Quit Sugar, Go for Jaggery

What to do?

All things sweet are not bad.

But 'refined white sugar' is the deadliest of all. Products made of refined sugar are equally deadly. It acts as a slow poison and is known to cause diabetes. Sugar-free commonly mixed in tea or coffee is much more harmful than refined white sugar.

Quit refined white sugar and products made with it.

But you don’t have to quit sweets. Because there are different forms of sweet substances and India is gifted with the healthiest sweet in the form of Jaggery also known as Gud.

Ancient Indians ate ample jaggery, prepared sweets, or mixed with food as a healthy sweetener. Jaggery powder is also the healthiest alternative to mix in tea or coffee instead of deadly white sugar or sugar-free.

Also, sweets naturally present in fruits are super healthy. As per Ayurveda, Honey too is healthy sweet but it turns harmful when heated or mixed with hot products like tea or coffee. Its best consumed in raw form popularly combined with turmeric powder as a home remedy during cold, cough, flu.

Why is sugar deadly and jaggery is healthy even though both are made of sugarcane juice as the base?

The process to refine sugarcane juice and turn it into white sugar is the culprit. Sugarcane juice is refined to sugar crystals by mixing 23 harmful chemicals like formalin, formaldehyde, sulphur.

Whereas none of these chemicals are used to produce jaggery. Sugarcane juice is simply boiled and thickened to solid golden-brown blocks of jaggery. This simple process since Vedic times to produce jaggery also preserves most essential micronutrients, vitamins, minerals like calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium naturally present in sugarcane juice as the base substance.

But the modern refining process to produce white sugar crystals destroys all these beneficial properties of natural sugarcane juice. On the contrary, the chemicals added turns it into toxic food. This toxin when eaten gets absorbed in the blood and accumulates over the years leading to diabetes.

But the obvious question is why sugar causes diabetes and jaggery does not.

There’s a fine biological science behind this. If knowing science interests you then you’ll enjoy reading it else you may safely jump to the end of this chapter.

The digestion process converts micronutrients in the food to nutritional juice in the form of glucose, fructose, sucrose. When we consume jaggery it converts to nutritional juices that are monosaccharides in nature. This is the healthy form of glucose, fructose, sucrose that gets easily absorbed in the blood and body cells.

Whereas refined white sugar converts to nutritional juices that are polysaccharides in nature. Polysaccharide is harmful and compels the body to convert it into monosaccharide form.

The conversion process from polysaccharide to monosaccharide requires the pancreas to produce an extreme quantity of insulin unlike in the case of jaggery.

When the pancreas is repeatedly engaged to produce insulin in extreme quantities, it gradually develops a disorder called diabetes. This also silently contributes to the growing trend of infertility among women.

Refined sugar also builds up to toxic waste in the blood that never gets expelled leading to the formation of sticky toxins called AMA in Ayurveda. AMA present in the blood also makes the body insulin resistance commonly seen in lifestyle disorders like Diabetes, PCOS.

So, consider refined white sugar as your enemy number 1 and kick it out of your life and welcome jaggery. Because Jaggery builds your healthy future.

Also remember

• Brown color sugar crystals are no different from refined white sugar and equally harmful
• Chocolate, biscuits, ice-cream, milkshakes, soft drinks, sweets at mithai shops are loaded with refined white sugar. Best to avoid it.
• Consume only golden-brown jaggery and not off-white jaggery
• Enjoy a small piece of jaggery post every meal as a sweet delicacy. Phosphorus & calcium loaded in jaggery supports digestion.