Maple Syrup: Joyous for Your Sweet Tooth, Joyous for Your Health
Posted on August 31st, 2009. Filed under: General.Got a sweet tooth? Sure, sugar can quickly energize you, but it doesn’t last for long. Actually, excessive intake of sugar can harm your health. Refined with sugar contributes to lower B-vitamin amounts, cholesterol accumulation, and tooth damage. The body needs nutrients and fiber for better functioning, and sugar doesn’t have any of them. Instead, it has a high calorie content that are converted to fats if not used up by the body.
Maple syrup, which is sweet as sugar, is a more nutritious substitute. You can still satisfy your craving for sweet foods while keeping your body healthy by making maple syrup a part of your daily diet. You can find many uses for maple syrup in your daily life including maple sugar candy and maple syrup recipe ideas. An amber liquid with viscous consistency made from maple tree sap, maple syrup provides a lot of health benefits. Maple syrup is a more nutritious sweetener than sugar, even if it has a high sugar content. It has more minerals and fewer calories than sugar and honey. A quarter cup of maple syrup has more potassium than a banana and more calcium than milk. Maple syrup also contains B vitamins, iron, and phosphorous—nutrients that are crucial to your bodily functions. What’s more, you have lower risk of diseases when you use maple syrup instead of sugar.
Because it contains manganese, maple syrup can help improve your energy production and antioxidant defenses. Aside from being an antioxidant, manganese also facilitates healing and reduces inflammations. About 22 percent of the recommended manganese content in the body can be supplied by daily intake of an ounce of maple syrup. The manganese content of maple syrup is good for the immune system. Further enhancing the body’s response against infections is the zinc content of maple syrup. And because maple syrup contains zinc, it can also keep your heart healthy. An essential trace mineral, zinc can minimize the likelihood of heart problems such as stroke, heart attack, and atherosclerosis or the buildup of cholesterol in the arteries. Maple syrup can help prevent prostate cancer that usually occurs in men because of its zinc content. Male reproductive health also gets a boost from maple syrup that increases the production of sex hormones.
Maple syrup is not dangerous to health compared to processed white sugar. This nutritious product contains very small amount of sodium at about 2 mg. per 50 mL. Low sodium content means maple syrup won’t pose a threat to people with high blood pressure, kidney ailment, or diabetes. Maple syrup is free from substances such as oxalates, goitrogens, and purines that can get in the way of proper bodily functions. It doesn’t cause allergies in most people, too.
Sweet taste and good health can go hand in hand when you use maple syrup as a substitute to unhealthy sugar. So cut your sugar intake and don’t forget to include maple syrup in your to-buy list the next time you shop at the grocery. Making sure that you have maple syrup supplies can mean the difference between an unhealthy and a healthy you.