Sweeteners, the most loved of flavors, nature bestows upon us a variety of it- from crops, from trees, from bees. These carry sweetness with the goodness of nature.
We have abandoned the best of them all and chosen the most harmful ones to feed ourselves and our children. Our daily life Is full of factory-made white sugar, our processed foods are full of worse-chemical sweetening agents with numbers. This is possibly one of the major causes of uncontrolled obesity and lifestyle diseases that we are watching unfold.
The very first product that Bio Basics introduced was delicious nattu sakkarai /raw cane sugar/ jaggery powder grown on an organic sugarcane farm nearby, processed on the farm seasonally, absolutely delicious & wholesome. It carries the molasses & iron along with the rich sweetness of sugarcane that has been boiled and dried to a fine powder in a large vat by skilled jaggery makers.
Even today our raw cane sugar or jaggery powder is one of our most-loved offerings. Once you taste it you will not go to another sweetener.
Then there are the jaggery round balls, which require amazing skill to make, the cute kulfi jaggery, just a mouthful sweetness, and finally the newly introduced jaggery syrup or kakvi. All from organic farms are processed in small batches.
The amazing palm trees of Tamil Nadu give us the palm jaggery and palm sugar, with their fine sweetness tinged with a caramel edge. A gift from people who work at this arduous occupation with great skill to afford us this low GI sweetener that combines health with sweetness. Come from a trusted cooperative to ensure that nothing is mixed in this sweetener.
The range of honey we carry from the Nilgiris is sourced from Last Forest who has been working in this region for decades. The honey harvested by the Kurumba & Irula tribes is harvested sustainably from the Indian rock bee( Apis Dorsata) hives in the Nilgiris. Half the hives are left untouched for the bees to come back.
These precious sweeteners are for us to use mindfully, as overuse will lead to exhaustion of these fragile sources. Of course, sweetness is always good only in small quantities. It is also for us to pay a fair price to these farmers and harvesters to keep the resources and skills alive.
The exhaustion of resources has begun, we do not get coconut jaggery anymore as the drought a few years back in Tamil Nadu killed thousands of trees, and the skill to produce it is disappearing.
Join us to adopt these sources of sustainable sweetness!
Let us know if you have tried any of these from us?
Which is your favourite sweetener?
Share your recipes....
Check out how the raw cane sugar or jaggery powder is made.
