Hello and this week we're talking about whole food sweeteners. This is a term that's been circulating.

I'm your host, Monica Reinagel, and this week we're talking about Whole Food Sweeteners. This is a term that's been circulating lately, so we'll talk about what a Whole Food

Sweetener is and why it might or might not be a better choice. But first, I wanted to share a quick question and answer

from a listener.

Meisha wrote, I've heard that plant-based vitamins

absorb better than synthetic ones. Is this actually true or not? In fact, it is not

always true. Some synthetic vitamins are molecularly identical to the ones found in plants and they'd be absorbed

exactly the same way. Folic acid is a synthetic form of the vitamin

folate and it's actually much better absorbed than the folate found in plants or in plant-based vitamins.

Some nutrients such as B12 are not ever found in plants and so for these nutrients you'd have to rely either on a

synthetic form or an animal source. Calcium is a nutrient that's found in both

plant and animal foods and in this case the calcium in milk

is actually much better absorbed than the calcium in spinach. So you see it's

impossible to say that a plant-based vitamin is always going to be better absorbed.

Now I think it's always preferable to get our nutrients from foods rather than supplements

because they often come with a host of other complementary nutrients that may help your body absorb or assimilate them.

But if you are relying on a supplement to fill the gap,

a plant-based supplement isn't necessarily going to be more beneficial.

Thanks for that question, Meisha. And now let's dig into today's topic.

According to a recent issue of the exploding topics newsletter, which was forwarded

to me by a listener, Whole Food Sweetener is a hugely trending topic right now. As the editors put it, health conscious consumers want to

sweeten their food with substances that are natural and whole food. They go on to explain that

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