Kirkland Organic Sugar

SENSORY

CERTIFICATIONS

HIGHLIGHTS

• Cane sugar organically grown is better for you
• Contains the 17 amino acids, 11 minerals, 6 vitamins lost in white table sugar
• Unlike refined sugar, contains no trace amounts of chemical purifiers like sulphur dioxide, phosphoric acid or mineral lime.
• Sustainably harvested without chemical fertilizers, antibiotics, and pesticides
• Grown in Paraguay

WHAT DOES IT DO?

Organic sugar is a full-bodied sugar sweetener that is far better of a taste in most foods with a lot less of the sugar rush and drop that is common in highly processed white table sugars.

All sugar is a general sweetener, but how it is made changes its flavor and its nutrition, which affects your food’s nutrition as well. All sugar is not created equal.

Organic sugar is a blend of sucrose, fructose, and glucose. The last one is the sugar that our body converts foods into to power us up, and is the most easily absorbed without processing. Table sugar, by contrast, is chemically altered to flip the fructose and glucose into sucrose, which is much more toxic to our bodies’ systems that break down sugars from foods.

Organic cane sugar is not as “raw” as browns like muscovado or coconut sugar, but it is much closer to the cane plant, and a better original source of sugars.

Minimally refined, organic sugar retains more of the minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants of the plant, and is higher in trace amounts of the fiber that bind atomic bits of the sugar to it that are slower to be processed by your digestive system. Not nearly as good of a “stopper” as the fiber in fruit, but much better better than pure sugar.

How it cooks is a big consideration. Kirkland’s organic sugar behaves better than many that I’ve tried. It dissolves better the way that it’s dried and ground.

HEALTH WARNINGS

The American Heart Association recommends that men do not consume more than 36 g., nine teaspoons (about 150 calories) of added sugar a day. Women have it worse: Six teaspoons, 25 g. (100 calories) of added sugar a day.

Organic sugars help in that moderation, because they are a more complex mix of sugars, and they retain more of the cane’s fiber, but they do not have the “stop” fiber of fruits that gets your brain to shut off its sugar cravings. So moderation is the name of the game. In addition to using better sweeteners, use less, live longer.  Consume less than half of the daily discretionary calories allowance for a person of your age.

MY TAKE

There are a lot of competing companies in the organic sugar game.  Kirkland (Costco) brand’s organic sugar is a healthier sweet at a price that can’t be beat.  At $1.20/lb as of this writing, it sells for well under half the price of what most competing brands charge, if you have a Costco membership, or you can get it at Amazon and, at $1.59/lb with free shipping, it’s still a deal.

Kirkland Organic Sugar earns my Choicestuff three diamond because it’s one of several high quality offerings in the organic sugar category, but, by far, the best in price.