Hello and welcome to Zoey Shorts, the bite-sized podcast where we discuss one topic

around science and nutrition. I'm Jonathan Wolf and today I'm joined by Dr.

Sarah Berry and today's subject is Natural Sugar Alternatives.

That's right Jonathan. Today we're discussing food such as honey, maple syrup,

stevia and agave that people use instead of table sugar and some believe these

natural options are healthier than regular table sugar. But are these natural

alternatives actually better for us than table sugar? Well, as always the answer

is not straightforward and I think the facts are surprisingly Jonathan. Amazing!

Let's dive in.

So Sarah, tape me inside your house on a Saturday morning. Does your family use any

natural sugar alternatives? Yeah, on weekends I might have pancakes with the

kids with honey or maple syrup on them. Well, it seems actually Sarah that you've picked

two household favourites because we did some research and it turns out that honey

is the most popular spread in the UK. More popular than jam or jelly as our

colleagues in the States would say and in the US more than five million gallons

of maple syrup are produced each year. Other popular natural sugar alternatives

as well as honey and maple syrup include pure-raid fruit like bananas, dates, agave syrup

and coconut sugar which is made from the sap of coconut palm and it's essentially the same

as palm sugar. And I've heard of stevia. I feel like more often recently as well.

Is that a natural alternative to sugar? So technically it is and this is because stevia

is derived from a very sweet tasting South American plant. It's actually more than 200 times sweeter

than sugar. It's not something that we've historically eaten and it goes through many, many

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