What is Agave Syrup?
Too Good to be True?
Agave Syrup is made from the sap of a large succulent which is a slow-growing, hardy, low-irrigation crop farmed in Mexico. It is made by taking the juice from the agave’s core, filtering and heating it.
As with a lot of methods of production, within this seemingly simple process there are many variables, one of which is the temperature to which the product is heated. It is of course cheaper to have a speedy production method and some Agave syrups on the market may have been heated to a high temperature for a short period of time. Suma’s Organic Agave Syrup is slow heated to a temperature no higher than 118F (48°C) and consequently has a high fructose content.
The process of making Agave syrup, whether it is thermal or enzymatic, is unlike the process of making High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) which is what it has recently been compared to and has caused some concern. HFCS creates fructose out of the glucose made from the milled starch of corn, whereas Agave Syrup simply separates Fructans and Inulin, a complex naturally occurring sugar, into Fructose and Glucose.
Most common sweeteners contain varying amounts of fructose. Fructose is what puts the sweet into sugar sweeteners, glucose is comparatively not sweet. Generally, the higher the fructose level the sweeter the product. Agave has approximately 1.4 times the sweetening power of white sugar. Because it is sweeter, consumers generally adjust to taste and consequently use less and therefore consume fewer calories in the process. It is certainly true that over-consumption of any one or a combination of sugars can have detrimental effects, but this is not in a vacuum, it involves lifestyles, other food choices and other conditions. The real issue is over-consumption and making good overall diet choices.