Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I started using Sweet Tree palm sugar a few months ago and I absolutely love the buttery, almost caramel flavor it gives baked products. I have all but quit using the succanat (dried cane syrup) I used before in favor of this unique, delicious sweetener.

Tastes very good and is much healthier than cane sugars, very similar to brown sugar in taste. I only pay $2.99 per lb at my local health food store. Way overpriced here.

A little expensive, but so worth it. Makes great cookies. I would save this to use for baked goods where you can appreciate the flavor more and cut back on the sugar high. I think the flavor is somewhat lost in spicy Thai or Asian dishes. I did not get this from Amazon since they have been out of stock for quite awhile.

I agree w/ others that it may be less expensive at a local health food store, but I had already put in my order at Amazon when I discovered this. I do not have access to a Whole Foods store. The flavor is a bit caramel-like and the texture is fine powder to coarse granules. It is 35 on the glycemic index, so I plan to use it on foods that I don't want to use stevia on. I haven't baked w/ it yet, but I can tell it would make wonderful peanut butter cookies and oatmeal raisin ones. I hope as it becomes more popular that it comes down from five bucks a pound to a comparable price of other organic sugars.

This is my first ever product review. I did not purchase this product from Amazon, but my local Whole Foods market just a couple days ago. Normally I'm not one to do reviews, but since this product is so expensive, I wanted to share my experience.

I've been working really hard recently to cut my sugar intake. After reading rave reviews on Amazon about Sweet Tree Coconut Palm sugar, and doing a little research, I debated for 2 weeks, and then decided to just go get some even though it was $5 for a pound. (my health is more important) I started out by using some in my steel cut oats yesterday, which I really liked! I also used it in my coffee yesterday in place of regular sugar, but I noticed little dark things floated to the top. I know it's pretty raw, so I figured, maybe they were little fibers from the tree, or perhaps it was something with that batch of coffee? So I just scooped the little dark floaters out, and drank my coffee. Which tasted pretty good with the palm sugar! I was so pleased, that I was very excited to have my coffee this morning with my new found sweetener.

This morning (not more than 10 minutes ago) I made some coffee again with my palm sugar, and before I even had a chance to drink it... more little floaters! As I pushed them to the sides of my white cup, one I noticed for sure had LEGS on it! Yes, my friends... it was a BUG!! I dumped my coffee imediately, and made some more with(unfortunately) my raw organic sugar that I still have. No floaters. So it's definitely not in the coffee... it's in the palm sugar! Has anyone else had an experience/noticed this? I know it's supposed to be healthier and all... but for $5 I'd like my sugar to not have little bugs in it. That's NOT the extra minerals I had in mind! Maybe I just got a bad bag? It's not my intention to bad mouth this company -- but I would want someone to tell me if they knew I was eating/drinking little bugs. I haven't contacted the company just yet, as I just noticed it for sure this morning. I also looked in the bag that I have, and can see others... one is caked in sugar crystals, so they're hard to notice unless you really look for them.

I do not do well with any product that contains sugar alcohols. Based on what I'd read about palm sugar, I don't think it's a sugar alcohol, but my body sure acted like I had ingested sugar alcohols. I had the same gastrointestinal distress that I have when I eat sugar alcohols. Just to be sure it was the product and not some other influence, I waited until my system cleared and tried again; same reaction.
With regard to taste, this was great. I liked the lower than average glycemic index for sweeteners. It baked well in cookies, and dissolved well in liquids. The package says NOT to use it if you're diabetic though, so I don't think this is intended to be a 'non-sugar sugar.'
I'd say if you can handle sugar alcohols and you're not diabetic, give this a try. It just didn't work for me.

I love this sugar! Too bad that it has the same caloric content as cane sugar. It has a mild carmel flavor that I just love. This is the only sugar I use now.