Big Tree Farms SweetTree Organic Coconut Palm Sugar, Blonde, 16-Ounce Pouches (Pack of 6)

by Big Tree Farms

Product Features

• Big Tree Farms SweetTree Organic Coconut Palm Sugar, Blonde is available in pack of 6
• Naturally low on the glycemic index (GI about 35), unrefined and high nutrient
• A healthy alternative to high fructose sweeteners and processed cane sugars; Gluten free and Kosher
• Coconut Palm Sugar has a soft caramel flavor, similar to light brown sugar; Dissolves in liquid
• Packaged in a stand up resealable pouch

Product Description

SweetTree is the world's first certified organic coconut palm sugar. The sweet nectar from the flower blossom of the green coconut palm tree, Coco Nucifera, is collected, boiled and granulated, creating CocoCrystals. Sweet Tree is 'nature's perfect sweetener' - a pure and unrefined evaporated nectar that is a 1:1 replacement for cane sugar. It's naturally high in nutrients and low on the glycemic index. Big Tree Farms is a socially equitable manager of sustainable supply chains, working directly with over 7,000 farmers and having developed key partnerships with both local nonprofits and International Development programs.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 6.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002UGMH9Y
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,992 in Grocery & Gourmet Food (See Top 100 in Grocery & Gourmet Food)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diabetic testimonial, May 6, 2010

By 

M. Polasek "Miss Martha" (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Big Tree Farms SweetTree Organic Coconut Palm Sugar, Blonde, 16-Ounce Pouches (Pack of 6) (Grocery)

Being a type II diabetic is challenging when it comes to desserts. Concerned that I was consuming too many products using artificial sweeteners and while researching some other products (allergic to stevia and agave), I came across the SweetTree Blonde evaporated palm sugar which claims a glycemic index of 35. My body has had positive gylcemic reactions to sesame and coconut products and I made the purchase on faith that the glycemic load using this sugar versus artificial sweeteners would be similar. I made a batch of cookies using Splenda and another batch using the SweetTree blonde sugar and then tested my blood glucose. I did this repeatedly over the course of about 7 days and was pleasantly surprised that my blood sugars in both cases were consistently within a few points of each other. So, for my body I found this sugar to be just as good a substitute as splenda. For my money, I would rather put something in me that is closer to nature. We use it now in our morning coffee and the company will be releasing a new liquid version of the product in the fall sometime.

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vegan, organic sugar, December 4, 2010

By 

Kate McMurry "Young Adult Author" (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Big Tree Farms SweetTree Organic Coconut Palm Sugar, Blonde, 16-Ounce Pouches (Pack of 6) (Grocery)

Farmers produce coconut palm sugar by making slits in the buds of a coconut tree to collect the sap. The sap is boiled until it thickens and then dried into hard cakes, which are ground into powder (see photo of the sugar I posted above). Coconut palms grow under drought conditions in sandy soil. They not only use one-fifth the water and soil nutrients of sugar cane, they also enrich (vs. deplete) the soil and produce 50-70% more sugar per acre.

The Big Tree Farms brand of coconut palm sugar is not mixed with any other type of sugar as some other brands are. It is a 100% organic, natural sweetener which is not filtered or bleached as white sugar is. When sugar is bleached, the process involves using ground up animal bones, thus, this non-bleached sugar is vegan.

The major claim to fame of coconut palm sugar is that lab tests have apparently shown that this product has a glycemic index (GI) of 35, compared to agave nectar at 42, honey at 62, cane sugar (sucrose) at 64, and date sugar at 103. A low GI is 55 or less. A medium GI is 56 - 69. A high GI 70 or more.

Those who are concerned about the environment and humane labor practices will approve of the fact that this product is sustainably produced by smallholder farmers on the island of Java, Indonesia. All of the money earned from growing, harvesting and processing this sugar stays in the local community that produces it, and Big Tree Farms states on their website that they work directly with international, non-governmental organizations to create and maintain supply chains for this product that are "transparent and socially equitable."

I purchased this particular brand of coconut palm sugar as a substitute for white and brown sugar in dessert recipes because my husband is a vegan and I'm on a "mostly vegan" diet. I have uploaded photos above to show the chocolate cookies I made using this sugar. (Note that I also substituted coconut oil for butter.) My husband and I love the taste and texture of these cookies, and I will definitely continue using this product.

If you are not a vegan or vegetarian, there are two issues that might affect your decision as to whether to invest in this product:

First, the claim of a very low GI of 35: Big Tree Farms states on their website the following: "pure, organic coconut palm sugar is typically 70-79% sucrose, 3-9% glucose, and 3-9% fructose." They also state that they believe the high sucrose content is what makes the GI level so low. I find this explanation confusing, because this product is touted as a healthy substitute for table sugar, which is 100% sucrose. The logic of how this sweetener, which is 80% sucrose, can have only 55% of the GI rating of table sugar that is 100% sucrose makes no mathematical or scientific sense to me.

Second, the high cost: If you are not a vegan or vegetarian, I'm not convinced that the presumed health benefits of this sugar make it worth the extra cost and hassle of obtaining it. You can conveniently buy brown sugar at your local supermarket for about 89 cents per pound and white sugar for about 38 cents per pound--and they often go on sale. That's really cheap, and the GI is not "high"--it is "medium" at 64. In contrast to that low cost, this product sells for between $4-$5/pound. Since a pound of any kind of granulated sugar consists of 2-1/4 cups, that comes to $1.78-$2.22/cup for this product compared to 40 cents/cup for brown sugar and 17 cents/cup for white sugar.

But, you might ask, isn't refined sugar bad for you, and isn't this much-less-refined sugar good for you? Actually, few health experts believe that any sugar outside of that found in whole, unprocessed fruits and vegetables is healthy. But few of us have the willpower to completely give up sweets. Hence the goal of trying to keep the GI levels as low as possible while eating them. A much cheaper way to do that than buying this sugar is to use a couple of tricks I learned during the years I spent on the Zone and Atkins diets: (1) Bake your sweets with any sugar you please and consume protein at the same time you eat the sweets in a Zone or Atkins ratio. (2) Make the baked goods themselves have a definitely lower GI by decreasing the carbs and increasing the protein content. Substitute stevia, lo han guo and sugar alcohols for table sugar, and plain protein powder for wheat flour (which has a GI of about 71).

If you are completely convinced that "natural" sugar is healthier than table sugar, this product is certainly less expensive than some other alternative sweeteners you can buy and doesn't have some of the problems they cause when substituting them for table sugar in baked-goods recipes. For example, lo han guo (Slim Sweet) sells for around $17-$22/pound and stevia sells for between $54-$70/pound (both of these are also vegan, by the way). Marketers of lo han guo and stevia claim that those sweeteners are over 200 times as sweet as table sugar. I personally find this claim to be grossly inflated. To my own taste and that of my family, lo han guo is about 8 times as sweet as table sugar, and stevia is about 16 times as sweet. Regardless, the fact that they are so much sweeter than table sugar means that if you try and substitute them for it in a recipe, since you don't need nearly as much of them, the texture and "mouth feel" of the finished product simply isn't the same. For uncooked foods, though, such as smoothies, tea and coffee, lo han guo and stevia are great.

In contrast to lo han guo and stevia for baking, sucanat (at about $2.60/pound), date sugar (at about $4/pound), and this product have the same sweetness as table sugar and can be substituted in a ratio of 1:1 in recipes for cakes and cookies, allowing the recipe to retain a similar taste and texture to what it has when made with table sugar. Sucanat, however, has about the same GI as table sugar, and date sugar's GI is through the roof at 103, the same as for dates, because it is made from finely ground dates.

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better price at Whole Foods, February 24, 2010

By 

K Millecam (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Tree Farms SweetTree Organic Coconut Palm Sugar, Blonde, 16-Ounce Pouches (Pack of 6) (Grocery)

I found this exact same product at Whole Foods for 3.99 per bag, and you can also ask them to order a box for you at a ten percent discount. So I did, and the box of 6 bags (same as this one on Amazon for $29.91) was only $21.55. Amazon usually has such excellent prices, so I am surprised to see this product listed for such a high price.