good thinking!
cause there s a long way from agave to frozen holes!!!

Quoted from Lola

good thinking!
cause there s a long way from agave to frozen holes!!!

... a couple of golf nuts is SF in my Swami  

Quoted from JackO

Not a big hitter any more - too old and humbled now    I'm just glad I can still play the only game you can't win

That frozen hole episode was a riot to hear... thanks for that.  It gave me a good laugh. I will take this off list now so that we do not get penalized stroke and distance !  Will send you PM tomorrow.

Oops, I apologize to all for hijacking this thread. Got carried away...

Something to consider. If we are using vises (sweeteners) to make food
more palatable, then what does that say about the primary food we are
eating? I'm not buying it. Trust you instincts and if it doesn't taste
good on its own, then why disguise it and eat it in the name of 'it's
good for you'. Ask yourself, how many foods would you eat in their
stand alone state? Your body has a method of saying 'I had enough'
of this food through it's taste receptors. If they are being tricked
then what is the outcome? Of coarse this doesn't apply to proteins
because they digest in the stomach, but boy do people paste on the
sweet BBQ sauce to make it taste good. This I believe is the primary
reason people over eat.  

What do you think?

Quoted from keithallenlaw

Something to consider. If we are using vises (sweeteners) to make food
more palatable, then what does that say about the primary food we are
eating? I'm not buying it. Trust you instincts and if it doesn't taste
good on its own, then why disguise it and eat it in the name of 'it's
good for you'. Ask yourself, how many foods would you eat in their
stand alone state? Your body has a method of saying 'I had enough'
of this food through it's taste receptors. If they are being tricked
then what is the outcome? Of coarse this doesn't apply to proteins
because they digest in the stomach, but boy do people paste on the
sweet BBQ sauce to make it taste good. This I believe is the primary
reason people over eat.  

What do you think?

Personally I agree with you. In my eating style, I don't consider it a vise, I use a sweetener, either Stevia or now experimenting with various agave mfgs on two foods only. These are steel cut oats, or amaranth oatmeal, and I like a sweet and sour salad dressing on my lunch salad. All other sugars in my foods are natural, e.g. fruits.  In general, people crave sugar, whether they are aware of it or not, and your BBQ sauce example is right on target. Adrenal cortisol levels plays a big part in all this.

If you have an issue with any type of overgrowth and want to heal the fasted...  eliminating sugar in all forms is vital....  I tried messing around with fruits and different "healthy" sweeteners.. but the true result is that all sugar.... is well.... sugar...   and it MUST be eliminated until you reach the level of health you desire....

I really wish everyone well.. and please pray for me as I choose my health and healing over all else....

Steve

I'm big on gut bacteria...if Dr. D. says it doesn't cause an overgrowth of the bacteria in the gut, I'm good with that.  It seems to work for me.  

However, we all need to remember what the recommendations are for limited use.  Any sugars, even if they are good in the gut--can still cause weight gain when used to excess.  Just because it's listed as a beneficial food on my SWAMI, it doesn't mean I should run out and drink a cupful every day.  I would think that limiting any sugars (including fruit) is probably key, for optimal health and weight loss.  

I will admit, though, that I sometimes have cravings for cupcakes with butter cream frosting (I could eat the frosting all by itself)  When that happens,  I hit the 100% sprouted grain muffin and lightly toast it, slather it with organic butter (I do mean slather it on lavishly) and a tablespoon or two of agave with cinnamon on top--and it is heaven!    Sometimes, I even eat two servings and always feel totally fine the next day.  Haven't gained weight, but I don't eat the sweet treat every day.  Oh, it also works for french toast or pancake craving!    

I agree Robyn...Good tip!!

Great info on Blue Agave Nectar!! Cheers... I reckon this (in one of the links) was interesting too...

"Fructose has a low glycemic value. However, according to some experts, if fructose is consumed after eating a large meal that overly raises the blood sugar or with high glycemic foods, it no longer has a low glycemic value. Strangely enough, it will take on the value of the higher glycemic food. So exercise restraint, even with this wonderful sweetener. It is a good policy to eat fructose-based desserts on an empty stomach, in between meals or with other low-glycemic foods."

Quoted from Possum

"Fructose has a low glycemic value. However, according to some experts, if fructose is consumed after eating a large meal that overly raises the blood sugar or with high glycemic foods, it no longer has a low glycemic value. Strangely enough, it will take on the value of the higher glycemic food. So exercise restraint, even with this wonderful sweetener. It is a good policy to eat fructose-based desserts on an empty stomach, in between meals or with other low-glycemic foods."

WOW!! where did you find this?

Possum, that's interesting, because I had always read/heard that eating a sugary treat was best consumed with other food to minimize the negative effect.  I do know that if I eat something like this on an empty stomach, early in the day--it sustains me for a good part of the day--I don't even get hungry until many hours later.  

Quoted from italybound

WOW!! where did you find this?

Pretty sure it was on the page that the link on a previous page of this thread, was for...from Robyn
(see original quote from my post... "Great info on Blue Agave Nectar!! Cheers... I reckon this (in one of the links) was interesting too..."

Makes sense - works in the same way, for some people, as food combining... Treat it like fruit...

Quoted from Robyn Mc

Possum, that's interesting, because I had always read/heard that eating a sugary treat was best consumed with other food to minimize the negative effect.  I do know that if I eat something like this on an empty stomach, early in the day--it sustains me for a good part of the day--I don't even get hungry until many hours later.  

As above... its about what works for the individual I guess... I would think it you combined it with low fat protein you may be ok... but if you combined it with fat, it'd hang around??!! They always say that is the problem with high fat, high sugar treats - but its the yummiest way to consume sweet & fats...Think about all the commercially produced treats... even savoury things like chips are high fat AND sugars...

Can I ask someone who has tried this diet a few questions???

Sure rk ask away!!

There are currently only two manufactures of agave nectar - Volcanic Agave and Netkutli. Other companies that sell agave nectar put their label on the product from one of these manufacturers. Volcanic Agave produces agave nectar from the blue agave plant and Netkutli produces agave nectar from the agave salmiana plant. These two manufacturers produce agave nectar differently.

Volcanic Agave produces agave nectar by expressing the juice from the core of the blue agave plant, called the piña. The juice is filtered using mesh screens, then heated at a low temperature of 118 degrees, to hydrolyze carbohydrates into sugars. The main carbohydrate is a complex form of fructose called inulin or fructosan. The filtered, hydrolyzed juice is concentrated to a syrup-like liquid a little thinner than honey and ranges in color from light to dark depending on the degree of processing.

Netkutli produces agave nectar by expressing the juice from the core of the agave salmiana plant by hand twice a day. It is immediately brought to the facility to remove the excess water as it will ferment rapidly if left standing. It is during the removal of the moisture that the only heat is applied. The juice is evaporated and moisture removed in a vacuum evaporator. The vacuum enables the moisture to be withdrawn at low temperatures. The temperature is closely controlled at approximately 138 degrees. A natural non genetically modified (GM) organic vegan enzyme is introduced to convert the complex sugars into their simple sugar components. Inulin is a fructan which is hydrolyzed into the simple sugars composing agave nectar, fructose and glucose. The sugars in agave nectar come from the breakdown of the inulin molecule through the introduction of the enzyme to break apart that molecule.

Neither manufacturer has chemicals involved in any part of their production or packaging process. Nor do either add other sugars to their finished product. However there were other manufacturers who did. The last of these were closed down in the summer of 2008. Thus I can clearly state that the agave nectar produced today is NOT another HFCS.

This is what I found at  http://blog.thymewisper.org. Your'll notice there are only to manufactures the rest are distriduters.

Notice the other manufacturers where closed down in2008

I have friends that worship the man, and whatever he says is gospel to them.  They told me that I should subscribe to his newsletter.

I did last fall, and I get nutritional warning emails from him all the time.  How am I to treat his info?  Are his opinions worth reading and believing or should I disregard them?

Lately, he has had a warning about agave nectar, and in the unibars, it is the first ingredient.  So, there is some confusion.

Thanks for your help!

read ingredients always when purchasing agave....make sure it has no added HFCS....
we ve been through this discussion many times.....try the search feature top right hand corner......might merge this thread if I find the one

Quoted Text

Dr D
Don't feed the energy creature and always argue upwards (when and where you can learn something) not down. For example, his argument could easily be used against the Mercola zombies who get all crazy about agave.

hope this answers your question
and here s more of the same

Quoted Text

Dr D
Fructose cannot cause any significant insulin spikes since fructose does not require insulin for its absorption and metabolism. Agave is a source of fructose (as are blueberries) but the main reason it is generally considered a 'neutral' as compared to other sweeteners is that it seems to produce almost no bacteria overgrowth (as opposed to hfcs, which does) and does not provoke major immune/ gut related reactions, which hfcs also does (probably because it is corn derived. Beware of the 'fructose is bad' mantra. If you took that to it's logical extreme, you'd never eat a fruit. It's the hfcs we are being deluged with that is the problem.

remember the agave thread sometime back C?

ok found and merged...thanks!

Great work Lola, as usual!  

OK.  Thanks.  My main question was, how should I view Mercola's writings?

Quoted from C_sharp

Lots of Mercola threads:

http://www.dadamo.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?v-search/p-2/s-1274417020/sort-rank/

That link brings up an error message.

to your question about your thread......
glad you found it!!!

this thread here has been merged, all in one so to speak, the reason why it doesn t show up anymore.

Mercola and agave, it s all here....4 pages full!!

Quoted Text

how should I view Mercola's writings?

that is entirely up to you....
read all the different points of view given here, from the beginning and draw your own conclusion, to each their own...

OH..I meant in general.  I get his newsletters, and I didn't know if I should spend the time reading his stuff or just dismiss them.  I don't know if his opinions are upheld by Dr. Ds.