Jennifer Benjamin wrote:
Investigating Rice Milks as an alternative to Soy Milks came across the Pure Harvest brand. They produce both Rice and Soy Milks both labelled No Cane Sugar and using Rice Syrup as a sweetener. Have since discovered from Wikipedia and other sources on the net that Rice Syrup is a combination of glucose 3%, maltose 45% (2 glucose molecules), and maltotriose 52% (3 glucose molecules) so would appear this would be OK. Have since obtained Rice Syrup from a Health food shop and it is roughly the consistency of honey but nowhere near as sweet. I currently use Rice Syrup to sweeten plain yoghurt to have with my own muesli recipe (no to low fructose of course!) and am sure new uses will present themselves.
Do you have any information on Rice Syrup as always a bit suspicious of some net sources. If OK thought it might be of some use to others especially for those like myself who prefer soy to rice milk and as an alternative to Glucose Syrup which is a bit stiff to use.
Hi Jennifer - apparantly there are rice syrups and rice syrups! There have been a few questions about rice malt syrups. On the sweet poison forum it was discovered that some brands have fructose so you have to be careful which one you choose. I can get the 'pure harvest' brand in coles here in Nowra so, some time ago, I wrote to the company - I like to keep it simple and say I'm fructose intolerant - and asked it there was fructose in their rice malt syrup. Their response is posted on the other forum but basically they say there is no fructose in theirs. I have used it both in recipes and on toast/bread as a honey alternative. When I first tried it, I thought it was lovely but not very sweet (a friend gave me her jar, after buying it on my recommendation, saying she couldn't taste it - it wasn't sweet enough!). But after 13 months following this way of eating, I cringe at licking it off a spoon - it's far too sweet to eat even a little on its own and I'm delighted to say I just can't do that anymore.
I too use it to drizzle on plain greek style yoghurt with my own nutty mueslie. It would be nice on porridge instead of plain glucose. It's also great to use where a sweet recipe calls for honey - I use it quite a bit in combination with plain glucose to add a bit of flavour - esp for things like anzac biscuits or gingerbread when I get around to doing something like that.
Barley malt syrup is another sweetener that can be used instead of something like golden syrup. It has the look and taste of treacle (good in anzac biscuits for flavour). I use it as the 'sugar' when I make my bagels - you could use it in any bread.
Hope this helps.
Cheers - Janet
