A functional-medicine field guide to sweeteners — ranked by glycemic response, judged by fructose load. Because "natural" doesn't mean your liver agrees with it.
Ranks a food 0–100+ purely on how quickly its carbs raise blood glucose, gram for gram. It says nothing about how much of that food you'd realistically eat.
Factors in actual serving size — the number that matters when you're spooning it into coffee, not swallowing it in a lab test.
GL = (GI × carbs per serving) ÷ 100No blood glucose spike, no insulin response. The default sweeteners for daily YMU cooking, coffee, and baking.
Real glycemic impact, but real nutrition too — minerals, enzymes, antioxidants. Portion-controlled, not free-pour.
Following functional medicine and the Bulletproof protocol, YMU flags sweeteners on more than one number. Agave nectar tests as "low GI" (~15) and "low GL" (~2) — a double green light on paper. But that pair of numbers hides a brutal fructose load (~85%) that goes straight to your liver, bypassing the blood-sugar signal both metrics are built to catch. Two clean numbers can still mean high metabolic damage. Read the whole label, not the headline stats.
Food manufacturers know "sugar" spooks label-readers. So it wears a different name every few lines on the ingredients panel. Search below before you trust a "no added sugar" claim.
Bookmark this. Screenshot it. Pin it to the fridge.
| Sweetener | Glycemic Index | Glycemic Load | Tier | YMU Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maltodextrin | GI 110 | GL 17 | High Impact | Not Recommended |
| High Fructose Corn Syrup | GI 87 | GL 10 | High Impact | Not Recommended |
| Jaggery | GI 75 | GL 11 | Moderate | Use Sparingly |
| White Refined Sugar | GI 65 | GL 10 | High Impact | Not Recommended |
| Raw Honey | GI 55 | GL 10 | Moderate | Use Sparingly |
| Blackstrap Molasses | GI 55 | GL 8 | Moderate | Use Sparingly |
| Pure Maple Syrup | GI 54 | GL 5 | Moderate | Use Sparingly |
| Whole Dates | GI 48 | GL 8 | Moderate | Use Sparingly |
| Coconut Sugar | GI 45 | GL 7 | Moderate | Use Sparingly |
| Agave Nectar | GI 15 | GL 2 | Deceptive | Not Recommended |
| Stevia | GI 0 | GL 0 | Zero Impact | YMU Recommended |
| Monk Fruit | GI 0 | GL 0 | Zero Impact | YMU Recommended |
| Allulose | GI 0 | GL 0 | Zero Impact | YMU Recommended |
| Erythritol | GI 0 | GL 0 | Zero Impact | YMU Recommended |
| Aspartame | GI 0 | GL 0 | Artificial | Not Recommended |
| Sucralose | GI 0 | GL 0 | Artificial | Not Recommended |
| Saccharin | GI 0 | GL 0 | Artificial | Not Recommended |
| Ace-K (Acesulfame K) | GI 0 | GL 0 | Artificial | Not Recommended |
Glycemic Load calculated per typical 1 tablespoon (~15g) serving · GL 0–10 = low impact, 11–19 = moderate, 20+ = high impact
Always check fructose load alongside glycemic index. A "low GI" label can still mean a liver-damaging fructose bomb — agave is the classic trap.
Dates beat date syrup. Fiber and polyphenols slow absorption — the more processed the sweetener, the sharper the spike.
Aspartame, sucralose, and saccharin are lab-built molecules with documented gut-microbiome disruption. Stevia and monk fruit are plant-derived — choose those.
A Kerala kitchen staple with real minerals — but it's still glycemic. Treat it like honey: occasional, portioned, not a daily default.