Agave nectar is a sweetener commercially produced from several species of agave. It is an alternative to honey for vegans, who avoid animal products.
Agave has a low glycemic index. The glycemic index is a scale that measures how much the blood sugar level is raised by different foods.
Traditionally, agave nectar was made by extracting the sap and heating it to low temperatures. As the demand for agave nectar grew in past decades, the manufacturers of agave started using an enzymatic procedure to yield agave nectar from the agave plant.
Ramiel Nagel, author of “Cure Tooth Decay,” states, “The process in which the agave starch is converted into refined fructose and then sold as the sweetener agave nectar is through an enzymatic and chemical conversion that refines, clarifies, heats, chemically alters, centrifuges, and filters the nonsweet starch into a highly refined sweetener, fructose.”
In response to Rami Nagel’s article, Craig Gerbore, president of Madhava (the main manufacturer of Agave nectar) wrote, “The juice is evaporated and moisture removed in a vacuum evaporator… The temp is closely controlled… And, rather than convert the complex sugars of the juice thermally, we use gentle enzymatic action. Just as a bee introduces an enzyme to flower nectar to make honey, we introduce a natural organic vegan enzyme for the same purpose.”
Therefore, currently available agave nectar has been modified by enzymes and, possibly, chemicals. This is not the same agave nectar that was used traditionally in Mexico for centuries.
The question is: what is a healthy sweetener? To be continued…