Bottom Line

Asking me to recommend a sweetener, natural, alternative, artificial, or otherwise, would be like asking me to choose between burning the roof of my mouth on pizza or poking myself in the eye with a fork. There is no good option (ask Coach Rip). Sugar is sugar is sugar is sugar. Along with trans fats, sugar is the worst thing you can put in your body. Not only does it make you fat, but it wrecks you from the inside out with a myriad of different diseases.

Even fruit is no longer “natural”. Farmers have been genetically selecting and breeding fruit over the years to produce the sweetest fruits possible. Fruit from the past was never even close to as sweet as it is today. A raspberry before the agricultural era would have been much smaller in size and very bitter in taste compared to today’s.

If you absolutely must have a sweetener of some kind, then at least use the least processed. This means using raw honey or evaporated cane juice.

Here is a chart listing the sugar content of fruits and other foods: Table of Fruits and Sugars