Back when I was younger, I always loved chewing on bits of cut sugar cane (after removing the skin and chopping it into tiny pieces) for its sweet juice before spitting the pulp out. It was like the healthy version of chewing gum. But, of course, at that age, I didn’t know it was healthier than sweets or chewing gum. I only knew it was sweet and fun to chew on.
I think I’ve not chewed on raw sugar cane for years already now. Even recently when we got a few stalks of sugar cane, I forgot all about keeping some to chew. Instead, we had taken it to a sugar cane stall and had the juice extracted.
Now, after reading up about it, I realised that sugar cane do have a few nutrients that I previously didn’t know about. Although it is where sugar came from and processed white sugar aren’t healthy at all, the fresh raw sugar cane is entirely another matter. I’d have to say that we humans intervened and made it unhealthy.
Here are the:
Health benefits of sugar cane
- fresh raw sugar cane has less calories than refined sugar or syrup
- it is pretty good for digestion and can also work as a mild laxative due to its high potassium content.
- It is also high in magnesium, calcium and riboflavin (Vitamin B2).
- Traditionally, drinking sugar cane juice is good to ‘cool’ down the body especially during hot, humid weather like what we have here.
- Best of all is that the fresh sugar cane juice is sweet to drink but it is not as bad / unhealthy as drinking syrup!
Ahh…drinking a glass of sugar cane juice sure do hit the spot every time, especially during extremely hot, airless, windless days.
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I found this really interesting and so I posted about it on my blog. Can you tell me some of your sources and stuff? I’m really interested in learning more about sugar cane.
NAOmni
Informative post! Who knew it was so good for you.
The Duo Dishes’s last blog post..A Craving for Crunchy
Very interesting and informative post Foong!
As always raw-natural food is in general better than the processed one.
Gera @ SweetsFoods’s last blog post..70 Food Blogs that Deserve Your Attention
Nice to see this post…I like sugar cane juice as its sweet by nature. I still remember those days when the ice was shaved finely by a small cutter installed on a piece of wood.
I’ve been using organic, raw sugar to cook with for several years after I read how much more nutritious it is than processed sugar-which has no nutritional benefits.
I’ve never seen sugar cane for sale but raw, organic sugar is available in many grocery stores now.
Joan’s last blog post..Miracle Chia Seeds to Your Diet
Naomi: I actually did a google search and combine bits and pieces of information from the search results. That’s usually how I do some research on some food or other. Plenty of resources out there.
Gera: yep. It is really a wonder that sugar cane itself is healthy but when it was processed to white sugar, it is no longer healthy.
ck: err…what ice?
Joan: There are quite a lot of different grade of sugar out there so I am not sure which one you are referring to. What I do know is that organic molasses are also healthier and better than plain sugar and even brown sugar.
In KL, there was a sugar cane drink stall that serves the drink with ice, and the block of ice was shaved with a small ice cutter like what those Cendol (Indian seller) used to do in the earlier years.
ck lam’s last blog post..Pan Mee @Macalister Road/Lorong Selamat, Penang
I amazed at health benefits of sugar cane