Honey or Jaggery: What's the Healthier Sugar Alternative for Weight Loss

Diet, Health

One of the most common tips that goes around for weight loss is reducing your sugar intake or replacing it with healthier substitutes. But is replacing sugar with other alternatives like honey or jaggery really affective? Read to find out.

Summary: 60 Second Read

In this article we will cover:

Why we should switch from sugar to honey or jaggery

Which is healthier, honey or jaggery

Bottomline

which is healthier alternative of sugar- honey or jaggery

Overview

Processed sugar or the added sugar in your packaged food is just calories and nothing else. They are known as empty calories because there are no nutrients present in sugar. It can have a negative impact on your metabolism and can lead to several diseases. It is bad for your teeth and can also overload your liver with fructose. This can lead to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). It can also cause insulin resistance and obesity.

It is advisable to avoid sugar if you want to stay healthy. Many replace sugar with alternatives like honey and jaggery. However, the white sugar, jaggery and honey contain the same amount of calories. So, you will not be decreasing the calorie intake by switching to honey or jaggery.

The glycemic index of honey, jaggery and white sugar is the same and it can cause an increase in blood sugar level. So, jaggery or honey is as detrimental as white sugar for people with diabetes.

Then why should you switch to honey or jaggery?

Jaggery and honey have minerals like iron, phosphorus and calcium. Jaggery is the unrefined version of the whole sugar produced from sugarcane juice. You can replace sugar with honey or jaggery, but sugar is sugar so try to limit your intake of these alternative sweeteners as well.

Which is healthier, honey or jaggery?

Both honey and jaggery will increase the blood sugar levels but it is better to switch to honey or jaggery because they contain micronutrients.

Jaggery is rich in magnesium,copper and iron while honey is rich in vitamin b vitamin C and potassium.

Micro-nutrients in jaggery (per 100 gm)

Calcium: 40–100 mg,
magnesium: 70–90 mg
potassium: 1056 mg
phosphorus: 20–90 mg
sodium: 19–30 mg
iron: 10–13 mg
manganese: 0.2–0.5 mg
zinc: 0.2–0.4 mg
copper: 0.1–0.9 mg
chloride: 5.3 mg
vitamins (vitamin A:3.8 mg,
vitamin B1: 0.01 mg,
vitamin B2: 0.06 mg,
vitamin B5: 0.01 mg,
Vitamin B6: 0.01 mg
vitamin C: 7.00 mg
vitamin D2: 6.50 mg
vitamin E: 111.30 mg
vitamin PP: 7.00 mg)
protein: 280 mg

Micro Nutrients in Honey(100 g):

Calcium: 6 mg,
magnesium: 2 mg
potassium: 52 mg
phosphorus: 4 mg
sodium: 4 mg
iron: 0.42 mg
manganese: 0.8 mg
zinc: 0.22 mg
copper: 0.036 mg
chloride: 2.2 mg
vitamin B6: 0.024 mg
vitamin C: 0.5 mg
protein: 0.3 g

Jaggery has sucrose as a molecule of sugar so its slowly absorbed. Its helpful in diabetics as sugar level slowly increase after oral intake.

White sugar has glucose as a molecule of sugar. As its rapidly absorbed, the sugar level rise is instant and harmful for diabetic person.

You can use honey to sweeten your beverages and jaggery for desserts. However, as it will cause a spike in the blood sugar level, it is advisable to keep the intake of either honey or jaggery to minimum.

Bottomline

Work on reducing your sweet craving.That’s the only reliable, long-term method to getting fit and staying so.

But if you’re going to have Sugar, replacing it with jaggery or honey, in limited portions, would be better. They contain far less chemicals and far more nutrients than regular sugar.