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Whether you’re trying to manage diabetes, lower your risk for diet-related health conditions, or just want to live healthier, then swapping refined sugar for whole food alternatives when you bake is one way to go about it.
There’s one reason baked goods usually taste so nice, and that reason is sugar. Even if you don’t have a sweet tooth, you’ll probably still agree that a sugar-free biscuit might as well be cardboard.
With a couple of insulin-dependent diabetics in the family, as well as a borderline Type 2, a few older relatives on various different diets, and a handful watching their waistlines, cutting out the sugar is beneficial to everyone. But with every bake people want to eat containing some form of refined sugar, what is actually out there you can swap it with?
We’ve tried to make cakes with sweeteners in the past, but the family feedback wasn’t good:
- “These look like frisbees” (They were actually fairy cakes)
- “Why’s the outside greasy?” (No idea)
- “My mouth is fizzing” (Sugar free icing sugar)
- “Ew” (Simple and to the point)
- “It’s like crumble” (It was supposed to be a biscuit)
- “Hmmm” (The slice of cake remained unfinished)
While the feedback for using sweeteners was poor, making homemade food using artificial products defeats the point of making it yourself.
The health questions surrounding sweeteners are also incredibly off-putting – while they may not spike your glucose levels in the way refined sugar does, it’s just as bad in other ways. Research suggests consuming sweeteners can reduce your sensitivity to insulin and increase insulin resistance. That is the opposite of what we want.
Many sweeteners, like the ethrytol in Groovy Keto’s lemon cake or the maltitol found in Betty Crocker’s sugar-free cakes, can increase flatulence and, when consumed in high quantities, can lead to diarrhoea. (That’s not saying that the Better Crocker Sugar-Free Chocolate Cake or the Sugar-Free Vanilla Cake didn’t taste nice. It did.)
What is glycemic index?
When we look at the whole food alternatives to refined sugar below, we’ll be making lots of references to glycemic index (GI). If you’re diabetic, you probably already know how a food’s glycemic index impacts your blood glucose.
If you’re new to the world of having to manage your blood glucose, whether because of being diagnosed a diabetic, or having a condition which can increase your likelihood of becoming diabetic, such as PCOS or cystic fibrosis, then understanding what glycemic index will help you make informed food choices.
Glycemic index is a measure of how much a particular type of carbohydrate will spike your blood glucose levels. Using a scale from 0-100, glycemic is split into low (less than 55), medium (55-70), and high (over 70).
If a food contains little to no carbohydrate, such as fats and proteins, then it’ll have a low GI.
The world of blood glucose management is a lot more complex than just looking at a food’s GI, however. Chocolate, for example, is incredibly high in sugar, however has a medium glycemic index due to its fatty content. Diabetes UK goes into the nuance of glycemic index, glycemic load, and balance in a lot more detail if you’d like to learn more.
Using chocolate as an example, when you make a cake, you’re combining your sugar with fats and proteins, as well as carbohydrates (flour). To calculate the glycemic index of your bake, you’ll need to work out the average glycemic index of all the ingredients. This is where swapping refined white sugar to one of the alternatives below helps: the lower GI will work to bring the average down.
What is the glycemic index of refined white sugar?
Refined white sugar has a glycemic index of around 65. When reading the alternatives below, use 65 as a reference point.
What are the whole food alternatives to refined sugar?
Coconut sugar
Recipes containing brown sugar can be swapped for coconut sugar in the ratio of 1:1. Its glycemic index ranges from 50-54. We’ve found coconut sugar to be a suitable swap for golden caster sugar or brown sugar – our favourite recipes are our coconut sugar chocolate brownies and our cinnamon and honey biscuits.
Dates
Blend them into a paste and replace in a 1:1 ratio. Take into account the colour this would make your bake – you’re not going to get a soft, yellow victoria sponge. Depending on the variety of date, the glycemic index can range from anywhere between 42 (low) and 73 (higher than white sugar). If you’re using dates, then double check before you buy.
Fruit purée
Like dates above, blend bananas, apples, strawberries, etc. into a purée. Remember to either dry your fruit beforehand, or increase the dry ingredients in your bake to prevent the mix from being too wet.
Nut sugars
Finding these in the supermarket isn’t going to happen. You’ll probably be able to fnid some on Amazon, but nut sugar will probably have to be a homemade affair. This is a more involved process than making fruit purees, but you can also turn your favourite nuts into sugars. Some time, patience, a blender, cheesecloth, and water and you can turn almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, and the like into sugar. Be aware it’s more paste/liquid than granules.
Honey
Lower on the glycemic index than refined sugar, honey is a great natural alternative. Be aware it’s still high in sugar, as although the majority of honey is made up of fructose (a glycemic index of 19), glucose (GI of 100) is also present, giving honey an overall glycemic index of 58. We found honey worked nicely in sugar-free flapjacks.
Maple syrup
At one point higher than coconut sugar, maple syrup’s glycemic index of 55 keeps it ‘medium’.
Yacon syrup
A very low glycemic index of 1. While this is the lowest glycemic index of all natural sugar alternatives on this list, we’ve put it at the bottom as it’s nigh-on impossible to buy in the UK. Like most things, you can buy Yacon syrup on Amazon (it’s a pricey £20 for 560g!), or at select health shops.
Agave Nectar
We have recently purchased a bottle of Agave Nectar to try out in our sugar-free baking. We’ve experiemented on a small scale so far, portioning of parts of our sugar-free brioche dough to mix it in to see what happens, or what the final taste would be like.
I also swirled a bit into my porridge, but the jury is still out on that one. Watch this space, as we’ll publish recipes once we’ve got them nailed.
