Fruit is an obvious choice for sweetening Paleo baked goods and desserts. That’s fine for fruit-based cookies and that are supposed to have a fruity overtone, but I just can’t appreciate fruit flavor in something like a nutty or chocolaty snack.  For that reason, I’m going to break down some of the readily available “natural” sweeteners.  I will let you decide how Paleo each of the sweeteners listed is.  Note that I am not including honey or maple syrup (although I wouldn’t hesitate to use either in a non-fruit-based cookie recipe).  I’m only including sweeteners that tend to be flavor-neutral for this post.

Agave Nectar

Sweeter and thinner than honey, agave nectar comes in a variety of grades from light to dark amber (similar to maple syrup).  Yes, agave is the same plant used for making tequila.  For those who don’t know, distilling spirits relies on the breakdown of sugars.  Organic bases (mash) with high sugar content makes for easy alcohol production.

Agave nectar is sweeter than cane sugar with about the same number of calories.  The good news is that you may use less agave nectar to get the equivalent sweetness of sugar and it typically has a lower glycemic index and glycemic load as well.  A downside to keep in mind is that some agave species used to make agave nectar contain steroids with contraceptive effects that could lead to miscarriage.  Pregnant women or women trying to conceive may want to avoid it.

Stevia

I can’t hear the word Stevia without thinking about the funny story of extreme Stevia abuse that Tim Ferriss tells in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek.  If you want to know how not to make a dessert with Stevia (and more about minimalist living and lifestyle design) I recommend checking out Ferriss’ books: The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman and The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.

Anyway.  Stevia is a plant based extract.  It is 300 times sweeter than sugar and has no calories.  You need very little Stevia to add sweetness.  On the downside, it tends to have a strange aftertaste and it’s also a very new product (well it’s been around for years but the heavy mass marketing of it is new).  If it has any major negative medical drawbacks, they are still pretty much unknown.

Sucanat

Sucanat or is a silly brand name for what is basically minimally processed raw cane sugar. Su – sugar, ca – cane, nat – natural.  Sugar In The Raw is another brand name for a similar product.

I traveled to China a few years ago and you could buy sugar cane stalks on the street to chew on.  That’s as raw as it gets and I think it’s a great flavor.  Raw sugar cane contains the molasses normally extracted to produce white table sugar.  So expect that molasses flavor similar to brown sugar.  Treat it like processed sugar measure for measure and note that it contains the same calories and poses the same health risks like tooth decay and blood sugar spikes.

In A Nutshell

I have a cookie recipe that I plan to make two ways.  One with maple syrup and one with agave nectar.  This will be kind of a head to head comparison of two natural sweeteners.  I’ll post the results when I am done.  Stay tuned.

-Chris

Sources: Grist, In The Raw, and Amazon