Do I really think agave nectar is evil?  Only about as evil as high fructose corn syrup.

..Agave plants are crushed, and the sap collected into tanks. The sap is then heated to about 140°F for about 36 hours not only to concentrate the liquid into a syrup, but to develop the sweetness. The main carbohydrates in the agave sap are complex forms of fructose called fructosans, one of which is inulin, a straight-chain fructose polymer about ten eight to 10 fructose sugar units long. In this state, the sap is not very sweet.

When the agave sap is heated, the complex fructosans are hydrolyzed, or broken into their constituent fructose units. The fructose-rich solution is then filtered to obtain the desired products that range from dark syrup with a characteristic vanilla aroma, to a light amber liquid with more neutral characteristics. [source]

Sounds eerily similar to the way high fructose corn syrup is made:

High-fructose corn syrup is produced by milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing that starch to yield corn syrup, which is almost entirely glucose, and then adding enzymes that change most of the glucose into fructose. The resulting syrup (after enzyme conversion) contains approximately 90% fructose and is HFCS 90. To make the other common forms of HFCS (HFCS 55 and HFCS 42) the HFCS 90 is mixed with 100% glucose corn syrup in the appropriate ratios to form the desired HFCS.                      [source]

I think that agave is a highly processed sugar that has been marketed really well to make people think that it is healthy.  In fact, “Amber” or “Dark” agave nectar is just parts of the plant that have burned in processing.  That’s some great marketing-that I totally fell for.

I had done all this research but was still using agave (maybe because of the hype?) but then my doctor told me to stop using it immediately and to only use natural sources of sugar-honey and maple syrup.  So that’s what I do.  I don’t miss it and I find that just replacing agave with honey works perfectly in recipes.

What do you think?

A sampling of articles on the topic:

http://www.westonaprice.org/Agave-Nectar-Worse-Than-We-Thought.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/30/health/he-nutrition30

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/agave.html

http://www.foodrenegade.com/agave-nectar-good-or-bad/