Agave Warning and Substitution Ideas

In the paste, I have listed agave as a recommended sweetener in several of my dessert recipes. I personally stopped using agave quite awhile ago after reading several articles from trusted sources, such as mercola.com, about the metabolic dangers of agave. I decided to do a post stating about I no longer recommend using agave as a low-glycemic sweetener after learning about the Glycemic Index Institute’s recent clinical study on agave being halted due to agave’s very negative impacts on diabetic study participants. This unfortunate circumstance has low to the institute banning and de-listing agave from their recommended products list. I have learned to use other, more metabolically friendly sweeteners and also greatly decrease the amount of sweetener used in recipes through experimentation.

To substitute alternative sweeteners in my recipes that call for agave, simple use a combination of dried fruit blended into a paste with a teeny bit of water, and a few drops of stevia. I have used 4 to 6 figs or 4 large pitted dates plus 10 drops liquid stevia in my blueberry muffin recipe. This recipe originally called for 1/3 c. of agave. I have used the same amount of dried fruit/stevia to replace up to 1/2 c. of agave in a cookie recipe and it turned out fantastic as well. I got the idea to use a mix of very small amount of dried fruit and liquid stevia in place of agave from  Elana of Elana’s Pantry, who has several recipes using this sweetener combo that look fabulous. Yes, dried fruit has more carbs and is higher glycemic than fresh fruit. However, the amount used in this muffin recipe. for example, turned out to a very small amount of carbohydrate per muffin and adds the perfect amount of sweetness in my humble opinion.