Re: sweetening things without honey/sacchrine

[Guest guest]

At 09:47 AM 2/24/2008, you wrote:

like sweetening with fruits or

fruit juices.

how would you do it with juices (all homemade i bet)

can you use figs or dates?

Ripe, cooked, pureed pears, aka pear sauce, makes a good substitute for

honey. Many of the Pecan Bread moms use it.

Dates, pitted, cut in small pieces, and cooked in some water, then

pureed, could make a good sweetener, also. Dates are an advanced food,

but I was astonished to discover that, even though I still don't tolerate

much fruit in an given week, I could eat pitted dates with pecan halves

in them almost with impunity. (I say almost because while it didn't

appear to affect my gut, I could send my day's calorie count through the

roof!)

Figs might also work, if treated the same way.

Surprisingly, some people report that fruit gelatin made with half legal

cider and half water, is quite tasty. Not as sweet as the commercial

junk, but hey, do we really want to go THERE?

—

Marilyn

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund

[Guest guest]

>

> can anyone give me tips on different methods you use to sweeten all

> kinds of items without using honey and sacchrine?

> be it cooked or baked or even in a gelatin treat (what would you use

> to sweeten homemade apple cider knox gelatin without honey?)

>

> like sweetening with fruits or fruit juices.

> how would you do it with juices (all homemade i bet)

> can you use figs or dates?

>

> any suggestions would be really appreciated.

Have you tried monosaccharides from " health food " stores- fructose and

glucose?

Although Elaine is explicit in that bagged sweeteners such as fructose

and glucose *may* not be the pure product, a few things are worth noting.

1) Even if they're not pure product, neither is fruit. The sugar in

oranges is about 1/2 sucrose (which is verbooten), 1/4 fructose, and

1/4 glucose. A similar ratio is found in other fruits and vegetables.

2) Honey is largely fructose and glucose (about 37% each), but also

has sucrose (1-7%, depending upon the source and other factors).

3) Bagged monosaccharides should be " food grade, " which would put them

at very high purity- probably at better than 98-99% fructose or

glucose. The concentration of other sugars should be very low- lower

than that found in honey, and certainly lower than that in fruits.

I wouldn't jump right into using it, but you might try some

experiments to see if it's acceptable. Elaine's contentions (IIRC)

were that there may be undesirable sugars found in bagged fructose and

glucose; I won't argue that she's wrong- it's never 100% pure. But I

would note, as above, that many of the " legal " products on the SCD are

much further off the mark than food-grade bagged products. Whether

they will act the same in the diet is unknown to me- I go through

honey like Winnie the Pooh.

I can provide citations from primary, refereed literature for the

above claims if anyone requires them.