Nothing says “gooood morning, Sunday” better than a sufficient amount of maple syrup poured generously over homemade, fluffy pancakes. Equally true, nothing spoils a perfectly good morning more than bad breakfast sometimes. And if you’re having good pancakes, but bad syrup, whose fault is that? Let’s blame it on the producer, shall we?
If medically speaking you have no reasons to avoid this liquid sugar, then wait no more and go pile up some pancakes or waffles or something. Make use of that maple syrup already. Because:
Maple syrup is nutritious
Before delving into how “maple syrup contains this that is good for the body” and “maple syrup contains that which is good for the body,” one issue needs to be addressed: maple syrup may beat white sugar, but it is still a sugar behaving like sugar behaves in the body, which is why you need to consume it like it’s the precious thing on earth and there are only a few drops of it left. You get the drift – moderation.
Now, let’s food educate ourselves a little bit. There are essentially two types of maple syrup, or there used to be before Vermont set new labeling standards to distinguish between one type of maple syrup and another. But once upon a time, there were grade A and grade B maple syrups.
You might think grade A was better that grade B, but it’s not the case. Maple syrup is graded according to color, and the darker the color, the stronger the flavor. The grading has nothing to do with quality, but everything to do with flavor. So if you’re looking for a more pronounced maple flavor, grade B should be your choice, which Vermont has had it labeled as Grade A Dark with Robust Taste.
Then there’s Grade A Amber Color with Rich Taste and Grade A Golden Color with Delicate Taste.
To praise maple syrup, what’s worth mentioning is that this liquid sweetener has the natural advantage to other chemically-produced syrups such as the “pancake syrups” widely and cheaply available at every store. If you look for the words “maple syrup” on pancake syrups, you won’t find them. That’s because it’s against the law.
100% maple syrup or pure maple syrup is loaded with antioxidants; it contains manganese, potassium, zinc and is a good source of calcium too.
Maple syrup is versatile
It’s no coconut oil for sure, but you can stretch your use of maple syrup further than just the occasional morning pancakes.
- Bake pies. Pumpkin pies.
- Make sauce. Apple sauce.
- Make bread. Gingerbread.
- Make toast. French toast.
- Make coffee. Sweet coffee.
And it’s not just baking that you can play around with. You can cook actual meals using maple syrup. It pairs well with fish (think glazed fish), chicken (think glazed chicken), salads (think salad dressing), potatoes (think sweet potatoes), carrots (thing candied carrots), etc.
Don’t forget drinks: anything from sweet sipping cocktails to fuzzy sodas? Why yes, serve me some.