DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I totally understand. My first experience with stevia was an attempt to make brownies and they were horrible.

I wouldn't recommend using the product Stevia Extract In The Raw. There is nothing raw about it, in either sense of the word. It's not uncooked, and it's not without any additions. The "in the raw" part of the name is just because it is made by the "Sugar In The Raw" company (which is also not uncooked, but is straight sugar).

Their website states that in their Packet Product,"The stevia extract is blended with dextrose, a natural carbohydrate derived from corn" and in their Cup For Cup “Baker’s Bag” Product, "Stevia extract is blended with maltodextrin, a natural carbohydrate derived from corn." How a corn sweetener is zero calorie, I don't know. But basically what is happening here is that highly refined corn extracts are being combined with highly refined stevia extracts to make a fractionated sweetener that is no more "whole" than refined white sugar.

I used to recommend stevia drops until I decided to use only whole food sweeteners. I do recommend whole stevia herb leaves, which can be eaten fresh off the plant, or used fresh or dried in hot and cold tea blends for sweetness, or brewed alone to make a sweet tea that can then be used as a liquid sweetener.

But stevia lacks the bulk of sugar and so is not very practical for baked goods.

Sorry I can't give you any tips on how to make stevia brownies.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

The website says that this is "a 'first crystallization' sugar made directly from the original cane juice," that it is light brown in color and can be used to replace white sugar.

Sucanat and Rapadura are not crystalized, but rather more like a fine powder. They are simply dehydrated and can replace brown sugar, but not white.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

If it's a white powder (I've never seen it), it's just as refined as white cane sugar, not a whole food.

Whole leaf stevia is easy to brew, like making tea. You can't use it cup-for-cup as a replacement for white sugar, but you can add it for sweetness to things like smoothies and salad dressings, or soak fruit in it, and especially make iced herbal tea. I have it growing in my garden and I just pull leaves of mint and stevia and make tea for a very refreshing beverage.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I've never tried toffee with agave, however, I did test it and found it would "crack" to make hard candy, so it should be fine.

I would, though, encourage diabetics to eat whole fruit instead.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Yes, don't you think my English Toffee is the best? Even better than the toffee made with white sugar?

You can use brown rice syrup, agave, and unrefined cane sugar (Rapadura and Sucanat) to make hard candy. All will crack as refined sugar does. Maple syrup and honey with also crack.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I don't recommend erythritol (see Sugar Alcohols). I see no problem with Lo Han from a health viewpoint, but I found it so difficult to use that I didn't pursue it as a viable everyday sweetener.

I prefer to stick with the whole food natural sweeteners. But this would be a better choice than refined sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Any powdered sugar labeled "organic powdered sugar" is made from unrefined cane sugar. I personally use Hain Organic Powdered Sugar.

Note to readers with corn allergies: All powdered sugar contains a small amount of corn starch.

I don't use much of this. I'm not eating a pile of frosting on cake or lots of candy made with powdered sugar. I use maybe a half a teaspoon to sprinkle on fruit or in a recipe.

Because it is powdered, the volume of sugar is less than granulated sugar and you get more sugar taste for fewer carbs or calories.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I need to do more research to resolve the fructose question, but here is what I know at the moment.

There is a lot of confusion about fructose. Many people think that it is "the sugar from fruit" but in fact, the sugar in fruit is much more complex than fructose. There are many different sugar molecules, and I will work on writing something up about this.

The sweetener "fructose" that you see on product labels and is sold as a sweetener is refined corn sugar.

The sugar in Fruit Sweet is a complex blend of the sugars found in the fruits used. To make Fruit Sweet, fruits are juiced (so there is no pulp fiber) and the juice is cooked down into a syrup. It is not refined to the degree of corn fructose, but fiber and water are removed.

Fruit Sweet would act very differently in your body than eating a whole, raw fruit, but it is not as refined as some sweeteners.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

My previous comments on vegetable glycerin are at Sweet Savvy: Vegetable Glycerin.

I haven't done any further research, but I am even more convinced than before of the importance of eating WHOLE FOODS, which vegetable glycerin is not.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Rapadura and Sucanat are sugars I am calling "unrefined cane sugar." I have no experience with Alter Eco Ground Cane Sugar so I can't speak to that.

I used to call Rapadura and Sucanat "evaporated cane juice" but that term is now widely misused, so I chose "unrefined cane sugar."

What I mean by "unrefined cane sugar" is a powder that is NOT crystallized, but simple the juice from the sugar cane with the water evaporated out. The powder is about the color of refined brown sugar.

I am calling Sucanat a powder. Yes, it is grainy, but in comparison to crystallized sugar, it is a powder. When ground very fine and sold as organic powdered sugar, it is an off white, it is not still brown. If you make icing out of organic powdered sugar and refined powdered sugar and put them side by side, you will see how brown it is.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Crystalized cane juice is just refined white sugar. As the sugar is heated, it separates and forms crystals. It's less refined than white sugar, but refined just the same.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Same amount or even a bit less. But you may need to reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by about a quarter because sugar is a dry sweetener and agave is a liquid sweetener. Depends on what you are making.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

This is what happens when we have international commerce for foods.

There is no need to import honey from China. Bees make honey right here in America. Honey is imported because we want more honey than our own bees make. Prior to industrial consumerism, for millenia people ate the foods that were available in their local ecosystems, in the amounts that were available. Today we import from around the world to satisfy the whim of the consumer. It's out of balance with nature. And it's led to all these problems.

Honey is not inherently an unhealthful food, but the manner in which it is produced is dangerous and honey is not well labeled.

If you want to eat honey, find a local producer at a farmer's market or your local natural food store. Then you can learn for yourself how the honey is handled and where the bees are flying. See if you have a local beekeepers association. It's also better to eat local honey because it helps your body tolerate the local pollen.

Here are more recent articles about honey, from the Seatlle Post-Intelligencer:

Don't let claims on honey labels dupe you: If it's made in America, it's likely not organic This one is the most important to read, as it discusses what's on the honey labels and government regulations.

Honey Laundering: A sticky trail of intrigue and crime

Antibiotic use could taint honey's reputation as a miracle drug

U.S. honey producers don't have it easy, and some say industry board isn't helping

Experts call for better U.S. standards for honey

Honey isn't all sweetness, experts warn

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

The first step in making sugar from sugar cane is to remove the juice from the fiber. This requires a press. These costs hundreds and thousands of dollars. I think in Thailand they have hand presses for sugar cane, but I have been unable to locate one. A local restaurant here in Florida has an electric press that they use to extract the juice from sugar cane in the bar to use in tropical alcoholic drinks and lemonade (and you can order a shot of sugar cane juice to put in your ice tea). It requires a lot of pressure to extract the juice.

The best way to use sugar cane at home is to just cut off a bite-sized chunk and chew on it. It gives a slow release of sweetness, like chewing gum.

But I haven't come up with a way yet to utilize sugar cane in any other way.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

The closest replacement to ordinary sugar is unrefined cane sugar (such as Sucanat or Rapadura) for brown sugar and "organic" powdered sugar for white sugar.

The organic powdered sugar is unrefined and taste like white sugar. However, it contains a small amount of corn starch, so it is not suitable for people with corn allergies.

I find that agave is a really good substitute for white sugar. It's sweet and has a clean taste that has no other flavor.

There is no difference I can tell between Sucanat and Rapadura. You can use them both the same way.

About the granulated sugars, see Sweet Savvey: Unrefined Cane Sugar for a breakdown of all the different types of sugar that come from sugar cane.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Yes, and it's really delicious.

And it will raise blood sugar just like refined white sugar, though it is less refined.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Agave is definitely the lowest and honey is the highest. The others are in the middle.

There is a glycemic index that assigns numbers to foods, but I don't use that as there is a high variation of actual glycemic response from person to person. So here is the relative general glycemic index of the sweeteners currently used in my recipes:

High
----
Dates and Date Sugar
Fruit Spreads
Honey
Maple Syrup
Apple Syrup
Birch Syrup

Medium
------
Barley Malt Syrup
Brown Rice Syrup

Low
---
Agave Nectar
Unrefined Cane Sugar

Negligible
--------
Stevia Leaf
Oligofructose

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

You can use maple sugar one for one for white or brown sugar. It adds very little maple flavor.

I haven't used it in recipes on this website because it is just as refined as eating white cane sugar. Refined white sugar is made by boiling the juice of sugar cane until it is clarified and granulated. Maple sugar is made by boiling the sap of the maple tree until it is clarified and granulated.

Maple sugar is also difficult to find and is very expensive.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

You can make them into bars. Just put the batter into a cake pan and bake.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I have heard of Fruit Sweet and was using it some years ago. Then I wasn't able to find it.

I agree with you, it does work well. I need to add it to my list.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Vanilla pudding mix is basically cornstarch, sugar, and artificial flavorings and coloring.

So to replace it in a recipe, you need cornstarch and sweetener and vanilla flavor.

A standard vanilla pudding recipe contains:

3 cups milk
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

So thats 1 part cornstarch to 2 parts sugar. Find out how the amount of mix is in one package of dry vanilla pudding mix and mix that amount of cornstarch and sweetener with a 2:1 ratio. Then try to estimate the amount of vanilla to add.

This should work.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Well, diabetes is a very complex thing, but I will try to explain as best I can.

There are two types of diabetes--Type 1 and Type 2.

With type 1 diabetes, a person's pancreas produces little or no insulin, so they must inject or pump insulin two or three times or more every day. How much insulin to take can be very tricky, so there are times when a Type 1 diabetic can have blood sugar that is too high or too low. When it's too low, a candy bar will bring it up fast. Only 5 to 10 percent of people who are diagnosed with diabetes have type 1 diabetes.

With Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas produce insulin, but it does not produce enough or it has trouble using it. The problem is too much sugar in the blood, which is why diabetics are told to not eat sugar.

Where Type 1 diabetes requires insulin, most Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by losing weight, improving nutrition and increasing exercise.

The recommended diet for people with Type 2 diabetes is to eat very few carbohydrates, as all carbs will raise blood sugar. Refined carbs will raise blood sugar faster and higher than complex carbs, so it's better to eat whole wheat bread, for example, than white bread, but no bread is even better. The best book I know of on the subject is The Diabetes Diet by Dr. Bernstein.

And so sweeteners are a big thing to know about with diabetes.

The safest sweetener for a diabetic is stevia, hands down. It does not raise blood sugar at all. But the thing you need to do is test the sweeteners you want to eat and see what they do to YOUR blood sugar, because every body is different.

Also, how much of a carb you eat affects the blood sugar rise. You could probably eat a teaspoon of almost anything.

Also, exercise burns carbs, so if you eat a sweet and then exercise it off, you won't get the blood sugar spike. Or you can bring your blood sugar down with exercise.

But I'm a little confused that your doctor says your blood sugar isn't high...

I do personal consultations for a fee. Call me. I can help you through this. [ click here for info onpaid telephone consultations

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

That's absolutely true.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I would get some sweet apples or apple juice and cook them down into Apple Syrup. And then use the apple syrup to sweeten the applesauce.

Or you could use evaporated cane juice (Sucanat or Rapadura), which would give a brown sugar flavor.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I don't know exactly the ratio of cooking down apple cider syrup. I've made it and I just cook it until it "looks right." But if you are familiar with making maple syrup, maybe you could standardize this and let us know. It is like making maple syrup in that you just cook it down to the right consistency.

I don't know how it works in making jams and jellies. I've never made jam or jelly. A reader wrote to me about using something called Universal Pectin (see Sweet Savvy: Jam) and their website says you can make jam with any sweetener using their pectin. So I would assume you could use apple syrup.

Please write again and let us know what you come up with.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

You may have heard the recommendation, "If you don't recognize a food ingredient as a food, don't eat it!" That applies to sweeteners as well.

Sorbitol, Eythritol, Isomalt, and Polydextrose are sugar alcohols. Acesulfime and Neotame are artificial sweeteners, not recommended. Potassium is a salt.

I wouldn't use this product.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Actually, they do, but each in a different way.

Fructose crystals are highly refined corn syrup. I don't recommend them. Read more about this at Sweet Savvy: Corn Fructose.

Xylitol is a sugar alcohol (read more about them at http://sweetsavvy.com/sweeteners/summary.php?id=Corn%20Fructose
Sweet Savvy: Sugar Alcohols). Sugar alcohols are not sugar in the same way that refined cane or beet sugar is sugar. So a sugar alcohol crystal is a completely different thing.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I'm not sure what they are referring to when they say "raw cane sugar" as I have seen cane sugar labeled "raw" when it wasn't at all.

Erythritol is a sugar alcohol. You can read my opinion about them at Sweet Savvy: Sugar Alcohols.

Personally, I prefer to stick with sweeteners that come from nature, as they are.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

This is a good question. I like your logic!

From my viewpoint, whole natural cane juice that has been evaporated to remove the water only is much more healthful than any so-called natural sweetener (such as stevia) where the sweet component is removed from the whole plant.

Since you are looking for a sweetener to "sugar-activate" a process (like feeding yeast to bake bread), you need a sweetener that will feed the yeast. Stevia and xylitol won't do that. It has to be a real food.

Sucanat would be a great sweetener for your use, or honey, or maple syrup.

Now, as far as "squeezing a fruit," of course! Apples in particular are very suited to this. You can cook the apple juice down to concentrate it and even dehydrate it. I don't know if it would be able to feed yeast, but you could give it a try.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I'm going to give you a quick answer here, though there is more explanation. One day I will sit down and write it all out.

All cane sugar starts with the raw sugar cane. It is very fiberous. If you take a piece in your mouth and chew on it, it will taste very sweet as the juice is released. If you can get fresh sugar cane (we can here in Florida), try it. It is a whole, sweet food with lots of nutrients.

The next step is to press the cane in a very heavy duty machine that presses the juice from the fiber. I've looked for a hand-crank sugar cane press, and the few that exist are expensive. It's not like juicing oranges! A local restaurant here has an expensive motorized sugar cane press and they make fresh sugar cane juice to sweeten drinks. I've had it and it is wonderful. It's essentially like chewing on sugar cane, only the machine does the chewing. Though sugar cane is fiberous, you can't eat the fiber--what you can get out of the sugar cane is the juice.

Now, you can take that sugar cane juice and remove the water. That is evaporated cane juice. It's the whole cane juice with nothing added or removed, except the water. It is a powder--not a crystal. If you want to consume it in it's natural form, as it would be straight from the cane, mix it with water, about a teaspoon in a half a cup of water.

Jumping ahead, the process of refining sugar is one of heating this cane juice until it separates into the pure white sugar crystals and the syrupy sludge of "impurities" (all the nutrients) that we call molasses. By the way, what we call "brown sugar" is refined white sugar with molasses added, not the same as the whole evaporated cane juice.

I suppose evaporated cane juice could be "raw" if it was evaporated at low temperatures, but I don't think you could get it to crystalize without boiling it, and then it wouldn't be raw.

I find that labeling about evaporated cane juice is very inconsistent and I have to call manufacturers and a lot of the time they don't know. Ask if it is a crystal or a powder and if it's brown. If they say it's a brown powder, then it's sugar cane juice without the water.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

It's better to use the dried whole leaf (or fresh whole leaf, of course) or powdered whoe green leaf, rather than the white powder. This is the whole, unrefined stevia as it exists in nature (with water removed).

The white powder is a "fractionated" stevia, just the sweet part removed from the whole leaf. It is much easier to use and is more versatile, but it is "refined".

The point about this is that nature supplies various substances within a context. For example, vitamin C comes in a package called an "orange", along with water, fiber, and other nutrients and sugars. Nature's intention is clearly that vitamin C is intended to be consumed with these other co-factors.

Does this mean we shouldn't eat pure vitamin C? Well, it would be better if we took it with water and fiber and other nutrients, which is why many supplements say to take them with food.

When we take individual food components out of context, we open the door to imbalance. Nature never isolates and concentrates food components. They are always offered in context. And our bodies are designed to eat them in context. This is why I am moving in the direction of satisfying our natural desire for sweets with naturally sweet foods.

And fresh or dried stevia leaf is one of these naturally sweet foods. I have a living stevia plant right by my back door. As I pass by, if I want something sweet, I just pop a leaf in my mouth! Many edible flowers are sweet too. The red flowers of Pineapple Sage are very sweet, mint leaves are delicious and come in a number of flavors (try chocolate mint!) and anise produces licorice-flavored seeds. These are "natural candies" that require no sweetener, and they can all be grown in pots.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work

Agave can usually be substituted equally for refined white sugar, so use the normal amount at first and adjust to taste.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Molasses does make blood sugar rise, and the granulated form moreso than the liquid form.

Keep in mind that what you eat with any sweetener will affect the effect it has on your blood sugar. Eating sweets with protein or fat will slow the blood sugar spike as will eating the sweetener in a smaller amount.

The best sweeteners for diabetics are stevia, agave, and oligofructose and maybe xylitol. You should try a teaspoon of any sweetener you want to use and test your blood sugar to see how your own body responds.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Yes, it would be counterproductive if you want the benefits of raw honey.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I've never heard of this, and I used to drink a fair amount of lemonade made with stevia (I stopped after muscle testing showed it made my body weak).

Readers?

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

When I wrote about lo han in Home Safe Home, it was before I started experimenting with actually using the sweeteners, which turned into Sweet Savvy. So it was "theoretical".

Using lo han turned out to be not very practical.

There are several commercial products made with lo han and other ingredients. One mixed it with corn fructose, which I didn't want to use, another was mixed with a sugar I wasn't sure of. The best one I've found is SweetFiber, which combines lo han with inulin, but I haven't tried it. They promise three packets a day will help you lose weight.

Regardless, I later learned that the lo han in this type of product is very processed and uses solvents to extract only the sweet portion of the fruit. So this is not in a "whole fruit" form. [I just want to note, since you asked about stevia, that white stevia powder and liquid stevia are also highly processed and not whole foods. The best way to consume stevia is to eat the leaves off the bush or make tea from the dried leaves.]

In Asia, where lo han is more widely used, it is not in this refined form. Lo han fruit is sold fresh and as a dried fruit powder for medicinal purposes, and included in teas. So you may be able to get this whole dried lo han and try it in a beverage.

Here is a good article that has lots more info on lo han, if you wanted to use it for any of it's medicinal purposes. I don't see that it really is a viable sweetener for use beyond sweetening tea (but fine to use for that purpose).

LUO HAN GUO Sweet Fruit Used as Sugar Substitute and Medicinal Herb.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

This is a confusing subject because people who sell agave say it is "fructose". My understanding is that fructose is not naturally occurring in fruit, but is manufactured from corn.

The "fructose" that Morgan Spurlock ingested in "Supersize Me" was no way from fruit or agave. He only consumed foods from McDonald's which meant that the fructose he was consuming was high fructose corn syrup. That is highly refined and could cause liver damage.

We should not be overconsuming any concentrated sweetener. I eat about 1 teaspoon of agave a day.

Please write and tell me what Sally Fallon says. I respect her opinion.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I understand about the stevia aftertaste.

I'm not an expert on what is allowed on a yeast diet.

Readers, your suggestions?

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Lead in chocolate is primarily found in chocolates that contain pesticides and Dutch-process cocoa. So as long as you choose an organic chocolate, and avoid products containing Dutch-process cocoa, you should be fine.

Generally organic chocolate is not sold in supermarkets (but things are changing all the time, I recently saw organic chocolate bars at Walgreen's!). You can find a good assortment of organic chocolate bars at your local natural food stores and Trader Joe's also has organic chocolate bars, if you have that store in your area.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

You bring up some interesting points that I actually hadn't thought about. I hadn't considered how processed fruit pectin might be (it sounds so natural, like "fructose") but in fact, it is an isolated substance that is very processed, and mostly standardized with sugar (I'm assuming that's refined white sugar). This is the problem with food labeling. Labels are only required to state the final ingredients used in the food product, and not the ingredients that are contains in the ingredients. So here, someone thinking a fruit spread is all fruit (because it is labeled as such), is actually buying a product that contains at least a bit of sugar.

So if this is the case, the pectin one would use to make one's own fruit spreads would be that same pectin.

I think one needs to consider how much of a substance one needs to ingest before it becomes harmful, and that would be different for each person's body.

Fruit spreads bring up another issue as well, and that is the concentration of the fruit sugar.

If one wishes to be "natural," natural would be an apple, for example. An organic apple--whole and fresh in the state it is in on the tree. As soon as you cook it, it's no longer in it's natural state, and the sugars are concentrated. If you separate the juice from the fiber, again less natural and more concentrated. And then you cook that down, and it's even more concentrated. But it is thought to be natural because it originally was an apple. But concentrated apple juice doesn't exist in nature. Our bodies are designed for fresh organic apples.

When I started this website, I was looking for sweeteners that were a step away from refined and artificial sweeteners. Now, more recently, I'm wanting to eat whole, sweet foods.

So, a whole food sweetener. That would be whole, unrefined, raw honey. Evaporated cane juice (that's concentrated but otherwise whole). Maple syrup is whole, but cooked and concentrated. Agave likewise. Ground chickory root (ogliofructose) is whole and full of beneficial fiber. Stevia is whole if you use the leaves unrefined.

The healthiest sweet to eat is fresh raw fruit. I've been working on more recipes for this site that just takes fresh raw fruit and makes it more interesting. Like ambrosia--oranges with coconut.

Beyond the fresh raw fruit, we get progressively less healthy. But anything on this website is healthier than refined white sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

What a great idea to dilute stevia! Why didn't I think of that! That would make it so much easier to measure.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I really don't know any more than you do about it, except I have a bottle.

It is a syrup from the root of the yacon, a plant native to Peru. It's sugar is an ogliosaccharide, so it doesn't spike blood sugar. The one I have is both organic and raw.

I've had this bottle on my shelf for over a year, and it hasn't inspired me to use it. It has a consistancy like honey or agave, but it is less sweet and has more of a strong flavor. So any dish containing it would necessarily have to have the flavor to get enough sweetness.

Agave is great because it doesn't add any flavor of it's own. You could only use yacon with foods that had compatible flavors.

It's not an unpleasant flavor...it's similar to dates. But for me, ogliofructose from chicory root (Sweet Perfection) is much more versatile as an all-purpose sweetener.

I have no reason to believe that yacon is harmful to health in any way, so I have no objections to using it. It's just, for me, it's use is limited and I am not so in love with the flavor that I would use it in a recipe for taste.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

The ingredients are OK, but I don't think you can substitute it cup for cup for sugar. Check the label. Usually stevia products have an equivalency, like one teaspoon for a cup of sugar.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Well, here's the thing about molasses.

Molasses is the stuff that's leftover after they refine cane sugar. If you look at evaporated cane juice, it's brown and full of nutrients. When it's refined and granulated you end up with a pile of "pure" white sugar and molasses, which is everything else.

Molasses is actually considered by some to be a dietary supplements because of the nutrients it contains (nutrients in blackstrap molasses).

Since all the sucrose has been crystallized out, it's not very sweet and it also has a strong flavor. So, though it is sold with the sugar in the supermarket, I don't really consider it to be a sweetener. You couldn't, for example, use it as the sole sweeteners in cookies or cake. To me, it's more a flavoring for baked beans or gingerbread.

That's why it's not on the list.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Check at your local natural food store. They have many brands of gum with safer sweeteners.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I have a lot of brands of stevia listed at Debra's List: Food: Sweeteners: Stevia.

I like the taste of Stevia Plus the best, and also like the drops better than the powder.

Personally, my favorite stevia is the fresh leaves from the plant. It tastes the best. I used to have a plant in my backyard and would just eat the leaves or use them in tea. But you can't cook with them.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I haven't tried Just Like Sugar, but I will.

[Later...I did try Just Like Sugar. It is made from "Chicory Maltodextrin, Chicory Dietary Fiber (that's oligofructose),vitamin C, Calcium, and Natural Flavor. I'm concerned about the first ingredient: Chicory Maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is one of a group of dextrins, which are sweet carbohydrates produced in a laboratory by the hydrolysis of starch. Any starch can be used. Usually it is corn, in this case chicory. It is is a polysaccharide, not an oligosaccharide as oligofructose is. Maltodextrin is easily digestible and absorbed as rapidly as glucose. So it is not the same as chicory root fiber.

Chicory Maltodextrin is the first ingredient in Just Like Sugar. And Just Like Sugar is crystalline. Sweet Perfection is definitely a powder, like a finely ground fiber. It's a completely different thing.

I'm not sure I trust the maltodextrin in Just Like Sugar. Dr. Bernstein, who has written the most respected books on diet for diabetics, says absolutely no maltodextrin for diabetics.

And I tasted it and it doesn't taste "just like sugar". So I'm not going to recommend this one.]

There are other products with oligofructose mixed with other ingredients. I like Sweet Perfection because it is 100% oligofructose.

I also tried Sweet Vibes, with is oligofructose and stevia. The problem is that it just melted into a glob in the bottle, so I couldn't use it. The Sweet Perfection, for some reason, doesn't do this.

Suzanne Somers' Somersweet also has an oligofructose base. Read more about why I don't recommend Somersweet at Somersweet by Suzanne Somers. If anyone comes across any other oligofructose sweeteners, let me know.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I haven't heard that it isn't. But I would suggest double checking with one of the companies that makes it and reporting back to us.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I think that making rice syrup is probably a long and laborious process--not that one shouldn't do long and laborous processes, but it probably requires some "art" as well.

Apple syrup is easy to make. I don't know the shelf life. I would keep it in the fridge. I've kept some in the fridge for weeks (like over a month) and it was fine. I would probably make an amount you would use in a month, not gallons.

You could make fruit syrup with any fruit juice. You could even start with fresh fruit juice instead of concentrate, it would just take longer to cook down.

Apple syrup is the only natural syrup I know of that a home cook could make. I suppose if you had access to maple sap you could boil that down, or you could evaporate cane juice if you had a sugar cane press and access to fresh sugar cane.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Unfortunately, most frosting is based on confectioner's sugar, which makes the consistency.

There is something called Boiled Icing which is usually made with sugar syrup. You may be able to make this with honey, probably not agave, probably maple syrup. I haven't tried it, but here is the recipe.

Boiled Icing

1 c Sugar
1/3 c Water
1/4 ts Cream of tartar
1 ts Flavoring
1 lg Egg white

Beat egg white until frothy, add cream of tartar.
Beat until stiff and dry.

Cook sugar and water until it has reaches the
honey stage, or drops heavily from spoon. Add 5
tablespoons slowly to egg, beating in well. Then
cook remainder of syrup until it threads and pour
over egg, beating thoroughly. Add flavoring and beat until cool.

If any of you try this, let me know how it turns out.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

This is a big subject and I have a lot to say about it, which is why I am working on a whole website about food.

Here's the short answer for now.

I don't have a set menu. What I eat changes from day to day depending on my activities and how much fuel my body needs. Also whether I am home or traveling, being strict or splurging.

But here is my basic rule of thumb.

I eat three meals a day, plus a snack in the middle of the afternoon and a snack before bed.

I never eat things like donuts or sodas.

For each meal, I choose a protein and add some vegetables. Then maybe a little carb food but most of the time not.

So what this looks like is for breakfast I usually have either eggs, usually scrambled with sauteed vegetables and/or cheese, or cheese on a rye fiber cracker. I eat 1-2 eggs or about 3 oz of cheese. Or my husband makes a blender drink with whole fruits and vegetables and raw eggs.

For lunch I usually have a big salad with lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados, and whatever else looks good, plus some protein, usually cold roasted chicken. I roast a whole chicken every week so I can pick the meat off it as the week progresses. In the wintertime, I make soup with the bones at the end of the week, plus carrot, celery, and onions.

For dinner, we have some kind of protein and cooked vegetables, often green beans, or another salad.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I eat a lot of vegetables.

I'm not a 100% raw food person, but I make a point to eat as many raw vegetables as I can and some raw fruit.

We don't have potatoes, bread, or white sugar at home. When I bake to test the Sweet Savvy recipes, I use whole wheat flour.

For a snack I usually have a handful of nuts or some cheese and a rye fiber cracker.

Every night before bed I eat about 1/4 cup of frozen cherries with some cream and a teaspoon of organic cocoa powder sweetened with evaporated cane juice. This doesn't not affect my blood sugar at all and the cherries prevent gout attacks and help me sleep.

I'm not saying this is the perfect diet for everyone. I'm saying my body does pretty well on it. I'm sure it can be further refined, but this is where I am in my own food journey.

Now this many sound boring, but it isn't. I just use these basic ingredients and flavor them up in creative ways. I have about a dozen ways to fix eggs that I like, so I'm not eating the same flavors day after day. And I eat foods seasonally, so there is variety.

I also vary the way I serve the food, like instead of a bowl of salad, I'll wrap the other vegetables in a lettuce leaf to make a lettuce wrap, or I'll just serve the small center leaves with dressing on the side for dipping. This is actually my husband's favorite way to eat raw vegetables. All I have to do is put them on a plate with something for him to dip them in and he's happy.

I actually don't eat much dessert except for the aforementioned cherries and chocolate, which are "medicinal." And this little treat keeps me from reaching for white sugar/white flour desserts.

When I'm traveling it's harder. More carbs sneak in. And if I travel someplace with interesting food, I have to try it. I love to eat. When I'm traveling I'm walking more so I burn off those extra carbs, and often come home with lower blood sugar even though I've eaten more carbs.

Right at the moment, I'm traveling in San Francisco. Yesterday for breakfast I ate scrambled eggs with chicken apple sausages, whole wheat toast, and fresh fruit. For lunch I had a stir fry with chicken, vegetables, pineapple, and ginger, with a little rice. For dinner I had Indian food--pampadams, samosas, pakora, tandoori chicken, and a cooked vegetable dish and I split an order of mango ice cream with my friend. Other days I've had a big organically grown salad for lunch with chicken, which is my favorite.

But I've evolved the above to be my basic diet that I always come back to.

I eat as much organic food as I can purchase where I live. When I move to San Francisco there will be a lot more available and I will eat a lot more. Most of the time I am preparing my food at home from fresh raw ingredients. The only canned foods I buy are coconut milk and olives. I make almost everything from scratch (though I do have some organic chicken broth on the shelf).

More to come. I'm working on a food website that is going to be fabulous!

Oh, about those sweets...concentrate on eating good food and you will gradually forget about the sweets. The only desserts I eat are the recipes I am testing, and then I just taste them and give the rest away to my very happy friends. I don't even want a lot of sweets any more now that my body is actually nourished.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Sorbital and malitol are both sugar alcohols, similar to xylitol.

When I was reading your post, before I got to the end I was thinking "gum with xyylitol" so this one seems to be fine.

The only drawback I know to the sugar alcohols is that if you consume too much they can cause diarrhea. So if that occurs, cut back on the gum.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

My husband and I have been eating and drinking raw eggs in various recipes for years and have never had a problem. Some people claim that raw eggs are more healthful to eat than cooked eggs because cooking changes the egg in a way that is incompatable with the body. I eat both raw eggs and cooked eggs.

Read Raw Eggs for Your Health by Dr. Mercola. He says "only sick chickens lay salmonella-contaminated eggs. If you are obtaining high quality, cage-free, organically fed, omega-3 enhanced chicken eggs...the risk virtually disappears."

If this is a concern for you, you can purchase powdered pasturized egg whites at supermarkets and natural food stores to make recipes such as mousses that require raw egg whites. And added to a smoothie, they will make it light and foamy.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Unfortunately, you can't can raw applesauce as the cooking process for canning cooks it.

If you have lots of apples, I suggest drying them in the sun. Then you can store them without refrigeration and use them all winter.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

That sounds great to me!

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

For the cake, I recommend my Fabulous All-Organic Special Occasion Cake, which has been a hit every time I have made it. And you can make it with turbinado or demarera sugar if you want to (though these are not the same as whole evaporated cane juice), and use the "maple sugar" option for the measurement.

For the frosting, the "part" you start with depends on the size of the cake. For a regular size 2 layer cake, I would use about 2 cups for the powdered sugar part.

As for punch, I would take some fresh fruit juices, mix them with some sparkling water. Now that it's getting to be fall, a punch based on apple or grape would be lovely. A bit of lemon will perk up the flavors. No sweetener needed.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

No. They are both made from the same sugar cane.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Check your local natural food store. I know they have hard candies there made with rice syrup and mints sweetened with xylitol.

The problem one runs into making hard candy with various sweeteners is that some of them don't "crack", which means they won't get hard when you cook them like a hard candy.

I've found that evaporated cane juice, maple syrup, and brown rice syrup will crack. You should be able to cook any of these with a small amount of water and until they reach a certain temperature that when you put a bit in cold water it will turn hard right away. You can then spread it out on parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet and let it cool, then break into pieces. You could add flavorings if you want. You could also get candy molds to make shapes.

But it would be easier to just purchase hard candies at the natural food store.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I did check out Whey Low. It looked interesting and made some claims of being low glycemic. I ordered some and it tastes great. But it also sent my blood sugar through the roof.

Then I read a blog post from Lowcarbezine! that gave a critique that I totally agreed with. Here's an edited version (you can read the original at http://www.holdthetoast.com/httblog/archives/000169.html--just wanted to put it here in case that page gets taken down). She is writing from a low-carb viewpoint.

Quite a few of you have asked me about...Whey Low. I have not tried it. There's a good reason for this: I read the list of ingredients. It says:

Sucrose

Fructose

Lactose

You know what that is? It's sugar. It's all sugar. Nothing but sugar. There is NOTHING low carb about this product...

Sucrose is just plain table sugar, the same stuff you used to keep in your sugar bowl before you got smart, the same stuff you've been cooking and baking with all your life, to the detriment of your health. It's a carb, a high impact carb, and it's a nutritionally empty high impact carb. Are we clear on table sugar being bad for us?

Fructose is fruit sugar, but don't let the "fruit" part fool you into thinking it's healthy. Unlike actual fruit, in which the fructose is diluted with fiber and water, and brings vitamins along with it, the crystalline fructose in Whey Low is a refined sugar. It has no vitamins. It has no fiber. And because it's concentrated, it's easy to consume in excess. You've heard, no doubt, about the dangers of giving your children lots of fruit juice, because once you remove the fiber, it's really easy to get way too much sugar? Same problem here, only worse.

Fructose does have a much lower glycemic index than sucrose, but that does not mean that you don't digest or absorb it. You do, every gram. There may be some (notice the emphasis on the word "some") validity to discounting at least a fraction of the carbohydrates in the sugar alcohol sweeteners, because they are only incompletely digested and absorbed - I think it's unrealistic to completely discount sugar alcohols, but you don't absorb every gram of them that you eat. (And yes, I know I've left sugar alcohol counts out of the carb counts in my recipes - this is largely because different sugar alcohols are digested and absorbed at differing rates; you absorb somewhat over half of maltitol, but almost none of erythritol. I have no way of knowing which sweetener you'll be using.) But fructose? Saying that you don't have to count fructose as a carb just because it has a fairly modest glycemic index is, in my opinion, dishonest. You absorb it all - how is that not a carbohydrate?

The news about fructose is not good. A 2004 article in the journal Obesity Research states:

...the glycemic index does not address other metabolic issues related to excess sugar consumption. Prominent among these issues is the use of low glycemic index sweeteners, particularly fructose, which is increasingly present in processed food. Fructose is associated with increased adiposity, which may result from its effects on hormones associated with satiety. (Emphasis mine.)

For the record, "adiposity" means "fatness." Sounds great, huh?

A rat study reported just this month in the journal Hypertension showed that fructose induced fatty liver disease; it also increased the rats' blood pressure and triglycerides.

A study reported in Nutrition and Metabolism in February of this year said: A high flux of fructose to the liver, the main organ capable of metabolizing this simple carbohydrate, perturbs glucose metabolism and glucose uptake pathways, and leads to a significantly enhanced rate of de novo lipogenesis (fat creation) and triglyceride synthesis... These metabolic disturbances appear to underlie the induction of insulin resistance commonly observed with high fructose feeding in both humans and animal models.

Oh, goody - fructose may cause insulin resistance, the root cause of type II diabetes and polycystic ovarian syndrome. How... healthy. Yet the producers of Whey Low are recommending it for diabetics.

Then there's that part about triglyceride synthesis. That the makers of Whey Low insist it won't raise triglycerides doesn't change the fact that multiple studies have demonstrated that fructose does, indeed, increase triglyceride levels, and does so more effectively than most anything else.

So much for fructose being benign.

Lactose is the final sugar in Whey Low. Lactose is, of course, milk sugar. It has a fairly low glycemic index as well, but again, you do, indeed, digest and absorb it - unless you're lactose intolerant, at which point you don't - you just get gut cramps and gas instead.

Folks, need I point out that if you're going to decide that fructose and lactose, both manifestly digestible, absorbable carbs, somehow don't "count", you should be eating fruit and drinking milk, not baking cookies and cakes? And do you really believe you would be able to eat enough apples and drink enough milk to get the sugars you'd get in a dessert made from Whey Low?

The makers of Whey Low also claim it has 75% fewer calories than sugar. Since it is sugar, I haven't the faintest clue why I should believe this. Sounds like some very creative math to me - the same sort of creative math that lead them to call a product that is made of nothing but sugar "low carbohydrate."

Pay attention here: The "net carbs" concept (aka 'impact carbs', 'effective carbs', 'usable carbs', etc) never was meant to extend to subtracting low glycemic index carbs. It originated with subtracting only fiber, a type of carbohydrate which the human gut can neither digest nor absorb, and which actually slows the digestion and absorption of the usable carbs consumed with it. Just because a carbohydrate has a relatively low glycemic index does not mean it's not a carb, does not mean you don't digest and absorb it, does not mean it can't kick you out of ketosis, does not mean it can't refill your glycogen stores and make you retain water, and does not mean it can't screw up your insulin sensitivity and your triglycerides.

Furthermore, not only are the carbs in Whey Low digestible and absorbable, they're nutritionally vacant. Refined. Stripped of all nutrition value. Not a vitamin or a mineral in sight. And of course they're concentrated, so it's really easy to get a whopping big dose...

Please, please, stop looking for a way to have lots of sweets without consequences. Stop trying to make your low carb diet look like your old diet. There's nothing "normal" or "natural" about eating a lot of sweet stuff; the typical American intake of sweets, especially sweetened beverages, is nothing short of pathological, and changing sweeteners doesn't make it any more normal, historically speaking.

We need to back to the notion of a "treat" being something that we have on special occasions, not something we have every day.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I've answered this at Sweet-Savvy: Sweeteners to Avoid: Refined White Sugar.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I recommend that you make it one batch at a time because of the method. And I like my dressing fresh. But there's no reason you should make as much as you want and store it in the refrigerator.

I also like variety in my salad dressing and tend to make different dressings instead of eating the same one over and over.

But I'm happy you love it, so make as much as you want!

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Maple syrup is a fine natural sweetener. I would not recommend it for diabetics as it will elevate blood sugar.

Though maple syrup is not refined, it is the boiled down sap from maple trees, so it is concentrated.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

The very best sweetener for diabetics is stevia, as it has no effect on blood sugar. But, it's not very versatile and many people don't like the aftertaste.

My favorite sweetener at the moment is evaporated cane juice. I seem to be able to eat small amount of this without having my blood sugar rise.

My best advice to diabetics is to not eat concentrated sweeteners, but instead satisfy your desire for a sweet with fresh low-sugar fruits such as cherries, and eat them with protein or fat (such as cream) to further reduce the elevation of blood sugar. And then eat only very small amount and s-a-v-o-r every bite.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I would say the answer is YES, sugar from the lotion can be absorbed through your skin. If I needed to watch my sugar intake, I would avoid any skin products that contain sugar or any other sweetener.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I'm disappointed too as agave was one of my favorites.

I really don't know about the raw agave. Part of the problem here is just lack of information. So I really can't make any recommendation.

If you find out, please let us know.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Organic Evaporated Cane Juice should be the whole juice from the sugar cane plant, with the water removed, but not refined. However, my experience has been that the labeling with regards to this may not always be accurate. I've called some companies that have this on the label and it could also mean something else.

Tapica syrup is a sweetener made from tapioca starch--the same tapioca used to make tapioca pudding. It is only available commercially. I don't know anything about this sweetener.

It would be best to wean a child off of these kinds of treats completely.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Sugar Shots are simply sugar mixed with water to make what is known in culinary circles as "simple syrup." You can save a lot of money by making this yourself (see my directions at
Simple Syrup).

It is no different from eating refined white sugar. They do have an "organic" sugar shot that may be made from whole evaporated cane juice. I didn't check on this. But still, again, you can make it yourself at a lower cost.

You can also make simple syrup from honey or any other sweetener.

I put fresh fruit juice on my snow cones.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Corn syrup is a subject of it's own I haven't yet tackled. But the news isn't good.

The book Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World
says that the fructose in corn syrup is processed by the body in a different way from the sucrose in refined white sugar. Fructose "is selectively 'shunted' toward the liver" where it "was being used by the liver as a building block of triglycerides. This it did by mimicking insulin's ability to cause the liver to release fatty acids into the bloodstream...Bombarded by fatty acids, muscle tissue develops insulin resistance" and on to diabetes and heart disease.

That's enough reason for me to not eat or drink corn syrup. There's even organic corn syrup now, but that doesn't make the corn syrup itself any healthier. Even raw corn makes my blood sugar jump.

As for no-bake cookies, I haven't included them because I never made them with sugar, so thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Here's how I would approach a no-bake cookie.

Here's a recipe for Fruit and Nut Cereal Clusters

2 c. sweetened rice and corn cereal squares
1 12-ounce package of white chocolate baking chips
1 c. dried fruit, such as cranberries, raisins, diced apricots
1/4 c. peanuts

1. In a medium to large sized microwave-safe bowl, heat white chocolate chips in the microwave at 30 second intervals until melted completely. Stir chips between each cook time.
2. Gently stir in cereal squares, fruit and nuts and coat well.
3. Drop cookie clusters onto waxed paper with a tablespoon. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

I would replace the sweetened rice and corn cereal with unsweetened whole grain cereal, replace the white chocolate with grain-sweetened (barley malt) chocolate chips, use a dried fruit that didn't have added sugar (such as raisins or dates), and the peanuts are fine. I'd melt the chocolate in a double boiler instead of a microwave and stir in the other ingredients.

Here's a recipe for No-Bake Peanut Butter Squares that has way too much sugar as far as I'm concerned...

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 cup margarine, softened
1 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky)
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups graham cracker crumbs (approximately 40 squares)
1 cup chopped peanuts (optional)
1 12-oz. package semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
1/4 cup peanut butter

1. Line a 9x9x2 inch pan with aluminum foil. (Leave about 1 inch hanging over the opposite sides so you can lift the bars easily from the pan.)
2. In a large bowl, mix the powdered sugar, margarine, 1 cup peanut butter, and vanilla. Stir in the cracker crumbs and peanuts. (The mixture will be stiff.) Press mixture into the pan.
3. Over low heat stir together the chocolate chips and 1/4 cup peanut butter until smooth. Spread over the mixture in the pan. Cover and refrigerate about an hour or until the chocolate is set. Remove from the pan and cut the bars into 36 squares. Refrigerate uncovered about 2 hours or until firm.
4. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers.

I'd replace the powdered sugar with "organic powdered sugar" which is whole evaporated cane juice. I'd replace the margerine with butter, peanut butter and vanilla OK, I'd buy graham crackers with natural sweeteners at the natural food store, and again use the grain-sweetened chocolate chips.

Raw honey would make a great sweetener for no-bake cookies, as you would get the benefits of the raw honey since you aren't baking them. And it's really sticky to hold all the other ingredients together.

I'll take a look at this and see what I can come up with.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

There are a lot of choices. Let me tell you how I made the transition.

When I started, there weren't as many sweeteners as there are now, and not as much information, which is why I started this website. I just set out to learn the sweeteners, one by one. And what I found was, as I ate these sweeteners instead of refined white sugar, my desire to eat sweets of any kind grew less and less. Regardless of what anyone says about how sugars all react the same in your body, I know for a fact from my own experience that the sweeteners on this website did not create an addictive hold on my body like refined white sugar did.

Today I still eat sweets, but much much less. On a daily basis, I eat a bowl of frozen cherries (1/2 cup) and cream every night, sprinkled with cocoa sweetened with evaporated cane juice. This does not affect my blood sugar. Once a week I eat a few bites of whatever recipe I'm testing this week, and very occasionally I'll eat white sugar, like last weekend it was my husband's birthday and I had some regular gelato while we were out and a tiny piece of chocolate cake he was given as a gift from someone else.

I'd say look over the Sweetener Summary, which will guide you to choosing the best sweetener(s) to meet your needs and just learn one sweetener at a time. Or browse the recipes and choose a favorite recipe and try that. You don't have to do everything at once.

Another recommendation I would make would be to eliminate sugar from all other foods and eat sweets only intentionally for dessert. In general, Americans eat sugar all day long in every meal, in ordinary foods. My first step would be to eliminate those sugars and limit sugar only to intentional dessert, then replace those desserts with ones made from natural sweeteners. And finally, you'll get to the point, as I did, where desserts are much less interesting than they were before. I'm much happier day in and day out with the way my body feels and looks than I was having a few minutes of bliss with chocolate cake.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

The answer is at Cooks.com: Using Leftover Sour Milk and Cream.

They say, "It often happens in warm weather, with even a limited milk supply, that some of it gets sour before it can be used.  This sour milk should never be wasted, even if there is only a little.  It is a valuable kitchen asset.  Have a clean glass to pour the remnants in, and keep it in the fridge until enough has accumulated to make from a half to one cup.  Then plan to use it as soon as it thickens, for milk becomes bitter if it stands too long.

And then they give these recipes for using it:

1. BOSTON BROWN BREAD
2. EMERGENCY BISCUITS
3. SOUR-MILK GRIDDLE-CAKES
4. BREAKFAST STRAWS
5. CORN BREAD
6. COTTAGE CHEESE NO. 1
7. COTTAGE CHEESE NO. 2
8. EGG-LESS COOKIES (PLAIN)
9. GRAHAM BREAD
10. SOUR-MILK GINGERBREAD
11. SOUR-CREAM FILLING FOR CAKE
12. CREAM SPICE CAKE
13. CREAM FILLING FOR CAKE

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I test all the recipes in my kichen before I publish them, so I know they work. Perhaps...the recipe says "finely chop the nuts..." They should be almost as fine as flour, like corn meal. Did you chop your nuts this fine?

Has anyone else made this recipe? Did you have success or no?

This is an excellent cake, so I want to make sure my instructions can be successfully followed.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I don't know these cookies and couldn't find them online. Readers?

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I don't know of any chocolates sweetened with xylitol or stevia, but I do have an answer for you: "diabetic" or "sugar-free" chocolate. These are typically sweetened with maltitol (I've also seen it spelled malitol), which is a close cousin to xylitol. Both are "sugar alcohols," which come from natural sources. All sugar alcohols absorb more slowly than refined white sugar, so they supposedly do not spike blood sugar. But they do contain carbohydrates.

[I just want to tell diabetics who are reading this that my experience with xylitol was that it DID raise my blood sugar noticably.]

For some reason that I don't remember offhand, malitol is used more often commercially, but xylitol is sold more widely for home use. So I think your solution is "diabetic" or "sugar-free" milk chocolate (be sure to check the label to make sure it's sweetened with malitol or something that ends with -ol). You can find this very easily. Godiva Chocolate, though not organic, is all-natural and they have a sugar-free line sweetened with malitol (it tastes good--I've tried it). But there are also many other brands and more and more available all the time.

But don't eat too much! All sugar alcohols can cause diarrhea when eaten in excess of what your body can tolerate.

I tried sweetening unsweetened chocolate with all the sweeteners I recommend on this site (including xylitol and stevia) and I ran into some problems.

I've had good success melting grain-sweetened chocolate chips for dipping fruit as long as I do it over a double boiler. It just melts.

But it's more difficult to melt solid unsweetened chocolate and cool it or add something to it. Chocolate is made up of cocoa powder and cocoa butter, about half and half, with the cocoa butter crystals in suspension in the cocoa powder. When the chocolate is heated, these separate, and then the cocoa butter recrystallizes when the chocolate cools.

Left uncontrolled, the cocoa butter crystallization typically creates crystals of varying size, resulting in a chocolate that will crumble rather than snap when broken. The chocolate we are accustomed to eating is made of consistently small cocoa butter crystals produced by a process known as "tempering." From what I can tell, tempering is an art that requires some skill. It's something I personally haven't mastered.

Another problem I ran into was "seizing". Chocolate is like a molten metal--it's a liquid, but has no water content. If a little water comes into contact with melted chocolate, the sugar and cacao in the chocolate will immediately absorb the moisture and clump up. The only solution is to add more water (or cream or milk) until the chocolate is saturated and becomes a syrup. But then, this chocolate cannot be tempered. though it can be used in other recipes.

If you want to use the natural sweeteners, I've found it easier to use the chocolate in a recipe, such as my Chocolate Truffles or Magic Disappearing Chocolate Fudge, both of which can be sweetened with xylitol or other sweeteners.

If you want to try your hand at tempering chocolate, several methods are described at Cooking fo Engineers: Tempering Chocolate.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I replace confectioner's sugar with "organic powdered sugar" which is made from whole unrefined cane juice ground very fine. None of the other sweeteners function in the same way in a recipe.

It is sold at most natural food stores and online. One brand is Hain.

You can tell it is not refined powdered sugar because even though it looks white, when you mix it with a liquid, it turns slightly tan. Refined confectioner's sugar will stay pure white.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Don't know if barley malt has wheat, I would contact the manufacturer. Do so and let me know...

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Readers, would appreciate your help with this. As I do eat dairy (and don't eat soy, also because of hypothyroidism and it wreaks my hormones), I have no experience in this area, and would love to hear ideas from those of you who do.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Oligofructose (also called Fructooligosaccharide, FOS) is a subgroup of inulin, a blend of fructose polymers found widely distributed in nature.

Inulin is not digested in the small intestine, so not metabolized to produce energy, thus they have a reduced caloric value. They do not lead to a rise in serum glucose or stimulate insulin secretion.

FOS is primarily sold as a proniotic enhancer, as it is an ideal substrate for beneficial intestinal bacteria and can stimulate its activity by several hundred percent.

It is derived from a plant source (usually chicory or a sucrose such as cane or beet sugar).

A couple of years ago I looked into using FOS as a a sweetener, so I bought a bottle of "100% pure FOS". I gave up on it because it really is not very sweet and it would be expensive to use as a sweetener ($12 for 1/2 cup). So I strongly suspect that there is something else in SomerSweet. I wasn't able to get the ingredients off her website and there was no phone number. So if you have the rest of the list of ingredients, please send them to me. I need to look at those too.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I don't know why they are using beet sugar. Here's what I can tell you about it.

I haven't included beet sugar on my list of natural sweeteners because I haven't seen unrefined beet sugar commercially available to home cooks. I did once find some red beet crystals that are simply dehydrated juice of the red beet. Though it was very sweet, it also tasted like dried beets, and it was $25 for one cup, so I didn't think that was practical.

Beet sugar is made from sugar beets. Sugar beets have been cultivated for thousands of years in one form or another as a vegetable. It was also thought to be a cure for nose and troat ailments and for constipation. But it was not used for sugar, as it's concentration of sugar was not very high and it was difficult to extract.

Then in 1747, a German chemist, Andreus Marggraf, extacted the sugar from sugar beets using brandy and discovered the sugar in the beet was the same as the sugar in sugar cane. The first factory to make sugar from sugar beets was built in 1799 but it failed because the sugar content was too low.

During the Napolenonic Wars of the early 1800s, an English blockade prevented import of sugar cane to France. Napoleon tuned to sugar beets to satisfy the sweet tooth of his countrymen. He allocated land and money for the farming of sugar beets and the building of sugar mills and refineries. French agriculturists managed to raised the sugar from 7.5% to 17%. By 1814, small factories were operating in France, Belgian Germany, and Austria.

Beet sugar is considered to be of inferior quality to cane sugar. This is why "pure cane sugar" is used in advertising. Where cane sugar is available, it is preferred over beet.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle illustrated the differences. They tested recipes side by side using cane and beet sugar and "in all cases, the products made with cane were superior." Though both plants are made up of 99.95 percent sucrose, the plants themselves are very different. Beets are a an underground root, cane is a lovely tall grass, with sweet fiberous stems. Though they are both refined into a crystalline white powder that is virtually identical to the eye, the two sugars produce very different results in cooking.

For many decades, cane was the dominant sugar in the American market, but in the 1990s beet took the lead. By the year 2000, 55 percent of the sugar used in America was beet. And the percentage continues to grow. Beets can be grown in a wider range of climates and it is cheaper to refine.

Unfortuately, most brands of sugar sold in supermarkets don't say whether the sugar inside the package is cane or beet. Some brands change from cane to beet from day to day, depending on price and availability. There are a few brands that sell only cane sugar and are clearly labeled as sugar.

I'd venture to say that the "beet sugar" in your health food store cookie is refined white sugar from a sugar beet. Healthwise, it's still refined white sugar.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Best price I could find is $3.60 lb when you buy 25 lb (organic) at NaturalGrocers.com.

If you want to buy it by the pound, it's $4.49 lb for 1 lb at Adirondack Nutrition.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

The recipe for making candied fruits is at Candied Citrus Peel. I found it by typing "candied" into my onsite search engine--access through the big purple SEARCH button on every page of all my websites--but there is also a link to it right where the ingredient is given in the recipe. You can use it to candy any fruits actually.

The recipe calls for using whole, brown, evaporated cane juice, so the color isn't bright and sparkling like it is when you use white sugar. And evaporated cane syrup doesn't crystallize or get hard and sticky like white sugar. But in a cake or pie, this candied citrus peel is lively and zesty and a great counterpoint to the sweeter fruits.

You could also use honey to candy fruits and it will behave more like white sugar.

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Each of the sweeteners I use on sweetsavvy.com has their own characteristics, so you can't just use them interchangably. In particular, you can't substitute a dry sweetener for a liquid sweetener and vice versa because usually the recipe will come out too dry or too moist.

When choosing a sweetener, I'm always looking for how it will affect the character of the recipe. Agave is great for cakes, for example, because you want a cake to be moist, but not so good for cookies because they won't crisp.

Here are some guidelines for substitutions that I use.

You can substitute liquid sweeteners for liquid sweeteners, so if a recipe calls for agave, rice syrup, brown rice syrup, barley malt syrup, vegetable glycerin or maple syrup, you could substitute honey. Remember, though, that each of these liquid sweeteners have strong flavors, which I consider when using them in particular recipes, so if, for example, I've used barley malt syrup to give a "brown sugar" flavor, it won't taste the same with honey.

You can substitute dry sweeteners for dry sweeteners, except...oh dear, now we're getting into another problem...To make it simple, I've found that I can make almost anything using powdered evaporatied cane juice (sold as "organic powdered sugar"), so if I can't figure out another sweetener, that's my "default" natural sweetener.

If your two choices are honey and raw sugar, use the honey to replace a liquid sweetener and the raw sugar for everything else and you may need to adjust the liquid.

Except...stevia has it's own rules, so just avoid the stevia recipes if you can't get stevia.

This is funny because usually I am working on substituting in the other direction!

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

I haven't studied, nor do I have personal experience with the yeast diet, so I'm going to let readers who know more about this answer your question. Readers...?

Debra :-)

DEBRA'S ANSWER:

Apple syrup is like maple syrup, but is made by concentrating apple juice. It has a very apple-y flavor. It can be used as a sweetener, or poured over pancakes or wherever you would use honey or maple syrup.

It is similar to concentrated fruit juice sweeteners, which are pretty expensive. It's cheaper to make this yourself at home.

I have a recipe for Apple Syrup at sweetsavvy.com.

When I post new recipes, I put links to the other recipes used in that recipe. I'm working on adding links to the recipes posted before I started doing this. If there is not a link to something like this, you can always try typing it into my on-site search engine, and if there is a recipe, it will come up.

Debra :-)