Post by Paula on Aug 21, 2005 18:53:06 GMT -5
It's not obvious I'm obsessed with sugar, is it?
Okay, I've read about rapadura recently and one message board (homeschool) had a post on sweeteners and rapadura was mentioned. I did some online research and came up with some info that sucanat, since it's new ownership in the mid-90's, is not the same as it once was. Rapadura is now the sweetener of choice. One of the ladies on the message board said the same thing and that Sally Fallon even agrees.
One site said this: (I've bolded a part of one of the last paragraphs for you to focus on).
-----------------------------
EATING HEALTHY
Some Sugars Are "Sweeter" To Your Body Than Others
by Robin Asbell
SUGAR BY ANY other name would still taste sweet, yes? After last month's article on the removal of minerals from the food supply and white sugar, we now face the sugar deluge of the holiday season. How to have your sweets and avoid all that white sugar? Consumers are faced with the question of which of the many alternatives that are made from sugar cane is best. Turbinado, Florida Crystals, Sugar in the Raw, Sucanat and Rapadura are just a few of the many sugar cane products that are marketed as healthier sugars. But are they?
To get to the issue of good and bad qualities in a sugar product requires an understanding of how sugar is made and how it works in the body. Sugar manufacturers insist that the only health problem that can be attributed to sugar is tooth decay, and that with proper hygiene that can be avoided. Less partisan nutrition experts at least look at sugar as nutritionally void and fattening. More holistic thinkers associate white sugar consumption with heart disease, diabetes, cancer, reduced immunity, and more.
The problem with white sugar lies in its refinement. When white sugar is made, sugar cane juice is put through a series of purifications. To get from the brownish juice to the white crystalline substance that dissolves and bakes so well takes chemistry. Cane is pressed, boiled, then filtered and repeatedly centrifuged and separated. The separation takes out the molasses, and with it, minerals and vitamins. The filters used by some, but not all, cane processors are made from burnt cow bone charcoal, which is why vegans give white sugar a wide berth.
Removing all the nutrients from a whole food, even if planning to replace some of them, makes refined sugar unbalancing. The sugar rush is the dumping into the bloodstream of quick burning glucose, which the body must process with insulin. Overusing that mechanism just plain wears it out, causing pre-diabetes and diabetes. Because calcium, chromium, manganese, zinc and copper are taken out of sugar, evidence suggests that the body sacrifices its stores of those minerals to process sugar. Even if sugar had no bad effect on its own, it replaces so many calories in the modern diet that nutritious foods are just not eaten. Americans consume an average of 140 pounds of sugar a year, and that a lot of calories. Sugar addicts are stuffing themselves but starving themselves.
Now that healthy eating is becoming more mainstream and health food stores are trying to widen their audience, sugars have come onto the scene that claim to be more healthful. Each manufacturer of a sugar cane product can tweak the process a bit to make it more whole, and no uniform labeling is required.
Most of the granular product, often called evaporated cane juice, is made just like regular brown sugar. If a sweetener has a shiny, crystalline look, it is refined white sugar with some molasses incorporated back in. Some manufacturers refine to a point, with a little less separation, and then call it raw or evaporated. The more the product tastes like a regular, refined sugar product, the better it will go over, and the misleading terminology makes it sound healthy.
Only one product is actually whole cane juice. Rapadura, made by Rapunzel Organic Foods is actually whole, organic cane juice. It is simply boiled, filtered and dried, then the hard lumps are ground. Sucanat, unfortunately, was made the same way as Rapadura until the company was acquired by a sugar company in the mid-'90s. In a move so cynical that it deserves mention, the new owners kept marketing Sucanat as whole dried cane juice, riding on its good reputation, but changed it to a refined product with molasses added. Both products are organic, an important factor because sugar cane can be heavily sprayed. If you buy molasses, stick to organic unsulphured. When molasses is spun off from cane juice, it can carry the pesticides with it, concentrating them. Sulphured molasses is made from less ripe, less sweet sugar cane, and sulphur fumes are applied to the cane to make it sweeter.
If you miss the flavor of sugar, try Rapadura. Its caramel flavor, with a tinge of molasses taste, can be substituted one for one for sugar in recipes. For a straightforward sugar substitute, Rapadura is the whole foods choice.
-------------------
What do you think?
Paula
Okay, I've read about rapadura recently and one message board (homeschool) had a post on sweeteners and rapadura was mentioned. I did some online research and came up with some info that sucanat, since it's new ownership in the mid-90's, is not the same as it once was. Rapadura is now the sweetener of choice. One of the ladies on the message board said the same thing and that Sally Fallon even agrees.
One site said this: (I've bolded a part of one of the last paragraphs for you to focus on).
-----------------------------
EATING HEALTHY
Some Sugars Are "Sweeter" To Your Body Than Others
by Robin Asbell
SUGAR BY ANY other name would still taste sweet, yes? After last month's article on the removal of minerals from the food supply and white sugar, we now face the sugar deluge of the holiday season. How to have your sweets and avoid all that white sugar? Consumers are faced with the question of which of the many alternatives that are made from sugar cane is best. Turbinado, Florida Crystals, Sugar in the Raw, Sucanat and Rapadura are just a few of the many sugar cane products that are marketed as healthier sugars. But are they?
To get to the issue of good and bad qualities in a sugar product requires an understanding of how sugar is made and how it works in the body. Sugar manufacturers insist that the only health problem that can be attributed to sugar is tooth decay, and that with proper hygiene that can be avoided. Less partisan nutrition experts at least look at sugar as nutritionally void and fattening. More holistic thinkers associate white sugar consumption with heart disease, diabetes, cancer, reduced immunity, and more.
The problem with white sugar lies in its refinement. When white sugar is made, sugar cane juice is put through a series of purifications. To get from the brownish juice to the white crystalline substance that dissolves and bakes so well takes chemistry. Cane is pressed, boiled, then filtered and repeatedly centrifuged and separated. The separation takes out the molasses, and with it, minerals and vitamins. The filters used by some, but not all, cane processors are made from burnt cow bone charcoal, which is why vegans give white sugar a wide berth.
Removing all the nutrients from a whole food, even if planning to replace some of them, makes refined sugar unbalancing. The sugar rush is the dumping into the bloodstream of quick burning glucose, which the body must process with insulin. Overusing that mechanism just plain wears it out, causing pre-diabetes and diabetes. Because calcium, chromium, manganese, zinc and copper are taken out of sugar, evidence suggests that the body sacrifices its stores of those minerals to process sugar. Even if sugar had no bad effect on its own, it replaces so many calories in the modern diet that nutritious foods are just not eaten. Americans consume an average of 140 pounds of sugar a year, and that a lot of calories. Sugar addicts are stuffing themselves but starving themselves.
Now that healthy eating is becoming more mainstream and health food stores are trying to widen their audience, sugars have come onto the scene that claim to be more healthful. Each manufacturer of a sugar cane product can tweak the process a bit to make it more whole, and no uniform labeling is required.
Most of the granular product, often called evaporated cane juice, is made just like regular brown sugar. If a sweetener has a shiny, crystalline look, it is refined white sugar with some molasses incorporated back in. Some manufacturers refine to a point, with a little less separation, and then call it raw or evaporated. The more the product tastes like a regular, refined sugar product, the better it will go over, and the misleading terminology makes it sound healthy.
Only one product is actually whole cane juice. Rapadura, made by Rapunzel Organic Foods is actually whole, organic cane juice. It is simply boiled, filtered and dried, then the hard lumps are ground. Sucanat, unfortunately, was made the same way as Rapadura until the company was acquired by a sugar company in the mid-'90s. In a move so cynical that it deserves mention, the new owners kept marketing Sucanat as whole dried cane juice, riding on its good reputation, but changed it to a refined product with molasses added. Both products are organic, an important factor because sugar cane can be heavily sprayed. If you buy molasses, stick to organic unsulphured. When molasses is spun off from cane juice, it can carry the pesticides with it, concentrating them. Sulphured molasses is made from less ripe, less sweet sugar cane, and sulphur fumes are applied to the cane to make it sweeter.
If you miss the flavor of sugar, try Rapadura. Its caramel flavor, with a tinge of molasses taste, can be substituted one for one for sugar in recipes. For a straightforward sugar substitute, Rapadura is the whole foods choice.
-------------------
What do you think?
Paula
