Agave, it’s just not for drinkin’ anymore

For most of us, our first experience with the desert’s succulent agave was likely in the frozen concoction popularly known as a margarita — or Patron shots for the more hardy souls. Highly regulated by the Mexican government, the hooch known generically as tequila originates from the cooking and distillation of the blue agave plant (aka agave tequilana, tequila agave, mescal, maguey, and pulque — depending on the plant, cooking method, and so forth).

Aside from its obvious contribution to many a wild night on Bourbon Street, this amazing plant has been feeding our ancestors for tens of thousands of years, and continues to do so today. The plants are typically harvested between 8 and 12 years of age and their heads are then cooked in large ovens for 48-72 hours. Agaves contain a special carbohydrate known as inulin (rather than starch like you find in a potato). Because of its special chemical and physical structure, inulin is not digested in the human body and is therefore classified as a dietary fiber (yes, technically dietary fiber is anything “you” can’t use, more on this in a second). However, by cooking the 100-200 pound agave heads for extended periods of time, the inulin is broken down through a process known as hydrolysis, effectively reducing the once indigestible inulin into short chain sugars (same process you experience when caramelizing onions). Once broken down, you can either eat the mash as a significant energy source or take it to the next step and distill into alcohol (click here for a little video, all the action starts around 2:00 min).

The “pre-” fermented agave heads are often processed into Agave Nectar, which you can buy in your local Whole Foods to pour on your pancakes. Interestingly, the cooking process does not usually reduce the inulin to pure sugar — in fact, upwards of 80% of the Agave Nectar in the grocery store is actually liquid fiber — but enough of the inulin has been reduced to sugars to give it that sweet taste that we love.

Due to overproduction of Agave plants throughout grow areas in Mexico in the late 90’s, due mainly to fluctuating global demand of tequila (I’m doing my part to keep global production up!), growers started looking for other uses of the inulin outside of distilling alcohol. Agave nectar syrup was one use and another was as a prebiotic dietary fiber. Because of its special chemical structure, agave inulin is not digested in small intestine of humans and therefore travels the entire 30′ length of the small intestine and ends up in the colon. Once in the colon, our handy dandy little microbial friends break it down and turn the byproducts into all kinds of wonderful and healthful things for us. Because the agave inulin “selectively” grows beneficial bacteria in our bodies, like bifidobacterium and lactobacillus (think yogurt), it’s known as a prebiotic fiber (ie, the worlds healthiest fiber).

As many of you know, we have been incorporating prebiotic fiber in our pizza dough from Day 1. To date, we have been using prebiotic fiber from chicory roots grown in Europe. Like prebiotic fiber from chicory roots, the manufacturers in Mexico have figured out through a natural process to turn the organic Agave nectar into a granulated, powdered form which makes it easy to incorporate into our flour mix. We have been testing the product with our flour blenders at Bay State Milling and are entering into final stages of testing. We anticipate rolling out the new flour mix within 45-60 days.

In the next 30 – 60 days, team NakedPizza will be traveling to Guadalajara in the Mexican state of Jalisco to film the production process. This footage will be incorporated into a mini-documentary on the functional aspects of our pizza that will be available through streaming video in our stores throughout the U.S. and online. Our expertise on functional foods and emphasis on healthful product development is key to our promise to you, our customers, to do all we can to make a difference. We will keep pushing the envelope. livNAKED friendos.