Natural fruit sweeteners are another excellent way to replace ordinary table sugar. The main advantage is that fruits contain a lot of sugar compounds and some are particularly abundant.
Fruit sugar or fructose is quite naturally the one type of sugar consistently found in fruits. Other sugars such as glucose and sucrose are present too. Sometimes fructose is available in the fruit as a discrete component, in other cases it is bonded with glucose to form sucrose. Here are few examples of fruits and how much fructose they have:
- Apples = 5.9 g (per 100 grams)
- Bananas = 4.9
- Grapes = 8.1
- Peaches = 1.5
- Dried Figs = 22.9
- Pears = 6.2
To turn them into usable natural fruit sweeteners, these fruits need to be processed. They can be turned into juices, syrups, extracts, or even dehydrated. The point is to get rid of the excess water in order to come up with a form that has more concentrated sugar.
In the Superhuman Food Pyramid, this type of sweetener is recommended only for moderate consumption because fructose also presents certain risks when excessively used.
Find out the pros and cons of natural fruit sweeteners so you can decide on your own. Continue reading
