This is your permission slip to eat sugar.
-Justin Frank Polgar, Minister of Chocolate
I have been wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for the past four months, measuring the effects of sugar and stress on my glucose levels. I have found that I can, on a 12 hour fasting stomach, have 10 g of CleanCane without experiencing a glycemic spike. This is unheard of. This does not happen with any other cane sugar, which all sugarcane is. This includes brown sugar, evaporated cane juice, turbinado, jaggery, and raw sugar.
What could possibly be the difference? I have been told that sugar is sugar is sugar. But that doesn’t seem to be the case!
One of the main differentiators is where this sugarcane is grown. CleanCane® is sourced from a small farm in a high-elevation location in the Andes at about 1500 feet (500 m). Most sugarcane is grown at sea level, and is subject to runoff and soil pollution from higher altitudes impacts. When an auto repair shop or a gas station or a manufacturing plant, or simply a small village positioned upstream from a farm, gets rid of its waste, that ends up in the soil and the water that feeds the soil. A high elevation farm is more protected from that runoff. Additionally, most sugarcane is grown in densely packed plantations, and is sprayed regularly with pesticides glyphosate and all kinds of poisons because it’s very attractive to pests and funguses and molds. Would you be surprised to know that there are plasticides also found in high processed sugarcane, or white granulated sugar?
We named the sugarcane that we source CleanCane. It is grown in volcanic, mineral-rich soil, and because sugarcane is in the grass family, that makes an immediate difference in quality. Grasses extract nutrients from minerals in the soil, into their stocks. Whether it’s a grass or bamboo or sugarcane, they all pull sustenance from the soil; the health of the soil is very important. Of course, photosynthesis feeds these plants too, which makes air quality important as well. Having volcanic soil really is the game changer during the growth cycle. Nothing is sprayed on the CleanCane®. When a plant is getting a healthy amount of minerals, it is much more resilient and can resolve environmental challenges (humans can do this too!). The CleanCane® is then harvested and hand pressed through a machine that presses the juice, separating the fibrous cane stock from the nectar, and then that liquid is placed on large tables, in shallow containers to allow the sun to begin drying the moisture. With fans and sunlight, most of the moisture is removed. When you see “evaporated cane” on an ingredient list, that is cooked at high heat to evaporate, which is more efficient but through efficiencies we lose nutrients. The final step is a kind of vortex freeze dry process . The result is a sugarcane that has its minerals and enzymes and nutrients still intact, so when we put it into our bodies we are able to properly digest it, and put those nutrients to work!
This CleanCane® is unlike anything I’ve ever seen or felt. Our customers are who turned me on to the impacts, or the lack of impact, on the body. We have diabetics, and we have sugar-sensitive customers who report saying “I don’t get a spike when I have your chocolate.” Not only does our chocolate have low amounts of sugar because we just don’t think it needs that much. The specific sweetener that we use, the CleanCane® has nutritional benefits! Of course, each body is different, so please consume wisely.
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