Menu

  • Home
  • Garden
    • Big Gardens
    • Small Gardens
    • Vegetables and Herbs
    • Yard and Backyard
    • Gardening Tips
    • Ornamental Plants
    • Indoor Plants
  • Home Design
    • Living Room
    • Kids Room
    • Bedroom
    • Home Office
    • Kitchen
    • Bathroom
    • Home Decor
    • Architecture and Design
    • All About Home
  • Interesting
    • Positive Stories
    • Interesting News
    • Stories Behind the Photographs
    • Odd News
  • Health & Beauty
    • Hairstyles
    • Makeup
    • Diet
    • Lifestyle & Mental Health
    • Fitness & Weight Loss
    • Beauty Tips
    • Health Tips
  • Recipes
    • Meals
    • Healthy Recipes
    • Desserts and Cakes
    • Cookies and Snacks
    • Keto Recipes
    • Video Recipes
  • DIY
    • DIY Ideas
    • DIY Tutorials
  • Pets
    • Cats
    • Dogs
    • Rodents
    • Aquatic Pets
    • Birds
    • Funny Animal Videos
  • Home
  • Garden
    • Big Gardens
    • Small Gardens
    • Vegetables and Herbs
    • Yard and Backyard
    • Gardening Tips
    • Ornamental Plants
    • Indoor Plants
  • Home Design
    • Living Room
    • Kids Room
    • Bedroom
    • Home Office
    • Kitchen
    • Bathroom
    • Home Decor
    • Architecture and Design
    • All About Home
  • Interesting
    • Positive Stories
    • Interesting News
    • Stories Behind the Photographs
    • Odd News
  • Health & Beauty
    • Hairstyles
    • Makeup
    • Diet
    • Lifestyle & Mental Health
    • Fitness & Weight Loss
    • Beauty Tips
    • Health Tips
  • Recipes
    • Meals
    • Healthy Recipes
    • Desserts and Cakes
    • Cookies and Snacks
    • Keto Recipes
    • Video Recipes
  • DIY
    • DIY Ideas
    • DIY Tutorials
  • Pets
    • Cats
    • Dogs
    • Rodents
    • Aquatic Pets
    • Birds
    • Funny Animal Videos

Sweet, Sweeter…Monk Fruit!

17
Aug
42
Sweet, Sweeter…Monk Fruit!
By Nightlight
/ in Diet,Health and Beauty,Health Tips
/ tags diet, health tips, Nutrition, Super Food
0 Comments

Despite all the dangers of consuming too much sugar, we still love the sweet stuff. There are a lot of low-calorie sugar alternatives to choose from, but sweeteners made from monk fruit are a healthy standout.

Monk fruit/ Luo Han Guo is from the Curcubitaceae family of plants (other members of this family include cucumber, watermelon, and pumpkin). Native to southern China and northern Thailand, monk fruit is a green, apple-size gourd with super sweet juice (about 300 times sweeter than cane sugar)—yet it has no calories.



Unlike sugar, monk fruit doesn’t contribute to obesity or diabetes. The fruit has been eaten in the Far East for several hundred years, but it does have a few drawbacks to consider.

Taste

Instead of fructose, which is the sugar that typically gives fruit its sweet flavor, monk fruit’s sweetness comes from unique antioxidants called mogrosides. In addition to extraordinary sweetness, mogrosides have other flavors that modern food manufacturers do their best to eliminate.

In 1995, Procter and Gamble patented a process to remove most of monk fruit’s peculiar taste, while retaining its coveted sweetness. The end result is a product more palatable than stevia—another natural, no-calorie sweetener with a licorice-like bitterness. However, even with processing, monk fruit products may still taste a bit odd to some.

Cost

In 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed monk fruit sweetener safe for consumption, but its high cost remains the biggest hurdle to consumers and food manufacturers. It is the most expensive sweetener on the market. It costs about twice as much as stevia products and is many times more expensive than synthetic sweeteners. Sweet, Sweeter...Monk Fruit!

The Lankanto brand has a granulated monk fruit based-product that is designed to be used like sugar and sells for about a dollar an ounce. Compare that to Domino cane sugar, which sells for about 6 cents an ounce.

There are several reasons why this fruit is so costly. It takes a lot of monk fruit melons to make a little sweetener, and the industrial refining process also adds to its expense. On top of this, a 2004 Chinese law forbids monk fruit seeds or the genetic material necessary to propagate a plant from leaving the country.




But even if you were to procure some seeds, the plant is still difficult to grow outside its native habitat. According to a report from Food Navigator-Asia, 90 percent of China’s monk fruit production comes from Guangxi Province, resulting in a supply that can’t keep pace with the world’s growing demand.

To offset the cost and tame its intense character, manufacturers nearly always mix monk fruit extract with other sweeteners, such as dextrose, stevia, inulin, or sugar alcohols such as xylitol or erythritrol. The result is a less expensive, more versatile product with a few more calories, depending on which sweeteners are added to a particular blend.

Monk Fruit in Chinese Medicine

This fruit and its extract is popular in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and is slowly gaining recognition in other places because of its potential benefits. Monk fruit’s reputation as a sugar substitute is a rather recent development. It has a much longer history as a traditional Chinese herb.

Monk fruit use began in the 1200s when monks in southern China introduced a strange fruit that became known as “luo han guo” or “Arhat fruit.” An Arhat is an entry-level Buddha. This fruit is traditionally grown on mountainsides in Guangxi and Guangdong provinces. These special, subtropical growing conditions meant it was slow to spread to other regions, but its healing virtues gained the attention and respect of local herbalists.

In herbal medicine traditions, plants from the Curcubitaceae family are used to cool the body, and monk fruit excels in this regard. It is traditionally used to brew a cooling tea to combat the oppressive heat of summer or bring down a fever or other signs of internal heat. This makes monk fruit an exceptional sweetener: While sugar feeds inflammation, monk fruit cools it.

Monk fruit has other healing qualities, too. In Chinese medicine, it is used to treat a sore throat, chronic bronchitis, diabetes, and constipation.Sweet, Sweeter...Monk Fruit!

Unless you visit southern China, you’re not likely to encounter a fresh specimen, but some Asian markets may carry dried monk fruit. It is much less expensive than the processed sweetener but it comes with a strong, odd taste.



Sweet, Sweeter...Monk Fruit!

Sometimes it’s mislabeled as “bitter melon,” which is a completely different plant with a gourd that looks like a bumpy cucumber. Dried monk fruit is round, brown, and a bit fuzzy. No bumps.

Monk fruit is increasingly found in a variety of junk food products (such as sodas, baked goods, and hard candy), with a nutritional profile that will appeal to health-conscious consumers. For use in home cooking, monk fruit-based sweeteners are available as a powder or a liquid extract.

Source: theepochtimes.com
Thanks for sharing this!
High-Protein-Foods
36 Low Carb & High Protein Foods to Build Lean Muscle 7 years ago
Fruits and Veggies with Most and Least Pesticides
Fruits and Veggies with Most and Least Pesticides 8 years ago
Anti-Inflammatory Foods for a Healthier Body
Anti-Inflammatory Foods for a Healthier Body 8 years ago
← Tips for Small Living Room
Why Japanese Women Never Get Fat and Live the Longest →

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Quiet Corner

Tags

All About Home Architecture and Design Beauty Tips Cats cooking design diet DIY DIY Tutorial DIY Tutorials dogs Do It Yourself easy to make fitness food garden garden ideas Gardening Gardening Tips health Health and Beauty health tips healthy food Healthy Recipes home Home Interior Houseplants ideas Indoor Plants interesting Interesting Facts Interesting News Interesting Things Keto Keto Recipes meals Nutrition Ornamental Plants pet pets plant recipe recipes tips Yard and Backyard
WHO WE ARE

Quiet Corner is your place for relaxation! Quiet Corner will help keep you informed and it’s the definitive resource for weight loss, smart nutrition, health and beauty, home and gardening and all little things that make life happy, filled with tips, tricks and recipes to get you the body—and the life—you want…

LATEST COMMENTS
  • Great plans for the perfect greenhouse design my wife loves!!! I
    KEN KOPP
  • Thank you for sharing this very knowledgeable information.
    Diana
  • Beautiful
    Christina Mary Wolstenholme
POPULAR ARTICLES
  • How To Grow Banana Trees In Pots 431 people like this
  • Small Garden Design – Tips and Tricks 397 people like this
  • Keto Peanut Butter Blondie 370 people like this
  • Homemade Keto Chocolate Chips 333 people like this
OUR PAGES
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
    This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
    Privacy & Cookies Policy

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled

    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

    Non-necessary

    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.