Christy, both of those things can be purchased in a local grocery store here(privately owned small area chain), in the "health/natural" food section.
I've never seen it at the 2 other grocery stores in my town which are much larger chains. Safeway and Albertsons.
If you have any bulk food stores, or health food stores(that sell more than vitamins and supplements), I buy Agave at Trader Joes, because it's the best deal.(I only use it in small amounts at the moment.)

You can get both from Amazon.com.

terri pacnw have you tried the Stevia and if you have, how does it compare to the Agave? I've tried the Stevia and didn't like it at all, so I'm still in the market for an alternative sweetner too.

I've used agave nectar as our primary sweetener for cooking and baking for about a decade and can't tell you how many "odd" places I've ordered it from. It was very difficult to get when I first started using it. My last big shipment (a years worth) I got from amazon.com. They had the best prices, so make sure you do your math before ordering - prices vary greatly. I keep both dark and light on hand. The dark has a bit more nutrients and more flavor.

Stevia is another sweetener I've tried, but didn't like. I always got stevia at the local health food store. They also carry agave nectar at the health food store, but charge an arm and leg for it.

Agave nectar, works in baked goods just like sugar and substitutes very easily in recipes that call for honey. Things brown and are moist, and it aids in fermentation in yeast breads. That just doesn't happen with chemical sweeteners or stevia.

-Grainlady

No, I've never tried Stevia as a sweetener.
I make fresh lemonade with Agave or Honey.
I put Agave on my oatmeal. I sometimes use it BBQ sauce too.

I've not experimented with it alot in baking, but I plan to when the weather cools.

Grainlady is who I go to when I have questions about "non common" healthy ingredients..She won't steer you wrong. ;o)

I use powdered stevia in tea - just a pinch is very sweet. But I'm not sure if you can bake with it.

I have never tried agave, but I think I may try it. Here is an interesting site with a voice clip of Dr. Oz talking about agave on an Oprah show. Aparently it is used just like honey so I am sure you can bake with it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Agave Nectar

I just found this site about cooking with stevia. I guess you can! But I am sure you have to adjust recipes or find recipes specifically for stevia because just a few drops of liquid stevia or a pinch or two of powdered stevia is as sweet as a teaspoon of sugar.

Here is a link that might be useful: cooking with stevia

Here is a site that has some recipes for baking with stevia.

Here is a link that might be useful: baking with stevia

I keep a little jar of liquid stevia for my iced tea. It's super sweet, but I don't like to replace all the sugar because it does have a little bit of an odd taste. But I'm able to reduce the sugar by half by adding a few drops of stevia.

I buy it at the health food store where I get our vitamins and natural foods.

What are you trying to get with your sweetener? If you need it to be zero (or near zero) calories, agave nectar won't do that. It has calories. Personally, I've never found a no calorie sweetener with a satisfactory taste and I would rather cut back on the use of sugar and foods with lots of sugar than use them.

Agave nectar and some of the other sweeteners have sugar but are supposed to have a higher glycemic index.

Some of the sweeteners are less refined so that they have some other trace nutrients as opposed to refined sugar which is just sugar. I've been using dehydrated or evaporated cane juice such as Sucanat. The taste is very good and baked goods have been coming out fine with a one for one substitution.

I used to own a health food store, and tried stevia more than once. As a plant material I found it to be inconsistently sweet and it had an odd flavor. I never did learn to like it.

Agave nectar is more acceptable in flavor but still has 20 calories per teaspoon, compared to sugar's 15 calories per teaspoon. Agave nectar is sweeter, so you can use less, which about evens it out, calorie wise.

Agave nectar is fructose, which is lower on the glycemic index, but diabetics must still be careful with the carb count.

So, is it healthier than sugar? (shrug) I don't know, it's a natural plant product. So is cane sugar (from sugar cane), beet sugar (from sugar beets), maple syrup, sorghum molasses. Even honey is naturally occurring, and corn syrup is made from corn and I think that's way overused. I haven't yet been convinced of the nutritional "superiority" of agave nectar or any other sweetener, although I think if you aren't diabetic and aren't counting calories nearly anything is preferable to the artificial sweeteners.

Annie

I stumbled on this article the other day. It won't keep me from dosing my morning coffee with Splenda but since that is my only use of it, I think I'll be okay. I don't drink diet sodas regularly and I prefer the taste of sugar used more sparingly, anyway. It is interesting.

I have an expensive bottle of stevia in my cupboard. I thought it was awful tasting! Oh well.

Here is a link that might be useful: The trouble with Splenda and other fake sweeteners.

As with most things in life, it's not so much about what's "BETTER", but rather about the choices afforded us. We each have to weigh our options based on information or emotions and figure out what's "better".

I've worked in three health food stores and managed one of them, and was a consultant in the start-up of another, as a point of reference only. Having done so, however, does NOT make me an "expert" at anything....

My experience comes from self-study and a decade of use of agave nectar that goes beyond a Google search. I've tried and tested a large number of sweeteners over the years, not just sold them. I did a serious 5-year study and test on a wide range of sweeteners. When I come across something new, I'll test it as well, and study as much information as I can find on it. I'm the only person I've known to work with dairy sweet whey as a sweetener, as an example. I've used Trutina Dulcem, a kiwi fruit glycoside, which had a bitter aftertaste similar to chemical sweeteners, and leaves baked goods dry and unappealing.

As my husband and I work to prevent diabetes (which runs in his family), we have based our diet on foods on the lower half of the Glycemic Index of Foods, as well as whole foods, for many years now. Agave Nectar fits in this plan nicely because it is one of the lowest foods on the index (11) compared to white sugar (100) and it's a natural sweetener which works like sugar in cooking and baking - unlike stevia and chemical non-calorie sweeteners. The big test for most sweeteners are in baking. As an additional plus, none of my husband's diabetic family members have any blood sugar problems eating foods I make with agave nectar. Even when it's cake and ice cream!

Because it tastes much sweeter, much less is needed to equal the same sweeteness of sugar. I normally use only half as much agave nectar as sugar called for in a recipe, that means for every teaspoon of sugar (16 calories) I use 1/2 a teaspoon of agave nectar (10 calories).

As an example - I make a loaf of banana bread using 1/4 c. of agave nectar - less if the bananas are really ripe and sweet. Baked in a Danish Loaf Pan (which is long and narrow), I get 24 slices from one loaf, so that's not many calories per loaf from agave nectar....

Agave nectar is made from the carbohydrates present in the Agave plant through a totally natural thermic (heat) process with no chemicals used to make it.

Virtually all varieties of agave nectar are organically grown, should that be of interest to anyone. The darker, unfiltered varieties contain more minerals - I've only had the thick, unfiltered, molasses-like, type once - a gallon from a brewery company - it's hard to find but is a good substitute for molasses. I do keep the filtered darker versions on hand, they add a little more flavor while the light varieties are nearly flavorless. Unlike honey, agave nectar is safe to use with young children and babies.

I choose to avoid chemical sweeteners for a number of reasons, including my own negative experiences. I've known too many people who have had adverse reactions from consuming them. I try to avoid "chemcial concoctions" in our foods as much as possible. That's another choice I make. For all of you who enjoy and use chemical sweeteners, that's your choice.

When used in yeast breads, agave nectar contributes to fermentation and helps keep breads moist due to it's high monosacchride content. Agave nectar has a high osmotic pressure and this characteristic helps to inhibit the growth of microorganisms.

Agave nectar also has a high hygroscopicity - which increases the water retention properties of a food. This is helpful in breads and other baked goods. "...in bread making and baked goods helping these products to maintain their freshness and texture." As a secondary result of the hygroscopicity of agave nectar, I can often significantly reduce the fat in baked goods and still get great results.

Agave nectar doesn't crystalize like honey, and has a long shelf-life.

These are the kinds of things I've gathered from an assortment of reference materials to learn more about agave nectar, as well as years of use.

To my knowledge, Stevia has never been approved as a sweetener, but as an herbal supplement. Many people have successfully used it and love it - it never passed the taste test at our home even through I did lots of testing using a variety of types. I would, however, heartly recommend the cookbook, "Stevia" (naturally sweet recipes for desserts, drinks and more!) by Rita DePuydt for anyone who is interested in using stevia. It gives information about the many forms of stevia and leans a little towards healthier ingredients and uses whole wheat flour in most of the recipes.

I'm not sure if stevia plants are organically grown? I also know they add other ingredients to many of the stevia types/brands and it's a highly processed food that is far removed from the plant and the green herbal sweetener that you can make at home if you grow stevia.

Some people are also combining stevia or Splenda WITH agave nectar to reduce the bitter aftertaste of the stevia and Splenda; and to get better baking results - such as browning you can't get with chemical sweeteners and stevia, and moisture in the crumb of baked goods (especially noticable the day after the foods are baked). Once again, it's about choices.

As far as Sucanat is concerned, it's one of the sweeteners I keep on hand and use - especially when a liquid sweetener isn't the best choice, or it throws the baking science off too much. The "nutritional" aspect of Sucanat is mostly hype - it's still a high-glycemic sweetener and I use it very sparingly. I doubt that most people choose their sweetener for it's nutritional value, it's just a nice little plus you get with Sucanat.

When it comes to candy making, I have a few original recipes that use agave nectar, but good old white sugar is the sweetener of choice when it comes to a batch of Mamie Eisenhower's Million Dollar Fudge at Christmas.

-Grainlady

Other than health food stores, I've only seen Agave Nectar at King Sooper/Kroger stores (not found at Alberton' or Safeway and those are the big 3 in my area). It's usually with the honey by the PB, Jelly & Jam (on the top shelf). I prefer to use it in my hot tea instead of honey since it doesn't add or detract from the tea flavor as some honeys do, but don't really pay attention to the nutritional pros and cons.

I know Vitamin Cottage has stevia with the herbal supplements. I bought a stevia plant once but between the heat and my daughter it didn't last very long. I took the leaves and macerated them with mint leaves and made sun tea, just putting the herbs in the container with the tea bags. It gave it a sweet flavor but didn't taste sweetened (does that make sense?)

Jen

And now comes the next study on sweeteners. I just read an article where the American Medical Association says, (quoting a study from UC Davis):

"During the last 10 weeks, half of them got 25% of their calories from fructose, and half got 25% from glucose. Though both groups gained the same amount of weight -- 3.3 pounds -- those who had the fructose had an increase in the least-desirable fat (the kind that wraps around internal organs, causes a pot belly and is linked to higher risk of diabetes and heart disease) while the others did not.

The fructose-eaters (but not the glucose-eaters) also had heightened levels of triglycerides and cholesterol and decreased insulin sensitivity, a danger sign for diabetes."

So, it appears that, if you are worried about diabetes, fructose based sweeteners may be much worse for you than glucose based sweeteners.

Of course, tomorrow they'll decide something else. My ex-husband is a certificed naturopath with degrees in various things such as herbal medicine and naturopathy. We constantly got vendors pushing the "latest and greatest". Everyone has to do what they like, I think.

Which brings me back to Grandma's wisdom, that everything should be done in moderation, and that includes sweeteners of all types.

Annie

I found some of the Agave nectar yesterday at a local health food store. I tried it this morning in some hot tea and LOVE IT. When I make my iced tea, should I add it to the tea as I make the pitcher or should I just add it one glass at a time? And thank you, thank you, thank you so much everyone that said to try this great sugar substitute.

I use it in the whole batch. And remember it's twice as sweet as honey or sugar..so start out with half the amount you would use of sugar..then add a bit more..
It's wonderful over oatmeal and fresh strawberries!

Thank you for the advice.

Pam

I bought stevia but found it caused diarrhea. :(

My husband has diabetes and I would like to keep sugar consumption to a minimum, but we love iced tea and I've been using Splenda, thinking it was ok. I also have been making lemonade using Splenda. Now, reading this thread, I find it's not so good. Is honey better for you? I know it has the same calories as sugar, but I wondered it it was more healthful.