The cover picture todayshows Agave, a plant sometimes known as the Century Plant; I am not sure why. Ipicked it this week as we have now reached Leaf 100 of the series!
Agave americana is a monocot of the asparagus family that is native to Mexico and the southern USA. Despite the moniker, plants grow typically live 10-30 years, then flower once and then die, with new plants sprouting adventitiously from the base. Agave is anatomically adapted to arid conditions with thick leaves and high sugar content to maintain turgor (see Leaf 85 https://lnkd.in/dUXzM2SF).Despite what Wikipedia says, the main dissolved sugar is ordinary sucrose, not “agavose”.
Agave also contains lotsof inulin, a polysaccharide similar to starch, but based on fructose rather than glucose. Agave species may contain other useful molecules, including some beneficialphy to actives. For example, A. sisialiana grown for industrial fibre yieldsboth sisal and a residue with good skincare potential (Barreto et al, 2020).
A popular use of agave is to manufacture agave syrup, in which most of the sugars are chemically converted to free fructose. The resulting product is rather similar to the High Fructose Corn Syrup produced from corn starch (HFCS). The two products have a very different public image and price; there is no scientific basis for this. Fructose is sweeter than other sugars, so food manufacturers can use less and consumers get less calories. It sounds great, but there are significant concerns aboutfructose overconsumption that should apply equally to agave and corn-derived sweeteners.
Of course, many prefer thesugars fermented to alcohol! Your choice, tequila or whisk Ey (spelled with an “E” for those of us who prefer real whisky).
Further reading
Ψ Wikipedia contributors (2023).Agave americana. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://lnkd.in/dn96H5fE
ΨSaraiva A et al (2020). Natural Sweeteners: The Relevance of Food Naturalness for Consumers, Food Security Aspects, Sustainability and Health Impacts. Int J Env Res Public Health,17(17), 6285. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176285
ΨMai BH & Yan LJ (2019). Thenegative and detrimental effects of high fructose on the liver, with specialreference to metabolic disorders, Diabetes Metab Syndr Obes.12,821–826. https://doi.org/10.2147/DMSO.S198968
Ψ Barreto SMAG et al. (2020) In Vitro and In Vivo Antioxidant Activity of Agave sisalana Agro-Industrial Residue. Biomolecules 10(10),1435. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom10101435
