If you are a health conscious person, then chances are big that you have already been trying to replace your sugar intake with other healthier forms of natural sweeteners. You may also have heard a lot about jaggery and how it is a much better option than sugar in terms of sweetening. But do you really know how jaggery is different from sugar? Well, let us tell you about this today.
Let’s have a look how jaggery is different from sugar.
Both jaggery and sugar are prepared by bringing sugar cane juice to a boil. However, this is only the initial step. The boiled juice is clarified with bone charcoal into a clear and transparent syrup which, upon cooling, condensation and crystallization, turns into regular white sugar. On the other hand, sugar cane juice is boiled continuously in order to form a thick, sticky paste of jaggery. It is then cooled down and poured into moulds to come up with required jaggery blocks.
Sucrose (C12H22O12), a disaccharide (Glucose + Fructose), is known to be the primary component of both sugar and jaggery. However, there is no other component in table sugar, while jaggery is made of sucrose (65-85%), invert sugar (10-15)%, ash 2.5%, and very small amounts of dietary fibre, iron and mineral salts. The invert sugar content of jaggery makes it higher in sweetness and GI (GLycemic Index) than regular sugar.
Regular sugar is white in color. But the color of jaggery can vary from golden yellow to different shades of brown (i.e. golden brown, perfect brown, dark brown, etc.). The color usually depends on the time of boiling the sugar cane juice.
As far as the texture is concerned, sugar and jaggery are different from each other. Sugar has a solid and hard form that looks like crystal, while jaggery is semi-solid (comparatively softer) and does not have any specific shape (amorphous).
Being loaded with sucrose, both sugar and jaggery provide lots of energy to our body. But sugar is considered more harmful than jaggery. As mentioned before, sugar is the simplest version of sucrose, which gets absorbed in our bloodstream immediately. It affects our internal organs (kidneys, eyes, etc.) and can worsen diabetics. On the other hand, the sucrose present in jaggery is complex by nature (long chain), which takes time to get absorbed in the bloodstream and releases energy gradually. This ensures that it doesn’t affect our internal organs.
There are many other health benefits of jaggery over regular table sugar. We have listed them below:
Well, the usage of sugar is versatile. From simple sweets or desserts to confectionary items, sugar is everywhere! Some alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages also contain caramelized sugar. It is used in certain drugs too. Though jaggery is not widely used, you can find its vast usage in cooking. From soups to curries to country sweets to rum, jaggery can be found in a number of eatables.
Jaggery is not as easily available as sugar. No matter the part of the world you live in, you can find regular white sugar everywhere. But the production of jaggery is generally limited to Asian countries. Moreover, it cannot be stored or transported easily. So, finding jaggery might be a problem for people from the rest of the globe.
We all want to live a healthy life. But does jaggery help us do that? Hope the comparative study of sugar and jaggery helped clear the picture for you. Jaggery is definitely a healthier choice, when it comes to sweeteners. So, what are you waiting for? Go and buy jaggery today!
Do you use alternative sweeteners? What is your preferred choice? Tell us.