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Sugarcane juice and jaggery as health drink and sweetener
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Saturday, 03 March, 2007, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Dr S Asokan
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untry is utilised for the manufacture of jaggery and khandsari sugars as these are the preferred energy producing and sweetening base by rural and urban consumers. The jaggery is also valued for its nutritional and medicinal value. The jaggery contains 60-85% sucrose, 5-15% glucose and fructose along with 0.4% of protein, 0.1% of fat and 0.6 to 1.0% of minerals (8 mg of calcium, 4 mg of phosphorus, 11.4 mg of iron per 100 gm of jaggery). It is also found to contain traces of vitamins, amino acids and antioxidants. 100 gm of jaggery gives 383 k-cal of energy. In Ayurvedic treatment and animal drugs, jaggery is considered as the best base material for the preparation of several medicines.
In contrast, the white crystal sugar contains only sucrose to the tune of 99.5% without any minerals. Commercial sugar has been implicated as a causative factor in certain heart diseases and as a primary factor in causing dental problems. Therefore, the nutritional potential of jaggery is of considerable value for majority of the population living in rural India. Compared to jaggery the white crystalline sugar takes away calcium and potassium from the body during digestion apart from difficulty in digestion of crystal sugar.
A quality jaggery is one having golden yellow colour, hard in texture, crystalline in structure, sweet in taste, less in impurities and low in moisture. The quality of jaggery is influenced by the variety of cane grown, quantity of fertilisers used, quality of irrigation water and the method of processing adopted. The common man is often misguided by the impression that the brightly colored jaggery is the best quality jaggery. This is mostly wrong since in the present day for obtaining better colour most of the jaggery are produced by the use of harmful chemical clarificants. Many a times in order to get solidification of jaggery from bad quality juice and to get bright colour the jaggery making artisans add several unrecommended chemicals and substances.
In the present day jaggery is prepared mostly from sugarcane grown by using chemical fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides and also preparation of jaggery involves mostly chemical clarificants. The quality of jaggery prepared with the commonly used chemical clarificants such as hydros, sodium carbonate, sodium bi-carbonate, sajji, super phosphate, alum etc not only has temporary improvement in colour, salty taste and poor storability but also excess use of them may result in harmful residues such as sulphur dioxide beyond prescribed limit.
Many times the market jaggery has been found to contain excess quantities of harmful chemicals like sulphur dioxide. Due to use of such chemicals the taste and storability of such jaggery is also affected. An analysis of available jaggery in the market by the author has revealed that most of the jaggery are prepared by the use of chemicals which contain more than 80-120 ppm of sulphur di-oxide in the jaggery which are well above the prescribed norms of 50 ppm by Indian standard (IS 12923): 1990. This high amount of sulphur di-oxide is detrimental to the beneficial intestinal microflora leading to digestive disorders and gastrointestinal problems etc and also can cause breathing problems in asthmatic patients. It can also cause colon/rectal cancer and can also destroy the formation of vitamin A and vitamin B1.
In this context, growing of sugarcane only with organics without chemical fertilisers, weedicides and pesticides and also preparation of jaggery with use of organic clarificants assumes importance in order to produce quality jaggery. There is a growing demand for organically produced jaggery both within the country and in the export market.
Harvesting cane for jaggery preparation
The cane should be harvested when it is in peak maturity i.e., when the juice sucrose is highest with less amount of non sugars such as minerals, amino acids, phenols, gums, starch etc. The juice purity should be more than 85% if good setting of jaggery is to be achieved. Harvested canes should be removed free of soil particles, attached green or dry leaves and roots. The top few internodes, which contain more of non-sugars than sugars should be de-topped.
Crushing of cane and juice
Extraction of juice from the cane should be done immediately after harvest and in any case not later than 24 hours after harvest to prevent inversion of sucrose into glucose and fructose and formation of other harmful substances. The crusher should be capable of giving at least 65 to 70% juice extraction, otherwise there will be loss of sugar in the bagasse. The juice should be collected in a clean vessel after straining through a fine sieve or muslin cloth to remove suspended impurities from the juice. Use of multistage filters made of stainless steel with 3 mm, 0.5 mm and micron size holes respectively will further improve the quality of the jaggery prepared.
Clarification and boiling of juice
The freshly extracted juice is acidic with a pH of around 5.2. Heating and boiling under these acidic conditions will invert the sucrose leading to problems in solidification and development of dark colour of jaggery. Hence before boiling the juice pH is adjusted to 6.8 with the addition of a clear solution of lime (CaOH) using a narrow range of indicator paper. On vigorous boiling, the non-sugars float on the surface of the boiling juice as scum which is removed as and when formed periodically. When the clear juice starts boiling, any one of the available organic clarificants such as Deola, Bhindi, Phalsa, Semal, Sukhlai, Castor, Soybean and Groundnut may be used to further clarify the syrup and improve the jaggery colour, storability with less harmful residues in the final product.
Concentration and crystallisation of syrup
After clarification and removal of the scum completely, the juice is boiled vigorously till most of the water is evaporated and juice gets concentrated as syrup. The temperature starts raising steadily to around 118 to 120 C. At this point, coconut oil is added to the syrup at the rate of 2 ml per litre of juice so as to prevent charring of syrup, to promote development of sugar crystallisation and good colour. When the temperature of the syrup drops down to 114 to 116 C (strike temperature), the syrup is ready for transferring to the moulds. Moulds which give shapes like ball is most preferable as it gives least surface area for absorption of moisture during storage. The jaggery can be made into powder form also by rubbing the cooling magma by a wooden scrapper against the wall of the pan containing the transferred mass.
For internal consumption and export market the jaggery prepared should conform to the following specifications. Packaging
During storage, as the jaggery contain hygroscopic substances such as reducing sugars, minerals like chlorides, sodium, potassium they make the jaggery liable for moisture absorption and microbial degradation, particularly during monsoon periods when the Relative Humidity values exceed more than 55 to 60%. Hence packing the jaggery cubes in appropriate containers assumes importance. The keeping quality of jaggery when packed with tin foil covered with hessian cloth or packed with tin foil covered with polythene sheet or plastic containers was found to be good with respect to less changes in sucrose reduction, changes in shape and size and also in maintaining the hardness of jaggery during storage. Plastic containers were better for storage of jaggery. Packaging materials should preferably be chosen from bio-degradable and recyclable source
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