All about Jaggery
Hello everyone, How are you all! Today we will get to know a bit about jaggery and its benefits. Jaggery is a common sweetener used in making many dishes starting from sweets to cakes, even in some curries. Especially people love the taste of sweets made of jaggery. Even the smell of pure jaggery makes you drooling. With the increase in health and diet awareness among people, people prefer sweeteners like jaggery and honey over sugar. As the intake of jaggery increases, its time to asses the jaggery itself. Is it really good for health or is it just better than sugar? what happens if we take it in excess? You should be able to answer these sort of questions by the end of this article. So let’s start!
Jaggery is a natural sweetener obtained from both sugarcane and palm tree. Jaggery can be used as a base of many sweet dishes. Jaggery contains nutrients like proteins, vitamins and some amounts of minerals like iron, copper, magnesium and potassium. The most common types available are cane jaggery and palm jaggery. The sago palm and coconut palm are also now tapped for producing jaggery in South India, West Bengal and some other countries.
Below are the nutritional values we get from both cane and palm jaggery per 100gm.
Production of Jaggery
Jaggery is produced by concentrating the juices obtained from either sugarcane or palm trees, there are mainly two types of methods for making jaggery i.e., organic and chemical jaggery.
Cultivation
As we know in organic cultivation, the idea is to avoid the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and growth regulators. Same goes with the jaggery cultivation as well. The perfect climate of sugarcane is a long, warm growing season with a high incidence of solar radiation and suitable moisture in the soil. Organic manures are used to improve the chemical, physical as well as biological properties of soil. Organic manures like compost, farm yard manure, dung manure and press mud of 20 to 25 tonnes/hectare are used in this organic forming
In inorganic sugarcane cultivation, they use D.A.P, M.O.P and some other pesticides. Whether you like it or not, pesticides are everywhere and some level of exposure is inevitable. Yet, not many people are aware of what pesticides are and how they affect human health. A pesticide is any substance that is used to destroy repel, control or prevent. These are specifically designed to be toxic or poisonous to pests, hence can also be toxic to humans as well.
Making of Jaggery
There are mainly three major steps in jaggery making process
- Extraction of Juice: Generally roller mills are used for juice extraction, the one’s similar to what we see in small juice shops, but bigger in sizes. This step is common in both organic and inorganic jaggery making.
- Clarification of Juice: The sugar juice extracted contains impurities like colloidal matter, inorganic salts, fiber, gums, wax organic acid, various nitrogenous substances, pectin etc., All the solid impurities are removed by filter and dissolved salts and acids are removed by heating and adding clarificants. The colloidal substances get coagulated by adding clarificants as per requirements and heating continuously. Then the impurities come to top surface of the juice, called as scum or molasses, and it should be removed continuously. The clarificants change in organic and inorganic process. In organic process, only vegetables and plants are used as clarificants like lady finger, limestone powder, whereas lime, phosphate and hydrous powder are used in chemical clarification process.
- Concentration of Juice: After rigorous process of clarification at high temperatures for around 3–4 hours, the juice becomes semi liquid state. This boiled juice is then transferred into molds like rectangular or circular shapes as required and then left to cool to form jaggery blocks.
The difference between organic and inorganic jaggery making is mainly in clarification stage. Also the addition of sugar and other mixtures happens after clarification stage to make cheap or impure jaggery. Having said that, let’s see how to identify pure jaggery.
How to find pure Jaggery
- The color of the jaggery is the common thing to differentiate ,pure jaggery is in dark color while chemical jaggery remains light yellow.
- Taste a piece of jaggery , it should not taste even slightly salty. If it does, this may indicates a high concentration of mineral salts.
- The salty taste can also tells you if the jaggery is fresh or not, the older it is, the saltier it gets.
- If you see any crystals on jaggery, it means that it has undergone crystallization process to artificially make it sweet. Pure jaggery is naturally sticky and moist.
Benefits of Jaggery
Pure jaggery have good benefits, if it is consumed in moderate amounts.
- Jaggery helps in improving digestion, it activates the digestive enzymes.
- A small amount of jaggery can helps to cleans and detoxify your body
- It provides nourishment to every part of the body.
- It can also helps in treating skin problems like acne and pimples.
- Helps in preventing joint and bone problems.
- Eating jaggery might also help in weight loss by preventing retention of water in body due to potassium in it.
- Jaggery contains a lower glycemic index than cane sugar , where it doesn't raise your blood sugar levels as easily.
Consumption
Although jaggery is enriched with nutrients, as we say too much of anything is bad, so moderate intake is best way for good health as it maintain balance in body. In a day for a normal healthy person with no health issues can take jaggery of 15–20g.
Side effects of excess consumption
- People who are eating more quantities of jaggery includes sweets ,which contains sugar in high amounts may leading to tooth decay. It feeds plaque forming bacteria and raises acidity in mouth.
- Health experts have always recommended eating jaggery in winter only, it produce heat in body due to its warm properties, therefore one should avoid consuming it during hot days.
Palm Jaggery
Palm jaggery making is a small scale industry. Palm sugar is the term used to refer both Palmyra palm sugar and coconut palm sugar. Though the term is used interchangeably, both are not the same. One is derived from the sap of the Palmyra and other from the sap of the coconut tree. when the palms are up to 20 years of age , they start blossoming and are ready for yielding the sap. The making of palm jaggery is similar to cane jaggery except that the juice is collected from palm trees. Palm jaggery is expensive than cane jaggery.
Palm jaggery is not only packed with nutrients like iron, foliate, potassium and calcium, it also has the lowest glycemic index, it may also used as a remedy against cough and cold, but to reap the benefits make sure you consume it in moderate.
Why palm jaggery is better than cane jaggery
Over the last few years, palm jaggery has been promoted as a natural sugar alternative. It is considered to be healthier option than standard cane sugar. If you are making something that is required to be sweet and delicious, if you just need mildly sweeten up ,palm jaggery makes for a better alternative.
The major reason of choosing palm jaggery is due to its low glycemic index. A high glycemic index means that the food is rapidly absorbed by the body, thereby increasing the blood sugar levels causing the pancreas to release large amount of insulin. A low glycemic index indicates that the food is slowly absorbed ,preventing a sudden increase in insulin level. Researchers have found that the G.I of raw palm is 35, honey at 55 and table sugar is 68. Palm jaggery is reported to have more nutritional values than cane sugar, it is delicious and has natural minerals. It is better choice for people who are love sweets and don't like to skip.
Can diabetic people eat palm jaggery
Absolutely NO, even it has low glycemic index compared to cane, it is still having sugar content, which is still not recommended for diabetic people. There are many natural sweeteners like dates, pure honey ,natural fruits with more vitamins and minerals, which are good alternatives for jaggery. Jaggery is better compared to sugar, but there are much better alternatives. Patients with high glycemic index are not even allowed to eat fruits like mango, chikoo, custard apple etc., Jaggery is completely out of question for them.
Eat moderately and choose better choices by comparing benefits, lead a healthy life. Thank you!
