Frugal Finance: Swapping Agave Nectar For Maple Syrup

Contributed By Christie O. of Average Moms Wear Capes and Christie O. Media

I found a new love and an awesome natural swap for maple syrup hooray!

Each week I’ve been spotlighting a food that we’ve swapped on our way to becoming preservative-free. While I used to cut calories by using light syrup of whatever version was available, here were the ingredients in it:

Source: www.foodfacts.com

(At least they don’t make it a secret about preservatives! That’s really nice of them.)

We had to nix this because of the coloring, high fructose corn syrup and preservatives. A simple swap, of course, is switching to 100% maple syrup and that solves that problem! It really is delicious. But it’s a little on the expensive side and it goes pretty quickly and there are quite a few more calories in it than the light version I was eating before. Soooooo….

Here’s my SUPER SWAP!

AGAVE SYRUP!

I call it a SUPER SWAP because it costs a teeny bit more than the light syrup I used to use but still way less than the 100% maple syrup and it is just unbelievably delicious on a waffle! Best of all, it’s only 60 calories per serving as opposed to 200, but you don’t even use a full serving because it is so sweet that a little goes a super-long way. You can also get it in the regular supermarket either in the natural foods section or over by sweeteners. (In my grocery store, it’s located in both sections.)

I love a little butter on my waffle!

It is made of pure agave.

“To produce agave nectar from the Agave Americana and tequiliana plants, the leaves are cut off the plant after it has aged 7 to 14 years. Then the juice is expressed from the core of the agave, called the piña. The juice is filtered, then heated to hydrolyze polysaccharides into simple sugars.”(From Wikipedia)

You can use it as a sweetener for coffee or tea, even or use it in places where you would use honey. It is seriously delicious.

This is one of my favorite new swaps ever. Unfortunately, this was actually one of the few swaps that I couldn’t sell the kids on, but I am ok with them using the 100% maple syrup while I use Agave Nectar.

We have also switched waffles (I had to say goodbye to my favorite low-fat NutriGrain waffles, booooo!) However, I have found a few yummy brands of waffles with no preservatives, they are:

Van’s Waffles (which were voted #1 waffle by Good Housekeeping by the way, quite an honor!)
Aunt Jemima Homestyle (not wheat though)
Kashi.

And for pancake mix for the weekends, Aunt Jemima Original Complete. (Of course they are not the whole grain that I would prefer, but you know…. that’s why they’re a weekend food.)

One last thing, one of my favorite tools ever (bordering on obsession) to look up ingredients in our foods is this:www.foodfacts.com.

If are wondering about a food’s ingredients, it lists all the ingredients while highlighting which ingredients are colors, preservatives or potentially harmful. It also gives the food a grade, pretty nifty and very helpful. I can go through my shopping list and check the ingredients before I ever hit the store.

Have you ever tried Agave Nectar before???