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DCL
It has been an ongoing debate amongst green foodies for a while now and still the debate over the tastiest, greeniest, and healthiest sweeteners rages on. I'm not talking the artificial junk here, I can think of no greater travesty than dumping carcinogenic pretend food like Splenda, Sweet and Low, or NutraSweet onto anything that I would actually eat or drink for that matter. Amongst the real sweeteners, however, we'll be highlighting honey, palm sugar, and raw sugar.
Honey
Honey is truly nature's sweetener. And if you purchase it in the raw variety you can enjoy some truly significant health benefits. It depends on the floral variety of honey that you eat but it may include niacin, riboflavin, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, zinc and it's known for its antioxidant value. A University of California-Davis study detected higher levels of polyphenolic antioxidants in participants after just one month of honey supplementation. Other studies confirm that honey contains numerous antioxidants, including chrysin, pinobanksin, vitamin C, catalase, and pinocembrin. Each of these help to prevent and repair cellular damage.
Buy it from a local, raw, organic honey source and it is in my humble opinion the most eco-friendly sweetener of all. It doesn't waste fossil fuels to get to you, it isn't processed in some massive facility, and depending on where you purchase it (at the farmers' market), it's minimally packaged. Honey is great in teas, smoothies, atop oatmeal (right before it's served), and with fresh yogurt. Once heated, however, it doesn't retain its antioxidant value.
Palm Sugar
Palm sugar reminds me of a less processed version of brown sugar. It's a little lighter in color and the granules are much larger in size. It's about as sweet as brown sugar. Manufacturers like Navitas Naturals claim that it has high amounts of potassium, magnesium, zinc and iron, as well as vitamin C and many of the B vitamins. Harvesting palm sugar is traditionally done by small, local sugar tappers that climb to the top of the palms (often palmyra palms) to collect the sap from the palm flowers. The sap is collected in bamboo containers and then cooked for several days and the residual molasses is filled into coconut shells and allowed to harden into a cake.
Palm sugar is a pure cane sugar alternative. According to the Inner Press Service (IPS), "a major advantage with palm sugar is that palm trees can be tapped all year round, ensuring continuous production and incomes, compared to the seasonal harvesting of cane sugar." The trees are maintained for their sap instead of being cut down. This could potentially bring another economic industry to areas dealing with the environmental destruction that goes along with the massive oil palm plantations that according to the UN, are clearing trees so rapidly that up to 98 percent of Malaysian and Indonesian rainforests may be destroyed by 2022. Palm sugar is great in homemade granola and cookies as a less processed alternative.
Raw Sugar
This is likely the sugar that I use the least. But I do carry around packets of sugar in the raw in my purse in the unlikely event that I'm at a coffee shop and they only have processed sugar and fake sweeteners. Raw sugar is sugar that contains small traces of nutrients that would have been striped from white sugar but it doesn't have near the nutritional benefits of honey. Environmentally speaking the less energy used in processing the better for the environment but either way natural habitats in sensitive areas are often cleared in order to grow sugar cane to meet increasing demand.
