What is the carbohydrate breakdown (amount of sugar, starch, and fiber) of Raw Agave (not agave nectar)?
There are several sources on the internet that show inaccurate breakdowns of sugar, starch and fiber that do not add up to the total amount of carbohydrates. An example of an inaccurate source is:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/ethnic-foods/10007/2. The starch + sugar + fiber = 2.6g but the total carbohydrates are listed as 4.5g. Please help!
I am going to venture a guess only from what (little) I know about agave.
I am going to assume that either the listing in nutritiondata.com dropped the syrup/nectar from the end of the listing – I did find postings for raw agave syrup (but that’s got to be an oxymoron) or that subheadings (that are not fiber, sugar or starch – the most common carbohydrates) is not posted.
The same anomaly is found under high fructose corn syrup & raw corn. In both high fructose corn syrup & agave syrup starch is converted to synthetic fructose through a man made chemically altered process – which wouldn’t be categorized as “starch” or “sugar” but corn isn’t listed as a natural source for inulin.
from link –
The principal constituent of the agave is starch, such as what is found in corn or rice.
The process in which the agave starch is converted into refined fructose and then sold as the sweetener agave nectar is through an enzymatic and chemical conversion that refines, clarifies, heats, chemically alters, centrifuges, and filters the non-sweet starch into a highly refined sweetener, fructose. Here, a distinction must be made. Fructose is not what is found in fruit. Commonly, fructose is compared with its opposite and truly naturally occurring sweetener, known as ‘levulose’. There are some chemical similarities between fructose (man made) and levulose (made by nature), and so the synthetically refined sugar fructose was labeled in a way to make one believe it comes from fruit. Levulose is not fructose even though people will claim it is.
Falsely labeled agave fructose and high fructose corn syrup are both products of advanced chemistry and extensive food processing technology.
…agave, whose main carbohydrate is starch, requires the label “hydrolyzed inulin syrup.” Even though, like corn, agave is a starch processed with enzymes, it does not require the label high fructose agave syrup because the resulting refined fructose sweetener is so sweet that it is chemically closer to inulin.
from link –
Inulins are a group of naturally occurring polysaccharides produced by many types of plants.[1] They belong to a class of fibers known as fructans. Inulin is used by some plants as a means of storing energy and is typically found in roots or rhizomes. Most plants that synthesize and store inulin do not store other materials such as starch.
Plants that contain high concentrations of inulin include:
…
Agave (Agave spp.)
prickly pear pleasure
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