Chemical Analysis:

	Volcanic Nectar	Nekutli	IIDEA
Fructose	49.10%	67%	70%
Glucose	10.70%	28%	0%
Dextrose	0.00%	0%	21%
Maltose	0.00%	1.45%	0%
Mannitol	0.00%	0%	5%
Sucrose	0.00%	0%	5%
Maltodextrose	0.00%	1.22%	0%
Tetramaltose	0.00%	0.73%	0%
Glycemic Index	27	46	39
Glycemic Load	1.6	--	--
Inulin	11.81%	--	2%

How do I find out which agave is best for my health?

Although many people look at Volcanic Nectar agave as this great all natural breakthrough with zero side effects, you must use caution. Agave is still a natural sugar similar to what you find in sweet tasting apples, pears, etc. The great thing about Volcanic Nectar is that it was the only Agave found to be considered Diabetic Friendly. That means your body is given more time to “use” Volcanic Nectar in a positive way instead of just sending everything to your fat cells. In order for something to be considered Diabetic Friendly, your Glycemic Index (GI) can’t be higher than 55 and your Glycemic Load  can’t be higher than 10. Volcanic Nectar was the only Agave tested in the United States that passed this test. Other companies have sought out testing with other countries, but have not passed FDA and FTC guidelines for testing. Even if we consider their test results from other countries, you’ll see that Volcanic Nectar is still much lower on this chart below:

 It is an FDA violation and Federal offense to print incorrect information on a label, such as stating a product is "Low Glycemic" if it is not. It is an FTC violation to state a product is "Low Glycemic" on brochures, advertisements and product materials if it is not.

Additionally, the physical consequences of diabetics, hypoglycemics, and persons with insulin-related disorders consuming high glycemic products, believing them to be low glycemic, can be profound. Products that claim to be low glycemic, and in reality, are not low glycemic, open themselves to lawsuits for fraud, FDA violations, FTC violations, class action suits, and medical damages.

With clinical evidence of the glycemic properties of a product, manufacturers can provide customers, as well as government agencies, finite proof that their product has been proven to be low glycemic.

The Glycemic Research Institute strictly adheres to FDA and FTC guidelines. 

Glycemic Index Defined

Glycemic Load Defined

 

Is Agave considered RAW?

Again, if you  just look at labels you can easily be confused. There are NO label laws for using the word RAW on your product. One of the reasons is because the  RAW community cannot determine the definition of RAW… And for good reason. It’s a different definition for different products. For example, RAW in Alaska might not be considered RAW in Mexico. Something from a cool climate heated to 110 F may break down the enzyme structure much faster than something heated to 120 F in Mexico. If Agave isn’t heated at all, it’s called Tequila. There’s no way around it. So when you hear the stories of a person who goes out daily to “scoop” the agave out of the plant… don’t believe it. One RAW Agave with such claims sold about $6 million worth of agave in 2007. That’s a whole lot of running around with ladles! The fact is you have about 15 minutes to slow the fermentation process down once it is extracted from the plant. Volcanic Nectar doesn’t completely stop the process, but we have found a way to slow it down with only 118 F. To answer the question, is Volcanic Nectar RAW? We’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Glucose / Dextrose / Maltodextrose

Glucose is produced commercially via the enzymatic hydrolysis of starch. Many crops can be used as the source of starch. Maize, rice, wheat, potato, cassava, arrowroot, and sago are all used in various parts of the world. In the United States, cornstarch (from maize) is used almost exclusively.

This enzymatic process has two stages. Over the course of 1-2 hours near 100 °C, these enzymes hydrolyze starch into smaller carbohydrates containing on average 5-10 glucose units each. Some variations on this process briefly heat the starch mixture to 130 °C or hotter one or more times. This heat treatment improves the solubility of starch in water, but deactivates the enzyme, and fresh enzyme must be added to the mixture after each heating.

In the second step, known as saccharification, the partially hydrolyzed starch is completely hydrolyzed to glucose using the glucoamylase enzyme from the fungus Aspergillus niger. Typical reaction conditions are pH 4.0–4.5, 60 °C, and a carbohydrate concentration of 30–35% by weight. Under these conditions, starch can be converted to glucose at 96% yield after 1–4 days. Still higher yields can be obtained using more dilute solutions, but this approach requires larger reactors and processing a greater volume of water, and is not generally economical. The resulting glucose solution is then purified by filtration and concentrated in a multiple-effect evaporator. Solid D-glucose is then produced by repeated crystallizations.

Mannitol is a nutritive sweetener (compare to non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin which provide no nutrients or calories), stabilizer, humectant and bulking agent in foods and supplements. For commercial use, it is manufactured via a catalytic hydrogenation process. Excessive consumption may have a laxative effect, similar to certain high--fiber foods. Because of this, products containing mannitol must include a laxative warning on the label if the mannitol content in a serving exceeds 20g.

Chemically, mannitol is an alcohol and a sugar, or a polyol; it is similar to xylitol or sorbitol. However, mannitol has a tendency to lose a hydrogen ion in aqueous solutions, which causes the solution to become acidic. For this reason, it is not uncommon to add a substance to adjust its pH, such as sodium bicarbonate.

Maltose, also called malt sugar, is not found free in nature, but is formed by enzymes or acid hydrolysis from starch also found in Corn Syrup.

Sucrose (common name: table sugar, also called saccharose)

Sucrose is the most common food sweetener in the industrialized world, although it has been replaced in industrial food production by other sweeteners such as fructose syrups or combinations of functional ingredients and high intensity sweeteners.

Sucrose is ubiquitous in food preparations due to both its sweetness and its functional properties; it is important to the structure of many foods including biscuits and cookies, ice cream and sorbets, and also assists in the preservation of foods. As such it is common in many processed and so-called “junk foods.”

Sucrose is an easily assimilated macronutrient that provides a quick source of energy to the body, provoking a rapid rise in blood glucose upon ingestion. However, pure sucrose is not normally part of a human diet balanced for good nutrition, although it may be included sparingly to make certain foods more palatable.

Overconsumption of sucrose has been linked with some adverse health effects. The most common is dental caries or tooth decay, in which oral bacteria convert sugars (including sucrose) from food into acids that attack tooth enamel. Sucrose, as a pure carbohydrate, has a high food energy content (4 kilocalories per gram or 17 kilojoules per gram), and thus can make a diet hypercaloric even in small amounts, contributing to obesity.

The rapidity with which sucrose raises blood glucose can cause problems for people suffering from defects in glucose metabolism, such as persons with hypoglycemia or diabetes mellitus. Sucrose can contribute to development of the metabolic syndrome. An experiment with rats that were fed a diet one-third of which was sucrose may serve as a model for the development of the metabolic syndrome. The sucrose first elevated blood levels of triglycerides, which induced visceral fat and ultimately resulted in insulin resistance.
 
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