So I stop by the Village Market in FDL and, honestly I do really like the place. It's clean, spacey and organized. The people there are friendly and always ready to help me find what I'm looking for. It's also privately owned, I believe; and I like supporting independent businesses. I grab some gluten free flour and make a bee-line over to the sweeteners to see what they got that I may not have researched already. While I'm perfectly happy using fruits, maple syrup and honey as my sweetening options, I figured it never hurts to see what else is out there. I saw large bags of powdered dextrose, erythritol, xylitol, date sugar and liquid stevia drops. Now I never went into detail about dextrose, erythritol, or xylitol, so I think I will take this opportunity since a lot of those bags had 100% pure and organic on there. I think I'd like to also talk about "Pure" and "Organic".
First of all, dextrose, erythritol, and xylitol do occur naturally in fruits and vegetables. However in order to extract them in large amounts and be made into a powder form they have to be refined. All of these have a lower glycemic index than regular sugar and are lower in calories than regular sugar. So I'm not saying these are bad for you, but they are definitely bad for me. Xylitol actually is considered zero calories. Reason being that it is not absorbed well by the body and in large amounts can cause diarrhea, which is unpleasant.
Liquid Stevia seems to be extract from the stevia plant. I can't find much on the interwebs to tell me exactly how it's extracted and made, but I'm not opposed to trying it out.
Ok. Now lets get talking about these "Pure" and "Organic" terms. When one mentions either of these terms the average person thinks that they are synonymous with other words like clean, harmless, natural, or derived from Mother Earth herself. But to a chemist they mean completely different things, and I would consider the view of a chemist, since often the people making your food have some sort of Chem background. So to a chemist, "Pure" just means that there is nothing else in it; an untainted specimen. So pure dextrose doesn't mean that dextrose is all natural. It simply means that there is nothing else in that package other than dextrose. I think you'll notice in the grocery store that even your bags of regular table sugar have the label "Pure Cane Sugar". "Organic" can mean anything that is carbon-based. And according to my husband who works in the Ag field (agriculture), there are bio-engineered "organic" fertilizers. However, thanks to the USDA and their certification process to obtain an organic seal; It is a three year process that a farmer must participate when transitioning to growing organic foods. When it comes to your food, if it is labeled "certified organic" by the USDA, then it's a more trustworthy term.
There is a new term popping up at the grocery store that is confusing me. As I went looking for some dried fruits with no sugar added and no sulfur dioxide I was down to two option for raisins. One was a name brand that offered "Natural" Raisins and the other was a store brand "Organic". I thought to myself "Well duh, all raisins start off natural" and picked up the organic kind since it was, on sale and cheaper than my other options. I then came home and searched "Natural vs. Organic". I was surprised to find that as far as food terms there is no actual definition for what "Natural" implies. I couldn't find anything really, where as it was really easy to find what defined "Organic" to the USDA. I did find that as far as the USDA is concerned "Natural" can describe meats that are minimally processed that does not fundamentally alter the product, no articifial colors or ingredients. It didn't mention anything about hormones.