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From: Bryanna (NewVeggies.vegsource.com)
A FEW WORDS ABOUT SUGAR AND OTHER SWEETENERS I know that many in the vegetarian and health food movements will disagree with me, but I think that depending upon so-called "natural" sugars is a mistake. Many consumers think they can eat large quantities of dessert foods made with fruit and grain syrups, but researchers have found that ingesting ANY type of sugar, even that in orange juice, leads to a significant drop in the white blood cell index of the body, reducing the effectiveness of the immune system. All sugars, indeed all refined carbohydrates, can effect insulin levels. (In fact, the worst case of low blood sugar I ever experienced, shaky legs included, was after eating maple butter, which is just cooked-down natural maple syrup.) For this reason, I believe in saving desserts for special occasions, or eating them only once or twice a week. It stands to reason that such a concentrated, refined carbohydrate as sugar, stripped of its natural ingredients, may not be particularly good for us, but I don't believe that you are contributing to good health by eating desserts made with "natural" sugars every day. Boiled-down fruit juice, maple sap, or grain syrup are all very concentrated sugars, and the origins of them are no more natural than sugar cane (and usually not organic, either). Furthermore, so-called “natural” sweetners are not powerhouses of nutrition—one should not depend on ANY sweetener (except perhaps blackstrap molasses, a good source of both iron and calcium, but so strong-tasting that it cannot be used in many desserts) for nutrition. The nutrition in your desserts will come primarily from fruits and whole grains, as well as perhaps nuts and seeds. Just to illustrate this, let’s compare 1/4 c. serving of various sweeteners and their calorie, iron and calcium contents (information from Secrets of Fat-Free Baking, by Sandra Woodruff, RD [Avery Pub., Garden City, NY, 1994]): SWEETENER (1/4 C.) CALORIES CALCIUM IRON Brown rice syrup 256 3 mg 0.1 mg (There’s not a lot of difference in the nutrient content between brown rice syrup and white sugar!) Sugar is the easiest and most affordable sweetener to work with and is now available in a variety of forms unbleached. This is a concern for vegetarians because most cane sugar is bleached by filtering through bone ash, and brown sugars like demerrara may be simply bleached sugar with molasses added. Consequently, I, as a vegetarian, use only products that state on the package that they are unbleached, no matter what the color. The most common unbleached sugars are turbinado and granulated sugar cane juice (Sucanat is one brand, and it is similar to brown sugar—some varieties are organic and some are not), but there are other products with different names that specify they are unbleached. A light unbleached sugar that is commonly available in bulk is called turbinado, but the lightest-colored unbleached sugars that I have seen are Florida Crystals and Richdale Organic Sugar (a Canadian brand, which is also very finely granulated). Taikoo is a brand of unrefined sugar from Hong Kong which makes light, medium and dark unbleached sugars, and also unbleached sugar cubes. If you can get beet sugar (we have to pay a higher price for it here in the west, but it's common east of the Rockies), that type is NOT bleached with bone ash, so should be vegan. You can contact the manufacturer to find out what type of sugar it is if it's not on the package. "Raw" sugar is a misnomer. No truly raw sugar is allowed in North America for health reasons and it usually refers to a light golden sugar, which may or may not be bleached, so you have to do your homework. Re: the confectioner's sugar question. If it's made from beet sugar, it's vegan. If it's made from cane sugar it's not. If you live west of the Rockies, your sugar (of all types) is probably cane sugar; if you live east of the Rockies, it's probably beet, but maybe phone the manufacturer to make sure if it doesn't say on the package. You can make powdered sugar (not as fine, but it works pretty well) out of turbinado sugar or unbleached light-colored granulated sugar. Grind it in a DRY blender (preferably a good one with nice sharp blades-- and keep the lid on) with a little starch of some kind (I use cornstarch, but you could try others)-- about 1 T. starch to 1 c. sugar. Grind it as fine as you can. (One poster wrote in that she uses a small electric coffee grinder and that this works even better.) Wholesome Foods or Florida Crystals are two brands of unbleached powdered sugar found at most health food stores. Grade A light maple syrup is used in some recipes where even light unbleached sugar leaves a faint molasses taste where a liquid sugar is preferable. It is expensive, but easily available and still cheaper and sweeter than brown rice syrup. Grade B maple syrup is darker andless expensive, and the best choice when you want a nice, mapley flavor. You can use brown rice syrup in place of corn syrup, which many people prefer not to use now because of it may originate from genetically-modified corn. Brown rice syrup is expensive and not as sweet as many sweeteners, but it has a pleasant caramelly taste—I like to use it in Latin American desserts instead of “dulce de leche” (also known as “manjar blanco”), the cooked down sugar and milk product used frequently in Latin America. CLICK THIS LINK FOR AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON VEGAN BAKING AND FOLLOW THE LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THAT ARTICLE TO ANOTHR ON VEGAN EGG REPLACERS:
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