Natural-Sugar-Cane-op

Sugar cane is in the grass family and loaded with health benefits. Studies have shown it to be high in polyphenols, which are powerful phytonutrients with the qualities of antioxidants. It is also loaded with vitamins and minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese, and iron; along with a complete profile of essential amino-acids that help burn fat and build muscle. Some of these include pipecolic acid, methionine, tryptophan, β-alanine, and arginine; along with basic amino-acids like histidine, lysine, arginine, and tryptophan. Cane juice is alkaline to the body, and because most diseases cannot live in an alkaline environment, in it's raw form, sugar cane juice can be very healing to the body. It has even been found to lower cholesterol--both LDL and triglycerides.

What's the difference between the sugar in cane juice and regular table sugar? 
 
90% of U.S. table sugar is made from sugar beets. But that granulated stuff has almost nothing to do with the root vegetable it's made from. By the end of the refinement process, nature's gift of the sugar beet bears very little resemblance to the man-made, dehydrated crystalline sugar they've become. Without the entirety of the food, including the natural water content that suspends and keeps alive & intact, a full spectrum of minerals, vitamins, enzymes, prebiotics, fiber, etc., most sugars are man-made substances.  Substances like: HFCs, table sugar, evaporated cane juice, brown sugar, fructose isolate, xylitol, glucose syrup, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, powdery date sugar, palm sugar, etc. are just the "sugar" with out the plant.
 

Man-made sugars offer the body no true nutritional value.

The energy rush the body feels is actually the explosive "high" our body gets in trying to convert the sugar into something it can process like glucose (without any helper nutrients that plants contain.) So the pancreas forces out insulin to metabolize the over influx of unbuffered glucose in the bloodstream.  Because it's a simple sugar, the usable part of the glucose gets burned off quickly and the residual waste must be dealt with by the liver, causing fatty deposits--i.e. obesity and fatty liver disease. Furthermore, to synthesize  non-naturally-occurring sugars, the body must leach from its reserved and often limited mineral source.
 

Mineral leaching is why many believe that refined sugar exhausts the calcium in our bones.

On the other hand, naturally occurring polisaccharides and oligosaccharides are complex, intact sugars that are unaltered from their original state. These complex sugars are what our bodies need for real, sustained energy that does not deplete us or leave residuals that toxify us. Put aside for the moment how the body digests fruit--which is naturally occurring fructose. Cane juice is under a very separate category. It is a naturally occurring sucrose (again not table sucrose, made by man! )  Naturally occurring sucrose (not man made sucrose!) is metabolized by the stomach, relieving the pancreas of the need for all that insulin to break it down and make in to useful energy. This is why we have customers who have found that they are able to consume raw cane juice despite their health condition. How someone manages their condition is between them and their doctor, but cane juice has been found to have a glycemic index typically between 30 and 40 and usually only 32.
 

So love your liver, with cane juice... and your liver will love you back!"

 

Eastern Medicine

Chinese Medicine

In Chinese medicine the sweet flavor is associated with the spleen, pancreas, stomach sphere of activity and its channel pathway internally and externally. In the old times of Chinese medicine before communism, there was a system of thought known as the ‘Earth School’. In the context of TCM theory, the spleen system is responsible for formulating the blood. This blood is then stored by the Liver.

Green is also the color for the thymus gland heart chakra (usually depicted as both green and pink).

The green will root us sturdily like green grasses and trees planted deep in the soil…and yes just like sugar cane.

Cane contains the energy of tropical vibrations, rising erect toward the blazing sun like an evolved human being’s spinal cord. Its joints tell of incremental growth. Its presence in history pre-dates the majority of our planet’s written history. Its place in nearly everyone on earth’s life, day in and day out, is unmatched by any other substance besides water. Yet when we dry the juice…it’s brown sugar. There lays the soil and grass color coding. Green/Brown Sweetheart…

(Treatise on the Spleen and Stomach: A Translation of the Pi Wei Lun)              –Daniel H. supersunspot.blogspot.com

Ayurveda

Ayurvedic Medicine prizes sugar cane for it's ability to energize and rejuvenate the body.

It is prescribed for the following:

  • Toning the skin and all body tissues
  • Moisturizing the skin and the body's tissues
  • Cleansing and stimulating the digestive system
  • Revitalizing and detoxifying the liver, kidneys, and blood stream
  • Increasing male fertility and vitality

Sugar Cane is honored for its spiritual qualities as well. In ceremony it is added for its power to renew and revitalize. Because it grows in large clusters, it has a quality of community, and it is auspicious to share its sweetness with others.

"It's worth considering that this holy plant is associated with the higher aspects of the Divine Mother herself as a representation of the very best our planet can offer us in conscious union with the Earth, the elements, one another, and Her. In this age we have a lot of choices about what we eat. Many of these aren’t very aligned to our physical or spiritual health. Cane is a food that has both physical and spiritual benefits. If we consume it with this awareness, there is a deep spiritual understanding and practice that can take place in the enjoyment of it.”

-- Amma Adi Sakthi & Swami Shanmug