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by Sue Becker<\/strong><\/p>\n There are many reasons why refined white sugar is harmful for you.\u00a0 It tends to promote the growth of disease causing bacteria and is so devoid of nutritional value of its own, it actually robs your body of valuable nutrients to even metabolize it.\u00a0 It promotes the production of adrenaline, which explains the affect of hyperactivity it causes in many children.\u00a0 The health of our family has greatly improved with the significant reduction of white sugar in our diets.\u00a0 Brown sugar has no more nutritional value than white.<\/p>\n We use raw, unpasteurized honey for our baking and sweetening.\u00a0 Honey is sugar, but is natural and unrefined, and contains a host of nutrients and enzymes that have a multitude of beneficial attributes.\u00a0 Honey consists of numerous types of sugars, but will not cause the rapid rise and fall of blood sugar levels as does white sugar.<\/p>\n The varieties or flavors of honey are determined by the kind of flowers from which the bees gathered nectar.\u00a0 We carry six different varieties of honey.<\/p>\n Wild Flower<\/strong> honey is produced from the nectar of what ever flowers are in bloom.\u00a0 It is a dark honey with a strong flavor.\u00a0 It is usually less expensive and therefore excellent for use in bread baking or to eat.\u00a0 Its flavor is usually too strong to substitute for sugar in recipes such as pies or icing.<\/p>\n Gallberry<\/strong> honey comes from the gallberry flower and is common in southern Georgia.\u00a0 It is a dark, stronger flavored honey also.<\/p>\n Orange Blossom<\/strong> honey comes from the blossom of the orange trees and has a very distinctive flavor.\u00a0 It is has a medium color and flavor.\u00a0 I personally enjoy the flavor of Orange Blossom honey, especially for sweetening herbal teas or eating on bread.<\/p>\n Clover<\/strong> honey is perhaps the most popular honey.\u00a0 It comes, of course, from the nectar of the clover flower.\u00a0 It is a light, very mild and very sweet honey.\u00a0 Clover honey, because of its high sucrose content, tends to crystallize more readily than other honeys but this does not harm the nutritional value.\u00a0 Heat the container of honey in a pot of very warm water to liquefy it again.<\/p>\n Tupelo<\/strong> honey is a very mild, nicely flavored honey.\u00a0 We enjoy using it for sweetening where we don’t especially want to taste a honey flavor, such as in apple or pumpkin pie, or cream cheese icing, real whipping cream, or yogurt.\u00a0 It comes from the Tupelo flower which grows in the Florida pan-handle and the deep South.\u00a0 It is higher in a sugar called levulose and lower in sucrose.\u00a0 Levulose is assimilated more slowly by the body and can therefore be tolerated by diabetics.\u00a0 Tupelo honey will not crystallize.<\/p>\n Sage<\/strong> honey has all the qualities of Tupelo only a little milder and sweeter.\u00a0 It comes from the west from the nectar of the blossom of the Sage bush.<\/p>\n Honey has many redeeming nutritional properties and can be stored for a long time without any loss nutritionally.\u00a0 Crystallization does not affect the nutritional value of the honey and can simply be warmed to melt back down.\u00a0 To melt back down once crystallized, place the jug of honey in a large pot with enough hot tap water to cover the honey in the jug.\u00a0 Place on stove on the lowest heat setting.\u00a0 This will be just hot enough to keep the water warm but should not melt the jug.\u00a0 Let warm until honey is entirely melted down.\u00a0 You may also place the jug of honey in a warm place in direct sunlight, such as in a car or in a window.<\/p>\n Sucana<\/strong>t is a sweetener made from freshly squeezed sugar cane juice.\u00a0 The juice is then dehydrated and powdered.\u00a0 Nothing is added and only the water is removed.\u00a0 Sucanat is, of course, sugar but contains many important minerals and vitamins absent completely from refined white sugar. Sucanat makes an excellent brown sugar substitute, especially for streusel type toppings, for which honey doesn’t work at all.\u00a0 It is excellent on oatmeal, adding a rich flavor, and also works really well in cookie recipes.\u00a0 I still prefer, however, to use honey if it will work in the recipe.\u00a0 Sucanat has a mild molasses flavor and is not so sweet as white sugar.<\/p>\n Fructose<\/strong> has no more nutritive value than sucrose.\u00a0 It is assimilated by the body a little more slowly than sucrose but is still a refined sugar, devoid of any other nutrients.<\/p>\n NutraSweet (Aspartame)<\/strong> is a very dangerous sugar substitute.\u00a0 Aspartame is made from methyl alcohol and two amino acids that occur naturally in food.\u00a0 Methyl alcohol occurs naturally in cereal grains, but the antidote ethyl alcohol is present also.\u00a0 In aspartame, methyl alcohol exists alone and is potentially toxic.\u00a0 Symptoms of methyl alcohol poisoning include seizures, blackouts, headaches, memory loss, blindness, nausea, and gastrointestinal disorders.<\/p>\n Maple syrup<\/strong> is a natural sugar but the heating process used to obtain the proper consistency destroys much of its nutritional value.\u00a0 It should therefore be used in moderation.<\/p>\n Molasses<\/strong> is a by-product of the refining process of table sugar.\u00a0 Blackstrap molasses is the only form that contains any substantial amount of nutrients; 1 tablespoon has 14% of the U.S. RDA of calcium and 28% of iron.<\/p>\n Honey Substitution<\/strong><\/p>\n In recipes such as bread dough with only a small amount of sugar in proportion to flour, I substitute the same amount of honey for the sugar called for.<\/p>\n In recipes where large amounts of sugar are called for in proportion to flour, such as cakes, cookies, brownies, or quick breads I substitute \u00bc-\u00bd the honey for the sugar called for.<\/p>\n Example: Recipes for Banana or Zucchini Bread usually call for 2 cups of sugar; I use \u00bd cup honey.<\/p>\n DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this article should be construed as medical advice.\u00a0 Consult you health care provider for your individual nutritional and medical needs.\u00a0 The opinions are strictly those of the author and are not necessarily those of any professional group or other individual.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Sue Becker There are many reasons why refined white sugar is harmful for you.\u00a0 It tends to promote the growth of disease causing bacteria and is so<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breadbeckers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}