This is kind of an unusual post, because it's basically a copy and paste. My sister-in-law posted on Facebook yesterday asking if anyone had suggestions for sweeteners to use in place of sugar. Since this has been part of our cooking adjustment, Brittany tagged me and asked for my input. I ended up typing up quite a bit of information, so decided it was worth copying and putting here on the blog, as well--instead of pulling out another post on sweeteners at some point over here.
You can find sugar that is corn free, but in Brittany's case it showed up on her testing as something she needed to stay away from. Further down in my comments I list known corn-free brands. I'll start with Brittany's response to my sister-in-law, and follow with what I wrote. This certainly isn't the end-all on sweeteners, but this is what has worked well for us so far. I do also use raw, grade B maple syrup on occasion. I didn't mention brands for agave or sucanat, so I'll mention here that for agave I get Madhava light; for sucanat I get it from the bulk section of my health food store. Not everyone is comfortable buying from the bulk section, but at this store I have had good success with their sources. If you tolerate Madhava agave, the nice thing is that you can find it at Walmart.
Here's the post:
Brittany: Mom (Heidi)? We've used a few. We've also used coconut sugar for a few things (it's rich and expensive, so that's why only a few, haha). It upsets me if I used it too often - but it's better than the typical processed sugar you'd get at a store. You might do alright with coconut sugar if it's the processed sugar you've been using up until this point. I can't remember what the other stuff we've used is called though.
Me (Heidi): WE don't use sweeteners very often, but when we do we usually use raw, organic honey. There are a few others I keep on hand--agave nectar, stevia and sucanat.
When we use agave it's usually for making coconut ice cream, or if I'm baking a cake Brittany can eat and I want a lighter texture than what honey gives. Pure Stevia (Do NOT use Truvia; it has so much crap added to it; I buy SweetLeaf from Good Earth) is a great natural sweetener. I mostly use that in powdered form if I need to do something like sweeten fresh berries if they're too tart. A little goes a long, long way so you need hardly any. I think for a smallish mixing bowl of fresh fruit I might use about 1/4 tsp.
Sucanat is basically raw sugar before anything is done to it once it's removed from the cane; all the molasses is still intact. I use this very little but keep it on hand for times I would normally throw a little brown sugar into a recipe, like a couple of tablespoons into curry or the mango coconut chicken sauce that we like to eat over rice. I've ground this up with a small coffee grinder to use as a powdered sugar for frosting.
Xylitol (XyloSweet is derived from birch) is another good natural sweetener, but you want to be careful how much you use in a sitting because it's a natural laxative. So, for instance, if you make brownies only have one or two small ones in a day kind of thing (yeah, I know, what regular people do anyway--but for people like me who have the capability of eating half a pan. . .ya know. :) ) Brittany liked using a little of this with cinnamon on her oatmeal back when she was still eating oatmeal and before I freaked out when I found out some xylitol is corny and chucked the bag into the trash.
Something you might want to look into regarding why pure sugar disagrees with you is that most commercial brands add cornstarch to granulated sugar to keep it from clumping; this is not required to be reported in the ingredients list if it's "used in processing." As of now, the only companies whose granulated sugar is corn-free are C&H, Domino's and Whole Food 365 brand. This goes for powdered sugar, also. It might just be that sugar disagrees with your gut, but if you want to test it out, those are the specific brands you can be assured aren't cross-contaminated.
Coconut sugar, as Brittany mentioned, is very rich and expensive. I bought it because a recipe I was trying called for it. It is really good, but I only use it on the odd occasion. A lot of people who use it do it for the brown sugar taste, but sucanat is much healthier and serves the same purpose, really.
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