The way I see people talking about the GI of foods seems to indicate [...]]]> While I want to make it clear that I’m not denying the importance of insulin, I think that the importance of the GI of foods is nowhere near as useful to non-diabetics as it’s made out to be.

The way I see people talking about the GI of foods seems to indicate that they think a low GI gives them a free pass. What really ticks me off in particular is agave syrup. A food having a low GI can mean either that it’s digested slowly because it contains fiber, fat or protein. It can also mean, as it does in the case of agave syrup, that it’s almost entirely fructose. Fructose is metabolised in the liver and turned into fatty acids (raising your cholesterol and, more importantly, your triglycerides). Your body then uses it as energy or stores it as fat. Glucose is hits your bloodstream more directly and raises blood sugar. Your body either uses it or turns it in to fat to store for later.

Either way, it winds up as fat attached to your backside.

You’re better off considering the actual carbohydrate and caloric content (though you don’t have to count fiber) than you are the glycemic index. Coca-Cola has a GI of 63 (medium), and Cantaloupe has a GI of 65. Which one is better for you? Coke has 33g of sugar in a 12oz can. One-quarter of a cantaloupe has 16g of sugar, yet Cantaloupe’s GI is a little higher than Coke’s. Which is more fattening?

Let’s pretend you don’t care about your waistline. This is from a 2005 paper called “Fructose, insulin resistance, and metabolic dyslipidemia”.

These metabolic disturbances appear to underlie the induction of insulin resistance commonly observed with high fructose feeding in both humans and animal models. Fructose-induced insulin resistant states are commonly characterized by a profound metabolic dyslipidemia, which appears to result from hepatic and intestinal overproduction of atherogenic lipoprotein particles. Thus, emerging evidence from recent epidemiological and biochemical studies clearly suggests that the high dietary intake of fructose has rapidly become an important causative factor in the development of the metabolic syndrome.

Not generic “sugar” but specifically fructose: the sugar that doesn’t raise GI too much. It still messes you up. This is from the same paper:

Fructose is readily absorbed and rapidly metabolized by human liver. For thousands of years humans consumed fructose amounting to 16–20 grams per day, largely from fresh fruits. Westernization of diets has resulted in significant increases in added fructose, leading to typical daily consumptions amounting to 85–100 grams of fructose per day. The exposure of the liver to such large quantities of fructose leads to rapid stimulation of lipogenesis and TG [triglyceride] accumulation, which in turn contributes to reduced insulin sensitivity and hepatic insulin resistance/glucose intolerance.

So, no help there. Honey and Agave Syrup both have about 60 calories per tablespoon. Agave is mostly fructose, and honey about half fructose and half glucose. Table sugar actually has fewer calories per tablespoon (48), and it’s all sucrose. Maple syrup is mostly sucrose with a tiny amount of fructose and a little glucose and has 52 calories per tablespoon.

What matters with sweeteners is how much of them you use. They are 99-100% sugar, so it’s really just a matter of which one you like best. There’s nothing special about any new-fangled sweetener like agave syrup or brown rice syrup (GI 25). A low GI is not going to save you from any one of the calories from sugar that it contains, and high-fructose sweeteners might be even worse than other sugars.

And, my final point: You shouldn’t cut yourself a break on Agave syrup. People seem to think it’s more natural, but that’s just not so. It can’t compete with maple syrup or honey on that score.

“If fructose were natural, I would be able to go out to corn field and get a bucket of sweetener. I can go to a beehive and get honey that I can eat without processing it. I can go to an apple tree and pick an apple and eat it. I cannot go out into a cornfield, squeeze corn, and get fructose syrup, and I cannot go into an agave field, and get the product sold on retail shelves, as agave syrup. Falsely labeled agave fructose and high fructose corn syrup are both products of advanced chemistry and extensive food processing technology.”

Later in the same article:

“The simple answer tends to be the correct one. There is no land of milk and agave. Milk comes from goats, cows, humans, etc., and honey comes from bees. What I want people to understand is that mislabeling a sweetener like agave syrup is about money and profit, to the real determent of your health. The unethical factor is that the natural health food business has gone to great lengths in the case of agave to defraud consumers, by deceiving and lying to those who are trying to seek better health. There is something ethically worse about a company pretending to sell something all natural to people seeking health, than a mainstream company not pretending that their food is healthier. For example, nobody selling fast and junk foods is advocating it is health food. When you are in a natural health food store, you expect to pay extra money for something that is good for you. We have con artists here, pretending to deliver better health at a higher cost, when in reality it is equal to, or much worse than the many other sweeteners or harmful junk food. People are expecting to receive health, and are intentionally being defrauded for profit.”

Caveat emptor!

(Both quotes above are from Russ Bianchi, Managing Director and CEO of Adept Solutions, Inc., a global food and beverage development company.)

This is from a margarine commercial well-known to those in my age group. We can see where telling everyone [...]]]> I am suspicious of all zero calorie sweeteners, even stevia. I think they promote an endless cycle of sugar cravings in a lot of people, but what it really boils down to is this:

This is from a margarine commercial well-known to those in my age group. We can see where telling everyone to eat margarine got us, so I’m not going into the trans-fat travesty here.

I think most of us have heard that aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet) is bad stuff. Some doctors even claim it’s inappropriate for diabetics because it messes with blood sugar, but mostly, we hear about it being bad for our brains or causing cancer or whatever. Most of the websites talking about this seem a bit nutty, but there was talk in the summer that the FDA might ban it.

There are also studies that show sucralose (Splenda) might be bad for you, and I’m sure we all remember the very public saccharin (SugarTwin, Sweet N Low) scare.

Agave nectar is NOT a zero calorie sweetener. Some people seem to have the idea that it’s magical stuff. The only actual claim made is that it’s lower on the glycemic index than other sugars, but it has the same caloric value as honey (about 60 per Tablespoon). Agave nectar is mostly fructose, which is why it’s supposedly better for diabetics (and thus it’s G.I. rating). My guess is that most people who are so into agave nectar would not buy “artificial” diabetic products, many of which are sweetened with refined fructose. Agave nectar IS refined fructose.

Anyway, moving on.

You’ve probably only heard great things about stevia because, like agave nectar, it’s billed as “all natural.” I’m not going to refute that claim since I don’t have issues with it. I do have issues with it’s effects, and I happen to think its taste leaves a lot to be desired. Taste is hard to refute, but I don’t think this is:

An intra-arterial catheter was inserted into the rats after 5 weeks, and conscious rats were subjected to arterial glucose tolerance test (2.0 g kg 1) during week 6. Stevioside had an antihyperglycemic effect (incremental area under the glucose response curve [IAUC]): 985 20 (stevioside) versus 1,575 21 (control) mmol/L 180 minutes, (P less than .05), it enhanced the first-phase insulin response (IAUC: 343 33 [stevioside] v 136 24 [control] U/mL insulin 30 minutes, P < .05) and concomitantly suppressed the glucagon levels (total AUC: 2,026 234 [stevioside] v 3,535 282 [control] pg/mL 180 minutes, P < .05).

It causes a release of insulin. This is a drug-like effect. If you’re not consuming sugar – let’s say you’re sweetening your black coffee with stevia – do you really want insulin released? Is that I good idea? I sure would not want to use this in green tea or coffee if I’m trying to, say, do an intermittent fast. It also may lower blood pressure, which may also not be a good thing.

The moral of the story here is that There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. You’ll pay for it one way or another, and the best thing to do is to get used to the actual taste of foods. If it’s Christmas, your birthday or Thanksgiving and you’re not a diabetic who will have serious problems from ingesting sugar, just eat the real thing. If you really want a soda, just have the real item. High-fructose corn syrup is more natural than any of the artificial sweeteners, and studies keep popping up that diet soda does NOT help people lose weight or stay thin anyway.

Along with colleague Ken Williams and principal investigator Michael Stern, M.D., Fowler examined the association between consumption of diet and regular soft drinks and weight gain in 622 non-overweight adults. The researchers measured each participant’s Body Mass Index (BMI) and individual soft drink consumption at the beginning of the study, and the participants returned for follow-up measurements seven or eight years later.

After adjusting for age, gender and ethnicity, the investigators found that regular soft drinks were not significantly associated with the development of obesity, but diet soft drinks were.

“Preliminary analysis of the data showed that for every can or bottle of diet soda that a normal weight person drank per day, there was a 65 percent increase in the risk of becoming overweight and a 41 percent increase in the risk of becoming obese for every can or bottle consumed,” Fowler noted.

If none of that suits, there’s always fruit. A ripe bananas is very sweet, and it’s always in season at the grocery store. If you really need a sugar hit, raisins, dates and dried figs all contain a lot of tasty, tasty sugar in the form mother nature intended.