Local food #6- Benefits of sugarcane and its products

Local food #6- Sugarcane and its products.

Sugarcane-

Sugarcane is the source of sweetness. It is available in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. It is transported to every corner of the world to get most of the benefits. A variety of sugar and jaggery is obtained from this plant by using a various different process. The appearance of these plants is like bamboo plants. These plants can be grown up to 20 feet and the diameter is of 0.75 to 2 inches range. Sugarcane plants take 12 months to mature. These plants can live for more than two years. The best climate for growth is sunny areas and tropical areas. It can be grown in any region but it is needed maintenance in temperature. Commonly, the juice of sugarcane is consumed during the summer season. The demand is high in summer to get instant energy and to get the sweet taste with all the benefits. Sugarcane juice is the only sweetest juice with ample benefits. In the market various sweet drinks are available but sugarcane juice is the natural drink and healthy. Marketed products are maybe healthy but their effect are not the same as sugarcane juice and their products. 

Properties of Sugarcane –

The physical property of this plant is hard. It has to crush by using machines to get juice and other beneficial substances. The chemical properties of sugarcane are like a store of electrolytes. It is like coconut water but with more sweetness. It is rich in potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium and manganese. It has no fat. Sugarcane juice is rich in fibre. It is a great source for rehydrating our body. Sugarcane juice is alkaline in nature. Flavonoids are present in sugarcane leaves and juice. Leaves contain more amounts of flavonoids than juice (total flavonoids/gram plant material).

Benefits of Sugarcane –

Sugarcane juice – Sugarcane is commonly consumed in the form of juice. The juice is a mixture of fructose, sucrose and other forms of glucose. It is sweet in taste.

• It helps in the maintenance of a healthy digestive system.
• Good source of rehydration process.
• It provides instant energy.
• It helps in clearing the skin.
• It can remove bad breath and protect teeth.
• It strengthens our body organs.
• It helps in weight loss.
• Alkaline nature of juice can treat acidity.
• It can eliminate toxins from our body.
• It acts as an immunity booster.
• It heals wound, strengthens nails, and reduces fever.

Sugarcane juice has many other health benefits. The intake should be one glass per day daily. If the location for getting juice is far from your location, then drink once in a week or once in a month will be good. Both sugarcane juice and coconut water are good for our health. These two drinks are way better than marketing diet drinks.

Sugarcane leaves are also of great use. Leaves and tops are used for mechanical harvesting. The parts of sugarcane are useful for producing energy.

Varieties of sweet products are formed in factories from sugarcane. The most used products are regular sugar and jaggery. Regular sugar is used daily in our life in foods. Jaggery is also used for food preparation. Both forms are present the taste of sweet. Here I will explain some benefits of eating regular sugar and jaggery.

Regular sugar-

It is white in colour. Research says “It is the main culprit for many diseases. It stops many activities inside our body. It binds with many essential proteins and makes them non-functional.” Well! Research says right. Regular sugar is one of the causes for diabetes, obesity and it is also said that it stops the activity of medicines. But the diseases will happen when you increase the intake amount of sugar. A small portion of sugar is present everywhere. You can see, starting from natural fruits to processed biscuits. The Important point is one should control the intake quantity. If you search in google about the benefits of sugar, you will get “benefits of not eating sugar”. Let’s discuss some.

Benefits of sugar (These benefits are for a healthy person not for sugar sensitive persons)–

In the above sugarcane benefits, you saw the benefits of juice. Sugar has also like that only but without fibres and more carbohydrates. Sugar or sucrose is a combination of glucose and fructose.  We all know the side effects of sugar only. There are very few beneficial effects of sugar.

•     In summer when you make drinks like lemonade, orange juice and much other fruit juice, sugar complements those juices.  It provides coolant to your body. It is good to use regular sugar in those juices than using artificial sugar.
•    Sugar or sucrose = Glucose + Fructose. If you need glucose for your body then you can have regular sugar.

I think with the increase in age we should lower down sugar consumption. Because with the increase in age we need to boost up our immunity and sugar play like a villain in that case if the consumption is more than regular. The recommended portion of eating sugar is – 9 teaspoons (36 grams or 150 calories) per day for men and 6 teaspoons (25 grams or 100 calories) per day for women. (Source- American Heart Association)

The other benefits are for external use of sugar. I am amazed sugar can be used for so many purposes. Sugar can be used for skin, lips, face benefits, hair care, and weight gain. Let’s discuss one by one.

Sugar for skin – For skincare sugar is used as a scrub. It is a great source of glycolic acid. It penetrates the skin cells and helps in exfoliation of the skin. Exfoliation means the removal of dead cells. It will give good results on the removal of dead cells from your skin. You can use lemon juice with sugar to get effective results. (Her skin does not indicate o facial skin. It is indicating to dead skins on our body)

Sugar for lips – From above you can get the idea of using sugar as a scrub. The same thing goes for the lips. If lips are dried and chap, it must be causing a problem to your talking conditions or your appearance, sugar can help you. How to use? You can use a mixture of lemon, honey and sugar. Do not dissolve sugar completely. It is good to use sugar in the granulated form. This will provide some roughness to the mixture and helps to get smooth lips.

Sugar for face benefits – The same thing scrubber. It can be used with tomato or lemon. Cut tomato or lemon into two halves. Then put some granulated regular sugar on that. Wash your face and start scrubbing your face. It will remove dead cells present on your skin. Do not use it frequently. Twice in a week would be great.

Sugar for hair care – I do not about this remedy. But people are using sugar when shampooing. They just add sugar to their shampoo to get rid of dandruff problems. I think it can be beneficial because dandruff is also kind of dead cells present on our scalp.

Sugar for weight gain – Sugar is doing this only now. Whoever has the wish to increase weight he/she must eat sugar. I often see people having an urge to gain weight, they don’t eat sugar and people having an urge to lose weight, they cannot leave sugar. Eating sugar can help you to gain weight but be careful with eating habits. Sometimes eating sugar turn to an addiction and that is dangerous.

Another sweet product from sugarcane is Jaggery –

Jaggery or gud or gur –

It is yellow or brown in colour and available in solid or powder form. It is also called unrefined sugar. It contains sucrose and other minerals. It has a complex carbohydrate composition, unlike sugar. It has many medicinal effects and adds health benefits. It is easily available in markets. If you want to know about the preparation of jaggery from sugarcane then you can refer youtube videos.

Properties - Rich in iron, zinc, and selenium. It has many other important minerals also.

 Benefits-

• It acts an antioxidant
• Weight loss ingredient
• Great for anaemia patients
• Effective ingredient to cure constipation problems
• Fights bad odour of mouth
• Treats flu-like symptoms
• It boosts immunity
• Keeps our intestine healthy
• It eases menstrual pain
• It controls blood pressure
• Effective for joint health
• It is a good source of energy

How to use?

Antioxidants – It acts as an antioxidant due to the presence of zinc and selenium. It fights against the unwanted free radicals and detoxes our body. Detoxification is very beneficial for our body. It removes dirt and helps in curing many diseases. You can use jaggery as a drink with lemon juice to get the benefits of detoxification.

Weight loss ingredient – It is sweet in taste but it has medicinal properties. To get the result of weight loss, you can use the same remedy jaggery with lemon juice.

Anaemia – It is rich in iron. It is recommended to eat jaggery in empty stomach and drink one glass of hot water.

Constipation cure – To cure this problem, jaggery is consumed after the meal (Lunch and dinner).

Remove bad odour from your mouth – For this, you just need to eat jaggery. Eat jaggery slowly inside your mouth. So that jaggery can spread and touch all the part inside your mouth.

And for other health benefits, you can directly consume jaggery (keep a moderate amount) at any time of your day or night.

Jaggery should not be consumed by ulcerative colitis and diabetes patients.

Eating too much sugar and jaggery can lead to weight gain, rise in blood sugar level, allergy, may cause constipation and parasitic infections.

There is no recommended portion for eating jaggery by any health association. I think two to three spoons of jaggery per day is good for our health.

It is natural so it may take time to show the effects. One should use the above remedies for at least one month for positive results. If it is not showing effects or having any other issues then stop consuming this (So far it won’t show any side effects but we have different body and different functions inside it).  

These are some benefits of drinking sugarcane juice, eating a little amount of sugar and including jaggery to your diet.

According to dietician Rujuta Diwekar, Sugar should be consumed in summer season and jaggery should be consumed in the winter season. As I explained above about sugar, it provides coolant to our body. So, it works great during the summer season. In the other hand, Jaggery should be consumed in the winter season because it provides warmth to our body. Our body responds differently in different seasons and we need to understand what food we should eat in which environment. There is no harm in consuming sugar in winter and jaggery in summer. This food and season relationship research studies are for gaining more benefits with correct steps.

Summary-

Drinking one glass of sugarcane juice per day has many beneficial effects. Sugar has very few beneficial effects like providing coolant to your body and instant glucose. Sugar has many bad effects (I have not explained about this but you can get about the bad effects from anywhere). Many people getting the results of their choice for better health after leaving regular sugar. But they start the consumption of fruits. Jaggery is rich in medicinal values. Sugar is for the summer season and jaggery is for the winter season and sugarcane juice is for all seasons. One needs to remember too much of anything is harmful to the body.

Thank you for reading.

For more knowledge about local foods. Search for www.localfoodbenefits.blogspot.com

For the benefits of eating jackfruit - http://localfoodbenefits.blogspot.com/2020/05/thoughts-on-jackfruit.html

For the benefits of eating rice - http://localfoodbenefits.blogspot.com/2020/05/rice-is-nice.html

For the benefits of drinking and eating coconut - http://localfoodbenefits.blogspot.com/2020/05/local-food-3-coconut-and-its-benefits.html

For the benefits of eating Cashew - http://localfoodbenefits.blogspot.com/2020/06/local-food-4-cashew-and-its-benefit.html

For the benefits of including ghee to your diet - http://localfoodbenefits.blogspot.com/2020/06/local-food5-gheethe-best-desi-product.html