Panela - A traditional Sweetener For Good condition

If you are seeing for something sweet that is also good for your body, try panela. It is the customary unrefined goods of sugar cane, in the same form first made centuries ago. This rich, brown sweetener with a caramel flavor has a long cultural patrimony in Central and South America as a heath-giving food. In India, where it is called jaggery, it is also carefully a condition food, and was even recommended by Gandhi as a customary alternative to developed white sugar.

Long before industrialization, sugar cane was cultivated and its juice extracted by hand as a medicine. The sugar cane is very hard and tough. That the exertion was made to extract the juice without the contemporary machinery used today indicates its value to customary peoples.

Traditional Food

To obtain panela, organic sugar canes are carefully washed, slowly squeezed, and evaporated in the open air on small farms in Central and South America. The resulting gel is then poured into molds and cooled, and sold in hard bricks of various shapes. It is a customary artisan goods with all its customary vitamins and minerals.

What sets panela apart from other sugar cane sweeteners is that it is completely unrefined. The first step of making any sugar is to press the juice and cook it down into a thick syrup. Panela stops there. The refining process takes panela and continues to boil it until crystals form, which separates the sucrose from the remaining liquid and all the nutrients. Refining continues until the cane juice is completely separated into refined white sugar, and black molasses. Any time you see a crystallized (or "granulated") sugar, it's been refined to some degree. Panela is not. There is no industrial process complicated in making panela at all.

A nutritional pathology of panela shows why it has traditionally been carefully a health-giving food. Panela contains indispensable amounts of vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and iron--more than most generally eaten foods.

Traditional cultures know that panela has some unique remedial properties. It prevents tooth decay, nutritious anemia (due to iron deficiency) and rickets (due to vitamin C deficiency). It also provides power without the "sugar rush" and blood sugar spikes that are the supervene of refined sugars.

In South America, the main use of panela is to make condition drinks, known as Aguapanela or Papelon con Limon. These are very popular. They are given to infants and even cyclists drink them as a natural sport drink due to their high vitamin and mineral content. It is also used as a flu remedy.

In the United States, panela is sold in it's customary block form in Hispanic stores and is the key ingredient in a drink sold under the Pannela brand (www.mypannela.com).

Panela - A traditional Sweetener For Good condition

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