The healing power of raw sugar cane or primal sweet

Sugar cane juice is a raw product with a delicious sweet taste. It has medicinal qualities against gout, among others. In the Netherlands, fresh sugarcane juice is not or hardly available, but in tropical countries such as India, Colombia and Brazil all the more. sugar cane juice is made into sugar; that is an unhealthy and pathogenic product, but sugarcane juice is very good for your health. In the Netherlands you can buy very sweet, which is dried and powdered sugarcane juice.

Short history of cane sugar

Sugar cane is an important part of the history of sugar. Sugarcane is originally from New Guinea. Via China and India it ended up with the Romans who cultivated it. In the 15th century, Portuguese and Spanish farmers started growing it in their own land with the help of workers and slaves. In the 16th and 17th centuries, many European countries had sugarcane plantations in colonies run with the help of slaves and indentured servants. In the 17th and 18th century, Dutch companies employed contract workers and slaves in the colony of Suriname who helped with the sugar cane plantation.

The Latin name of sugar cane is Saccharum officinarum. Saccharum is derived from the Greek word "Sakcharon" which means sugar or sucrose. The addition "officinarum" used to be given to plants when they could be used medicinally. We forgot to use the medicinal properties of sugarcane juice in Europe, but it is still widely used in large parts of Asia and South America.

There are several types of sugar cane. There are varieties with red stems and with green stems. That is why some varieties give a more green-colored juice and other types a red-brown colored juice. Chinese research shows that there are differences in the antioxidant properties of the species. The number of phytonutrients such as phenols, flavonoids, triterpenoids and phytosterols were measured. The Chinese study, published in 2014, shows that the green varieties have more antioxidant value than the red ones.

Sugar cane juice is a medicine in Ayurveda, the Indian traditional medicine. It is mainly used in disorders of the urinary tract. In Ayurveda it is stated that drinking sugar cane juice is good for the kidneys. It is known as a diuretic drug. Sometimes it is mixed with the juice of limes, lemons or ginger to enhance its medicinal effect. In Ayurveda it is also a good remedy for gout. Drinking a few glasses can quickly reduce or eliminate gout symptoms. According to Indian scientific research from 2015, these medicinal effects of sugarcane juice have been confirmed by science.

The inside of a sugar cane stalk tastes sweet. You can chew it. It contains a lot of fiber that you cannot eat through, but the juice that is released by chewing tastes good. The fiber-rich interior is consumed as a snack in many tropical countries. In addition, the juice can be squeezed using a machine. You can drink the juice right away. In Colombia some lemon juice is added to sugar cane juice. That makes the taste a bit fresher while the entire drink remains sweet in taste.

Panela is widely sold in Latin America. It is a brown sweet powder extracted from the sugar cane stem. Panela is not sophisticated. That means that all vitamins and minerals are still there. That is why panela is a healthy product. You won't get cavities in your teeth and it barely increases blood sugar. The latter is because it does not contain any fast sugars.

A lot of sugar cane is grown in South American countries. Previously, only the panela of this sugar cane was used to sweeten products. That works very well. In our modern world it has become common practice to refine the sugar so that all nutrients go out. When you eat sugar in this way, it acts as an addictive drug or a pathogenic poison.

Japanese research on chickens shows that chickens that were fed sugarcane juice for three days increased the number of leukocytes and the immunoglobin level. The researchers conclude from this fact that sugarcane juice is good for the immune system of chickens. This is shown by research from 2007. Japanese research from 2002 had previously shown that sugar cane juice is good for the immune system of chicks and that chicks grow better.

In Brazil, sugarcane juice is called rapadura. This juice contains many minerals, including iron. Brazilian scientific research shows that sugarcane juice causes the body to produce more hemoglobin. According to the Brazilian researchers, it can be concluded from this that there is less iron deficiency among children who drink sugar cane juice. The control group was a group of children who were given sugar instead of sugarcane juice. Sugar needs minerals to digest and actually extracts minerals from the body, especially from the blood. You could say it makes sense that sugar from sugarcane juice is naturally occurring with a large number of minerals.

In many tropical countries where sugar cane is grown, sugar cane juice is dried. In South America, for example Colombia, this product is powdered, creating a sweet powder. In India, sugarcane juice is thickened by cooking, creating large blocks that are called jaggery. Jaggery is still more commonly used than sugar in many Indian villages. Indian scientific research from 2013 shows that rats with liver and kidney damage recover more quickly when given jaggery. The researchers conclude that this is an important indication that jaggery is also good for the liver and kidneys of humans. In 2010, another scientific research team showed that jaggery counteracts the adverse effects of arsenic intake in mice. Indian research from 2012 also shows that the damaged kidneys of rats recover more quickly when the rats are administered jaggery orally. A 1994 study shows that factory workers exposed to harmful smoke are less affected if they regularly drink sugarcane juice. The liver and kidneys are important organs for ridding the body of toxic substances. There are many important indications that people can benefit from drinking cane sugar juice and using dried cane sugar juice (jaggery) as it stimulates liver and kidney function.