𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒
There are pluses in sugar cane.
While I was away at my home away from this home, standing in a long slow moving line up at the Juan Valdez Café, I looked over at the counter and saw something orange, orange packets of something. I reached over to hold one in my hand. The words on it were foreign; the contents felt powdery. I carried it home with me to investigate later.
Turns out the contents are the best part of sugar cane grown in Colombia. Sugarcane juice is processed into a type of organic raw sugar. It’s called panela. This unrefined sugar is traditionally produced and consumed in Latin America. It is flavourful, aromatic and organic, and contains naturally-occurring vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that you won’t find in sugars that go through an industrial refining process: potassium, calcium, magnesium, manganese, vitamins A, B, C, D, and E.
Panela is still produced using old school traditional technology by small scale farmers in Colombia and other regions of Latin America. I say kudos to the Juan Valdez coffee shop chain for supporting the specialized environmentally sound sugar cane industry of Latin America, and for providing customers with a sweetener that has so much more to offer than the overly processed white stuff!
Today I mixed the contents of my one packet of Colombian panela with Sri Lankan cinnamon; it’s become the topping on my carrot blueberry loaf for the neighbourhood work party coffee break this weekend. It will no doubt give me a chance to share the good news with others, and energize the crew to get the new fence completed before the sun sets.
