Sugar occupies a peculiar position in contemporary nutrition. Common enough to eat almost every day, yet demonised enough that on some packaging it reads like a chemical compound accidentally released into the food supply. The truth is less dramatic: sugar is not poison. But the quantity, frequency, and form in which we eat it do matter.
The World Health Organization recommends that free sugars account for less than 10 percent of total daily energy intake, and notes that a further reduction below 5 percent may bring additional benefit, particularly for dental health. Free sugars here does not mean only the white sugar from a bowl. The category includes added mono- and disaccharides as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, and fruit juices.
That is the first important point when discussing agave: agave syrup is still a source of sugar.
It is not a nutritional trick by which a dessert stops being sweet. Its main distinction lies in composition. Agave syrup typically contains a high proportion of fructose relative to glucose, which gives it a lower glycemic index than sucrose — ordinary table sugar. The postprandial glucose rise can therefore be smaller.
This is one of the reasons we use it at VERA. But a lower GI is not the same as unlimited healthiness.
Fructose is metabolised differently from glucose — largely in the liver — and a very high intake of added fructose-rich sugars is not something to romanticise. If one were to take the same old dessert idea, pour in a large amount of agave, and then declare it health food, the marketing would have changed more than the product.
For us, agave is interesting as a tool: it is intense, sweet, and enables certain recipes to achieve a specific flavour and texture with a different glycaemic profile than sucrose. We do not use it as permission for sugar to stop counting.
The second sweetener we use is considerably more unusual.
Erythritol belongs to the sugar alcohols, or polyols. It occurs naturally in small quantities in certain foods and is commercially produced by fermentation. It is sweet, but the human body does not metabolise most absorbed erythritol as glucose: a large proportion is excreted unchanged in the urine. It therefore provides very little energy and has a minimal acute effect on blood glucose and insulin.
This makes it exceptionally useful when sweetness is desired without the classical glycaemic response of sugar.
Erythritol also has a practical advantage over some other polyols: because a large portion is absorbed in the small intestine before reaching the large intestine, it is generally better tolerated in typical quantities than sweeteners such as sorbitol or maltitol. But "better tolerated" does not mean excess is impossible. Larger amounts of polyols can cause gastrointestinal symptoms in some people.
In recent years a more serious discussion has emerged around erythritol. An observational study published in Nature Medicine in 2023 associated higher blood erythritol concentrations with greater cardiovascular risk, and an experimental component of the paper showed potential effects on platelets. Headlines moved quickly to a simpler version: erythritol causes heart attacks.
That is not what the study demonstrated.
Blood erythritol concentration does not reflect only what has been consumed; the human body can also produce erythritol via the pentose phosphate pathway, and people with metabolic disease may have different endogenous metabolism. An observational association therefore cannot on its own establish that the sweetener caused a cardiovascular event. At the same time, the result is not a reason to ignore the topic. A sound evidence-based approach is neither panic nor cheerleading: we follow new data and do not present any sweetener as a magical solution.
The European Food Safety Authority re-evaluated erythritol in 2023 and established an acceptable daily intake of 0.5 g per kilogram of body weight per day, primarily on the basis of gastrointestinal effects. EFSA noted that available evidence had not demonstrated a causal link between consumption of erythritol-containing food and increased cardiovascular risk, but recommended further research.
That is broadly our position as well.
At VERA we are not trying to make a dessert that can be eaten in unlimited quantities because we have changed one word on the label. We use agave syrup and erythritol because together they give us two distinct ways to reduce reliance on refined sugar and, depending on the recipe, to create a different glycaemic profile.
Agave contributes flavour, sweetness, and the technical properties of a syrup, with a lower GI than sucrose. Erythritol contributes sweetness with minimal direct impact on glucose and insulin. Neither of them is a reason to stop looking at the whole recipe.
This is particularly important because the term sugar-free can mislead. A dessert can be free of added white sugar and still contain natural sugars from fruit, dairy, or syrups. It can be free of sucrose yet be energy-rich. It can have a low glycaemic response and still be a dessert.
For us, that is entirely fine.
The goal is not to turn a tiramisu into broccoli. The goal is, wherever a recipe permits, to make a dessert that is genuinely excellent while choosing the source of sweetness more thoughtfully.
If forced to choose between a healthy cake nobody wants to eat and a superb dessert made with a kilogram of sugar, we have probably asked the wrong question.
We are looking for a third option.
Try it at VERA — specialty café and wellness bistro, Nikole Spasića 4, Stari Grad, Belgrade.
Comfort food at VERA →