Sugar That May Be Good For You

    I started to get interested in Ayurveda when I was in my mid-teens. If this seems like a weird age to be interested in a thousands of years old healing and lifestyle tradition from Asia, you're probably right. I wouldn't know anything about being normal having grown up outside the realm of normalcy. We were actually encouraged to be eccentric, and boy did that work out well. Okay, anyway, I grew up in a health conscious family and I worked in a natural foods co-op, and then a privately owned natural foods store for many years. I learned a lot.

    There are some very good overviews of Ayurveda online, so I'm not going to give some big lecture about it. I will simply say that after reading about it, it clicked - that this was, perhaps, one of the healthiest ways to eat and live, and it made complete sense (to me at least) to base a lot of that around each individual's needs, physically and mentally.   

     One thing that first surprised me was the use of sugar. No, not white sugar, but jaggery or gur, which are unrefined sugars. They weren't just used to flavor food, they were used in herbal remedies and they weren't considered an ingredient whose only use was to make the remedy palatable. Most of these formulas are for the lungs and throat, like sitopaladi, a powdered combination of heating herbs, such as pepper, to be taken with honey or ghee. I also noticed that for certain body types, unrefined sugar was suggested as part of the diet. It was considered to be good for you. These sugars still contain some precious minerals and are not devoid of nutritional value. That doesn't mean it's alright to start consuming giant hunks of it like the one above, simply that it needn't be feared and avoided like processed white sugar.   

     I've looked for jaggery for a long time and have never been able to find it until recently. And I love it.  It was at our local Indian store and it is typically sold like in the photo above, in several smaller squares, or in powder. I prefer it chunky, so that I can shave off what I need. Also, the powder tends to have tiny rocks in it and the sugar cane fibers are more noticeable, making you feel like you're eating some hairy sugar. Not too good. I put it in my herbal tea, hot cereal, and anything else that needs sweetening. I haven't used it for baking cakes or anything like that as its form doesn't lend itself as readily to that.  Its taste is much richer and more flavorful than even  brown sugar. 

    So this is my new favorite. My old favorite was agave, but it's more expensive than jaggery. What sweetener do you like and use?

Comments

[Saya]

Jaggery gur! I love this stuff - I'm Bengali, so I grew up with a hand always in in the pot we kept it in, in a low cupboard in the kitchen. My brother just came back from Bangladesh with a few bricks of the good stuff, and it's like a heaven of nostalgia just chipping away at it. He brought back two types (I don't know English names, sorry!) - one made from sugar cane, and the other from a fruit we call 'taal'.

Lovely blog! Bookmarked!

[TheSimplePoppy]

Ooh, I know better than to keep this stuff in a low cupboard, or, in other words, within reach of the children! Yeah, it's so tasty, I wonder why shops have taken such a long time in carrying it. I'm really enjoying using it - not going back to regular sugar probably ever.

Thanks for visiting and bookmarking!

[Saya]

Where do you live that it's so hard to get?!

[TheSimplePoppy]

I grew up in the southern United States and there were NO ethnic groceries in my town - now there are, but not when I was growing up. Now I live in Philadelphia and our local Indian/Pakistani store didn't carry it, but then a new one opened up and they have 10 different kinds! I felt like going back to the old once and saying, "Fie on thee! How could you have kept this sweet nectar from me?" Okay, I'm way too into this jaggery stuff. Good thing it's healthy. Ahem.

[Saya]

ohhh are you a friend of Maryam?

If you are, then we (you and I!) are friends already :D

[TheSimplePoppy]

Yeah, she mentioned she wrote for The Rock Pool on Facebook so I checked you guys out. Books! Religion! Men in wedding dresses! I bookmarked you too!

[Saya]

Thank you!

It's a mad mix because that's what people REALLY are - we're never about just one thing or two, right? So to limit it is not being authentic to the real lives of the real women who write there. I hope we see you a lot more! About half the purpose of the blog is to collect kindred spirits (the other half is obviously to find men in wedding dresses, wheresoever they may be).

Now how shall I find you on Facebook? ^_^

[Simplicity]

Actually, gur is still sugar even though it is not refined it is still not healthy - it is basically the same as brown sugar but in a block form. I'm reading a book about healthy vegan diets and the author recommends healthier natural sweeteners like Agave Nectar that is healthier and does not result in spikes of high and low sugar energy that makes us tired. All sweeteners however are addictive and excessive use of them is unhealthy. You might wanna rethink your addiction to gur (I'm Indian and we grew up with it in many of our curries). Gur is not healthy in the long run and can just as easily add unwanted extra fat to our bodies as well as cause health problems.

[TheSimplePoppy]

Hi Simplicity, actually I stopped using agave a long time ago because it has come out that it is very bad for you. It's not natural or "raw", using a highly chemical process similar to high fructose corn syrup to make it, and it's nearly 70% fructose (HFCS is about 55%). Fructose is processed in one's liver, which we now know is extraordinarily bad for people. I tend to use very little sweetener in my daily eating habits, but I'm sticking to Gur/Jaggery, which in it's natural state retains its vitamins and minerals, and honey rather than anything processed like Agave. Thanks for commenting!

[maureen173@gmail.com]

Hey, just wanted to get in on this post and ask if you guys know if raw agave is better for you? I had also heard that the processed kind was half as bad as other sweeteners, but I have been buying the Raw Agave for a few months now and wondered if I am being misled by the label? It is thick and amber-colored (as opposed to the more runny, processed honey-like variety). I hope it is better for you, because I really love it and findthe flavor so versatile for coffee, baking, even as a sub for super expensive real maple syrup for pancakes. if you guys could let me know, I'd be grateful! Thanks! :)