Our traditional winter seasonings

The traditional winter foods are flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and honey. They are also rich in chocolate, dried fruits, nuts, almonds and chestnut.  These spices, nuts and dried fruits raise the festivity.

Inspect the health benefits of these spices:

Cinnamon	Nutmeg	Cloves
Protects healthy heart  and brains. Benefits for dental health and hygiene. Fights infection and diabetes. It has anti-inflammatory properties. It contains antioxidants, which can help lowering cancer risk.	Nutmeg is a pain relief It is liver and kidney detoxifier. Benefits for dental hygiene and health. Nutmeg can also help for digestion related problems.	Cloves reduce inflammation, fight against upper respiratory infections. Improve digestion. Enhance sexual health.

Honey is a traditional winter sweetener.  It is a natural treatment for our winter flu, reducing cough and throat irritation.  It helps regulate blood sugar. It provides antibacterial and antifungal effects. It helps to fight against cancer and beneficial for healthy heart.

Maple syrup

Acer known as maple is a genus of trees or shrubs. The genus is places in the Sapindaceae family. Most species are deciduous, but few in southern Asia and the Mediterranean area are evergreen. Prominently use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol.

Maple syrup is a healthy alternative to cane or beet sugar if it is used moderately. Maple tree syrup, or more accurately sap, has been used for centuries. The dominated sugar in sap is sucrose 66%. Sucrose is a disaccharide, within a glucose and a fructose molecules are bonded. The leaves of plants produce sugar during photosynthesis, which is stored as starch in the roots. During the winter months taphole is drilled, a tube is inserted and a bucket is attached. When spring comes the fluctuation of temperature increases the pressure within the tree causing the sap to flow from the taphole into the bucket. So unlike refined sugar, which undergoes complex of processes: harvest, washing, milling, extraction, filtration, purification and crystallisation, maple syrup is natural unrefined product, which depends only on the chemicals introduced to the soil.

Nutritional values of maple syrup:

Maple syrup contains proteins, fat, carbohydrates, water, sugar, minerals such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, sodium, potassium, zinc and iron and vitamins such as thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin B6.

Health benefits of maple syrup:

·      Maple syrup holds various antioxidants in the form of phenolic compounds, which are helpful for reducing free radicals that can cause various chronic diseases. It may help protect against cancer.

·      The presence of zinc is beneficial for the heart and cardiovascular disorders.

·      Glycemic index score of maple syrup is lower than regular refined sugar.

·      Maple syrup nutrition also supplies inflammation-reducing polyphenol antioxidants helpful in preventing certain diseases like arthritis.

·      Zinc found in maple syrup helps in maintaining male reproductive health particularly the prostate gland.

·      The maple syrup extract may help the antibiotics work better.

The maple syrup nutrition impacts your blood sugar levels a bit less drastically than table sugar does and it also supplies some trace minerals and antioxidants, while sugar lacks both of these.

Brown or White Sugar??

Simple diagram about the process of making sugar crystals:

In the process of making sugar you can see the difference between brown and white sugar. The white sugar goes through more refining processes. Both contain molasses but the brown sugar contains more. The colour of brown sugar looks more like molasses syrup. The raw and brown sugars contain very, very small amount of minerals; calcium, potassium, iron and magnesium comparing to the white refined sugar which contains non of these.

Keep the following in your mind:

Sugar is a sweet tasting energy dense carbohydrate.  Simple sugars are contain small molecules; glucose, fructose and galactose, linked together forming a chain. The sugar, which is used by food manufacturers are sucrose (fructose and glucose linked together) or high fructose content corn syrup.  The sugar is not just a source of excess of calories it is a poison.

Fructose does not play an essential role in human metabolism.  Fructose is converted to energy but the process produces very reactive oxygen radicals reacting in our body causing ageing. The fructose is not regulated by the insulin, which spurs the production of leptin. Leptin is a hormone, which lets the body to know when it is full. Fructose does not affect leptin production.

(You do not feel full, so you will eat more, resulting in overeating.)  Foods high in fat and sugar are “hyperpalatable foods “ increase the dopamine level as much as addictive drugs.

Our body does not require any added sugar the complex form of carbohydrates in starchy foods supply all the glucose our metabolisms need.