I keep hearing on the Food Network that the brown sugar available in the US is indeed refined white sugar mixed in with molasses. That statement gave me the creeps. I keep urging you to use brown sugar instead of refined white sugar and the product I am recommending is not as good as I thought it is.
The brown sugar that sells in Puerto Rico comes mostly from the Dominican Republic where, according to my limited research, is indeed less refined sugar to which the molasses were never taken out to begin with. But that may not be the case with other regular commercial brown sugars available in the US.
This is why I have moved myself to buy sugars that are indeed less refined than the commercials brown sugars you find yet they are still available in your regular supermarket or health food store. For the last few years, I am buying at home mostly turbinado or muscovado or organic brown sugars. But my new love is Rapadura Unbleached and Unrefined Sugar.
I had bought this sugar a few years ago… I kept it in my fridge because it’s so dark that it kept darkening every smoothie or dish I used it in. I have not gotten used to its taste. It tastes more toasty and caramel –ly than your regular average brown sugar. At the end of last year I was in a mission to stop buying stuff I already have at home… and one of these things was sugar. I use it mostly to sweeten a bit my morning smoothies or my hot cereals; most rarely to make desserts.
I fell in love with this sugar the second time around… it’s certainly more expensive, but you use much less quantity than you would use regular white or even brown sugar. The bag lasted me for a couple of months at least using it almost daily in my breakfast smoothies.
My recommendation to you is to search in your supermarket and purchase the sugar product that is as natural and less refined as possible within your budget. It’s hard to understand why something that’s as natural and the least processed costs more in our neck of the woods, but remember, what we don’t spend in good food and nutrition on the front end… we’ll eventually need to find the funds to take care of illnesses in the future. I am putting my money on the front end and trying to eat as natural and healthily as my budget allow me to.
KarmaFree Cooking 