5 surprising ingredients that add sweetness without the sugar

It is now widely recognised that reducing sugar is a good idea for your health and your waistline. However, our addiction to sugar is so strong it can feel impossible to kick it until we are presented with a situation whereby, we have no alternative. Even when we switch to a raw food lifestyle, it’s easy to be seduced by all the raw desserts which are really yummy but not every day foods, many of which contain a lot of raw sugars and nuts.

You don’t have to wait for a health crisis to spring into action. Whether you are looking to eliminate or reduce sugar in your diet, there are ingredients that can help to add sweetness without adding a tablespoon of the white stuff and all those extra calories.

Most of the sweeteners in raw food have controversy around them. Agave can be highly processed and is high in fructose, yakon which is extremely expensive, xylitol is deadly to dogs and stevia can be highly processed and leave a bitter aftertaste if you use too much.

Why not try making your dishes with some of these ingredients instead?

Coconut milk

The sweetest of all the non-dairy milks, coconut milk, is a great choice to help you eliminate refined sugar. Try adding it to tea or coffee for a sweeter drink…or use it to make chia pudding or porridge instead of nut milk or dairy milk.  For an easy to make at home coconut milk, try this recipe.

Vanilla

Vanilla beans are the fruit pods of the tropical climbing orchid. Whether you are using the bean, powdered vanilla or a good quality extract, vanilla adds a fragrant sweet, creamy, buttery flavour to your food without the sugar. Think ice cream, custard and crème anglaise. Often our craving for sweetness can be satisfied with fragrant vanilla. 

To use the bean: using a sharp knife, simply cut it open lengthways from the tip to the base and open it out. Use a teaspoon to scrape out the small black seeds.  You can add the empty pod to a bottle of plant milk to infuse overnight in the fridge. The pod can be rinsed, dried and reused many times.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a sweet spice which can be used in either sweet or savoury dishes. It has been linked to reducing inflammation and can help to regulate blood sugar. Sprinkle on your porridge or add to homemade chocolate for a Mexican inspired flavour. This should enable you to cut down on other sugars in the chocolate. Look for Ceylon cinnamon (sometimes called true cinnamon) rather than Cassia cinnamon as it is sweeter and has lower levels of coumarin. Coumarin can lead to liver failure when consumed in high doses.

In Europe, most cinnamon is Ceylon cinnamon whereas in North America, much of the cinnamon sold is cassia. Do check the provenance of your cinnamon and if you cannot get Ceylon cinnamon, you can substitute with another sweet spice such as ground cardamom instead.

Carrots

Carrots have a natural sweetness can be enjoyed grated into a porridge.  Alternatively, carrot juice can be used instead of sugar or a liquid sweetener to balance the acidity of tomato sauces and to add sweetness to cakes. If you are avoiding sugar for a serious health concern it is best not to juice them.

Salt

This may sound counterintuitive, but salt helps to draw out the natural flavours of food. Adding a pinch of sea salt will enable you to better taste the natural sweetness in food and to also reduce bitterness.  Choose a good quality sea salt or Himalayan pink salt.

These are just some of the ingredients which can be used to add sweetness instead of sugar. Other sweeteners include carob, mesquite and lucuma as well as a whole host of other surprising ingredients such as Holy basil.

These are just some of the ingredients that you can use to add sweetness - we explore many more in the Raw Chef Low Sugar Foundation Award. (Veg Soc approved).

Delicious raw food recipes and strategies for reducing the sugar. Learn to make delicious low sugar raw food just like the professionals (without all the gloopy syrups), in recipes that take 15 minutes or less. (No dehydrator required).