Truth is, there are many other syrups available for us to use. Some other kinds of syrups include corn syrup, date syrup, agave syrup, and more. These syrups have various uses. They can be used as sweeteners, to cook food, and even as a topping on desserts.
The use of syrups as a sweetener often brings up the question of how healthy they are. If they are sweet, chances are that they are high in sugars. Everyone knows that high amounts of sugar are not ideal. So, the question arises, is syrup healthy?
Let’s take a look at some different kinds of syrups, and decide whether or not they are healthy syrups or not.
Different kinds of syrups on the market
On the market, various kinds of syrups are available. Each of them can be used for a variety of different things such as drink-making and cooking.
Flavoring syrups add flavor to your food and drinks. They are often sweet and improve the taste of otherwise bland or downright bitter drinks.
Concentrates are bold flavors often combined with water and milk to add flavor to your recipe. These are popular in restaurants, cafes, and coffee shops since they significantly reduce preparation time. Some popular concentrates are coffee and tea flavors, savory flavors, and fruit flavors.
Dessert sauces are also considered syrups. However, they are thicker in consistency. Their thickness allows them to be swirled on top of various desserts, such as sundaes, milkshakes, icecreams and more.
Sweetener syrups work mainly as liquid sweeteners. They are mainly used in beverages as they can dissolve easily and leave behind their sweetness to elevate your drink to another level. Some examples of sweetener syrups include simple syrup, maple syrup, agave syrup, and more.
Maple Syrup
What is it?
Maple syrup is a sweetener that is made using the sap of maple trees. This makes this particular sweetener natural yet decadent. Maple syrup comes in various grades which are differentiated based on their color. These grades also vary from country to country.
The darker the syrup, the stronger the maple flavor in them. Dark maple syrup is often extracted later in the harvest and is used mainly in baking and cooking owing to its strong taste.
Lighter syrups are not as strong and are used to drizzle on top of desserts.
Benefits it offers
Maple syrups offer a few benefits that include some vitamins and minerals. Furthermore, it is also considered to have decent amounts of manganese and zinc.
Additionally, it also has at least 24 different oxidants. Studies show that darker maple syrups like Grade B supply have a higher amount of these beneficial oxidants.
Maple syrup also contains various active compounds that have been shown to help reduce the risk of cancer and even reduce the growth of cancerous cells. Studies also show that it may reduce the speed of carbohydrate breakdown in your digestive tract.
Is it healthy?
Although maple syrup contains many beneficial compounds, minerals, and antioxidants, it is undeniable that it also contains high amounts of sugar. It is estimated that the third cup of maple syrup contains around 60 grams of sugar.
With a poor mineral to sugar ratio, consuming maple syrup to gain the benefits of those few minerals is detrimental to your health. Excess sugar consumption can lead to multiple health complications such as obesity, heart diseases, and type 2 diabetes.
Such high sugar content can also affect your blood sugar levels and completely skew them.
In conclusion, no. Maple syrup is not healthy.
Corn Syrup
What is it?
Corn syrup is a sweetener extracted from corn and refined to form a light golden syrup. This syrup is mainly glucose and extremely sweet. Thus, it is often used in candy making. The consistency of corn syrup allows it to dissolve well in liquid and not crystalize like other sweeteners. Hence, it is useful in making candy and shiny sweet sauces.
Corn syrup is often used with sugar to help make frozen desserts like ice-creams have a creamier texture. They are also used to manage the consistency of baked goods such as cookies and brownies.
Benefits it offers
Corn syrup has very few benefits. The main one is that it is cheaper than sugar and adds texture and freshness to ingredients. Hence, it is quite useful in drink and dessert preparation.
Additionally, it is extremely versatile and can help give texture, add sweetness and help make foods crunchier.
Is it healthy?
Corn syrup is essentially a refined sweetener. Hence, it is empty calories with little to no caloric value. Consuming high quantities of corn syrup can wreck your blood sugar and insulin levels. This can lead to weight gain along with other health problems.
Corn syrup also adds high amounts of fructose to your diet. This can cause an increase in liver fat which may lead to fatty liver disease. Diabetes is also a concern with the high intake of fructose as fructose actively works to decrease our body’s ability to control blood sugar levels.
Hence, we can safely conclude that corn syrup is unhealthy and best consumed in small amounts.
Agave Syrup
What is it?
Agave syrup is a sweetener that is extracted from the agave plant. The plant is cut and then pressed to extract the sugary sweet nectar. This nectar is then processed to create a syrup. The processing of this syrup includes heating the nectar then juicing and filtering it. After that, it is evaporated. In the end, we get agave syrup.
Benefits it offers
Agave syrup is thinner than other sweeteners. Hence, it dissolves better in water and other beverages without making them extremely dense. Also, because it is sweeter than sugar, a smaller amount of agave has the same sweetness as sugar. Thus, fewer calories are consumed when using agave syrup.
Vitamin B6 is also found in agave which is extremely useful in helping boost your metabolism. It does this by helping our body break down proteins and carbohydrates. Additionally, it also has vitamin K and folate that may offer some mental health benefits, such as easing symptoms of depression.
Is it healthy?
Agave is a sweetener, and like other sweeteners, it is high in fructose. Excess consumption of fructose can cause not only cause insulin resistance but can also trigger heart diseases and even type 2 diabetes. Increased fructose intake can also cause oxidative stress and fatty liver disease.
Additionally, agave syrup is a calorie-dense sweetener as it has more calories than table sugar. A single teaspoon of table sugar has 16 calories, while agave syrup has 21. Increased sugar consumption can have many negative health impacts such as weight gain and obesity.
In conclusion, no. Agave syrup is not a healthy syrup.
Brown Rice Syrup
What is it?
Brown rice syrup is a sweetener that requires brown rice to be prepared. To prepare brown rice sweetener, you cook brown rice and expose it to an enzyme. This enzyme breaks down starches and converts them into simpler sugars. The syrup that is left is thick and sugary.
Brown rice syrup is made up of three sugars that include maltotriose(52%), maltose (45%), and lastly glucose (3%).
Benefits it offers
Brown rice syrup has very few nutrients when compared to highly nutritious brown rice. It contains small amounts of minerals synch as calcium and potassium.
Another benefit of brown rice syrup is that it is not artificial. Unlike other sweeteners, brown rice is plant-based and is manufactured into sugars that are easy to digest. Hence, no artificial ingredients are needed to make this syrup. Furthermore, brown rice syrup does not contain any fructose and won’t harm your liver and metabolic health.
Is it healthy?
Although brown rice syrup has been shown to contain a few nutrients, they are negligible. Hence, it cannot be considered a strong enough reason to consume this syrup. Additionally, the High Glycemic Index is a huge con for brown rice syrup. The Glycemic index measures how quickly a particular food can raise your blood sugar. This means that this syrup can cause your insulin and blood sugar levels to spike.
Rapid spikes in your blood sugar can be extremely detrimental to your health and cause weight gain.
Rice syrups also contain trace amounts of arsenic which is a toxic chemical. Hence, we can conclude that, even though brown rice syrup is better than other syrups, it is still best avoided.
Barley Malt Syrup
What is it?
Barley malt syrup is another liquid sweetener, but this one is unrefined. It is made using barley that is specially soaked and sprouted. The flavor of barley malt syrup is quite strong and its consistency is quite thick like golden syrup or even molasses. Its sugar content and thickness allow barley malt syrup to be a viable substitute for molasses and is also often used to sweeten things such as sauces, desserts, and more.
Benefits it offers
Barley Malt syrup is known to contain some vitamins and minerals that can be beneficial for you. There is a decent amount of potassium, small amounts of protein, and also some gluten in barley malt syrup. This syrup also contains some oxidant activity that can prove to have some positive effects on our bodies.
Is it healthy?
Barley Malt syrup contains maltose which has a high glycemic index. This means that this syrup can raise your blood sugar level quite quickly. Additionally, barley malt syrup is not very sweet, and you will have to put in more to have the same level of sweetness that is achieved with sugar.
To achieve sweetness that is at par with sugar, you may end up consuming more barley sugar syrup than you should. This translates into consuming more calories than needed. Excess intake of calories that are void of nutritional value may result in weight gain, obesity, and cardiovascular issues.
Hence, we can conclude that barley malt syrup is not healthy, and you should avoid it if possible.
Date Syrup
What is it?
Date syrup is a sweetener that is sourced naturally and can be obtained in two different types – commercially produced or homemade.
Date syrup is used in various recipes to add sweetness and is also often used as a drizzle for topping various desserts and foods.
Benefits it offers
Date syrup has many benefits that include being high in nutrients and minerals. Hence, it makes it a suitable sugar substitute. It contains proteins along with minerals and vitamins. The different kinds of vitamins in date syrup include vitamin B5, B3, B2, B1. It also has vitamins A1 and C.
Date syrup also provides energy for your daily tasks because of the natural sugars it contains. Furthermore, it has fiber that acts as a laxative and increases bowel movements.
Is it healthy?
Commercially produced date syrup goes through an entire process which includes cooking and extracting syrup from dates. Hence the date syrup from this process is low in fiber and high in sugars. Additionally, you lose out on some minerals and vitamins as well.
In comparison, homemade date syrup is made simply by pureeing dates which means that it retains all its fibers, minerals, and vitamins.
Hence, we can conclude that homemade date sugar is healthy.
Conclusion
Many of the syrups we have seen are not healthy. The bottom line here is that most of these sweeteners go through a processing process due to which they lose their vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Hence, all that is left is sugar in its various forms. These syrups also contain high amounts of fructose which is definitely not healthy. Hence, the answer to ‘is syrup healthy’ is no unless it is homemade. Then it may be healthy.