteners that are used just as nature provides them to us. They are also commonly available. Anyone who insists on a strictly “natural” diet should sweeten with nothing but raw, unfiltered honey and dried stevia leaves.
Be aware that most commercial honey has been highly processed. It is filtered to make it clear. It is pasteurized to kill all bacteria. Honeys from different areas and times are often blended to produce more consistent flavor. It may be diluted to make it more pourable and less likely to crystallize. All of these steps take honey further away from its natural state as originally produced by bees.
Eating honeys produced in your local area might have protective value against pollen and other allergies.
Stevia is also popular as a concentrated tincture. This product often comes in small bottles with a dropper/lid. Stevia makes our taste buds think it is about 200 times sweeter than crystallized sugar. I think stevia is a fantastic sweetener for people who like it, but for me and many others it has an oddly bitter aftertaste that makes it unappealing.
Raw, unfiltered honey and stevia retain all of the nutrients, organic and inorganic compounds nature gave them. All of that gets passed along to us when we eat them. I don’t recommend eating any sweetener for nutrition but some is better than none.
Only raw, unfiltered honey retains everything the bees put into it. Don’t be fooled by processed commercial honeys.
Maple Syrup Is Concentrated Tree Sap
Sugar, red and black maple trees produce sap in the Spring that is around 5% sugar. That sap is collected and boiled to remove water and concentrate the sugar. All of the other naturally occurring organic compounds and minerals in the sap are also concentrated, accounting for maple syrup’s color and flavor. It usually takes 10-13 gallons of sap to make one quart of maple syrup.
Maple syrup has a distinctive flavor caused by the nutrients and minerals in the sap of maple trees.
Maple syrup will never be found in nature. It is a man-made product. But it is a very unprocessed product. Roasted meat and steamed vegetables are almost never found in nature either. Maple syrup is on my list of “good”, natural sweeteners. As with any sweetener, a little goes a long way so use sparingly.
Molasses Retains The Nutrients Of The Sugar Cane Plant
Crystallized sugar is made by crushing and pressing sugar cane stalks to remove the liquid. That liquid is then boiled in three stages to remove the sugar as the juice concentrates. “Cane juice” is the liquid remaining after the first boiling and sugar removal. “Molasses” is the more concentrated liquid left after the second boiling stage. “Blackstrap” is the thickest, most flavorful and most bitter liquid remaining after the third boiling.
Molasses is just the reduced juice of sugar cane plants with some of the sugar removed. It is a good source of some minerals and other nutrients.
Molasses, like maple syrup, is just a concentrated plant sap. Also like maple syrup, molasses retains all of the nutrients of the original sap and is a good source of several minerals. These minerals and other nutrients account for the distinctive flavor and color of molasses and blackstrap.
Brown Rice Syrup Is Mostly Maltose
Brown rice syrup and stevia are the only major natural sweeteners not composed mostly of glucose and/or sucrose. Brown rice syrup is 45% maltose and 52% maltotriose, a trisaccharide with a glycemic index about the same as cooked whole brown rice. This gives brown rice syrup a considerably lower glycemic index than most major sweeteners.
Brown rice syrup is a liquid sweetener that makes a good replacement for corn syrup in baked recipes.
Brown rice syrup is also a more processed product. It is produced by using enzymes from dried barley sprouts to culture cooked rice. This breaks down the starches into sugars. The liquid is strained and reduced by boiling to concentrate the sugars.
Brown rice syrup has a flavor between caramel and molasses with no bitterness. This liquid sweetener retains many of the nutrients present in brown rice.
All Sugar Is Heavily Processed And Contains Almost No Nutrients
All of the sugars are much more processed products than the liquid sweeteners and stevia. None of the sugars contains any significant nutrients. They are derived from plants, either sugar cane or beets, but are no longer recognizable as such. I recommend eating as little refined sugar as possible. The sugars, whether brown sugar, refined white sugar, turbinado or sucanat, are nothing but a source of sweetness and totally empty calories.
A little refined sugar now and then will not ruin health or diet. Making sugar a regular habit is bad news.
I like a little sweetness in my afternoon and evening tea. I am not totally opposed to adding some sweetener to a BBQ sauce or making an occasional sweet&sour dish. But I prefer to get a some flavor and nutrition along with the sweet taste whenever possible.