Sugar In Thailand

[Starlifter]

For the modulators is this General or Thai Food topic?

I sat through a seminar today where an 80 year old "preached" the ways to long and healthy life. Number one was to cut back or limited granulated sugar in your diet. He spoke of older days when individuals would sweeten food with honey. At some point granulated sugar became a replacement and basically with "big money" became the norm. Over weight and dietary issues are connected to granulated sugar. Now I know my mia uses sugar in her cooking to include one of my favorites Ka-deal (sp) but my question is: Is granulated sugar a western thing brought to Thailand (and SE Asia) or has it been used all along and my 80 year old briefer wrong about the bad side affects of granulated sugar.

[Tim207]

Unless sugar jumped from India to China without stopping off in Thailand on the way through your lecturer missed some things while he was walking to and from school uphill in the snow without shoes. According to wikipedia the Indians learned to crystallize sugar cane juice in the 4th century and by the 7th century envoys were teaching the Chinese to cultivate it.

"Sugar was produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times. It was not plentiful or cheap in early times—honey was more often used for sweetening in most parts of the world. During his campaign in India, Alexander the Great was surprised to taste the sweeting agent that was different from honey.

Originally, people chewed sugarcane raw to extract its sweetness. Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar during the Gupta dynasty, around 350 AD.[4] Sugarcane was originally from tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia.[5] Different species likely originated in different locations with S. barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea.[5]

However, sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store and to transport.[4] Crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas.[4] Indian sailors, consumers of clarified butter and sugar, carried sugar by various trade routes.[4] Traveling Buddhist monks brought sugar crystalization methods to China.[6] During the reign of Harsha (r. 606–647) in North India, Indian envoys in Tang China taught sugarcane cultivation methods after Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649) made his interest in sugar known, and China soon established its first sugarcane cultivation in the seventh century."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar

BTW: For those who like to say "why don't you Google before asking?", I never would have looked up the info if it wasn't asked here and I found the answer very interesting. If he had looked it up himself I still would not know anything about the history of sugar.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Tim207

[gregb]

Granulated sugar is definitely a product of industrialization and hasn't been around that long.

However, to state that 100 years ago they only used honey in Thailand seems very unlikely, although I suppose it is possible in some villages. The use of honey as the only sweetener was definitely true in the West however. Sugarcane has been grown in Southeast Asia for thousands of years. The earliest records of it come from India and China. The word sugar even derives from Sanskrit. Herodotus wrote of sugar as an exotic delicacy in some of his works from the 5th century BC. Even without refining, in ancient times they used to make it into a sort of yellow brown paste. You can still buy this at the Thai fresh markets today. It is believed sugarcane is indigenous to Thailand, although it may have been brought here through trading with India a few millenia ago.

There may or may not be truth to some of these ideas that refined sugar is the problem. Certainly when you refine sugar you lose some of the trace minerals that normally would be present in the paste made from the raw sugarcane, and it is impossible to say what effect this may have on the body over an extended period of time. But if these ideas are true the most you could say was do not use refined sugar, and to stick with unrefined sugar (which tastes exactly the same). There is certainly no historical basis for abandoning sugar altogether.

[anothertorres]

a good article from the other day, sorta related: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/thailan...ttest-countries

[h90]

granulated sugar or honey does not make any difference for the body.

Just honey is more expensive and sweeter so you eat a bit less, else no difference

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I seriously doubt it. Palm sugar (the paste that goes into your som tam), and sugar from sugar cane (Nam Oy) has been around forever.

[LazyYogi]

Also the Thai word for the color brown literally translates as "sugar color".

That would suggest that they've had natural cane sugar for quite a while.

[mahtin]

If by granulated you mean refined, then it's as bad for you as refined salt.

[h90]

If by granulated you mean refined, then it's as bad for you as refined salt.

Why should be a cleaned sugar or salt be worse than if there is some dirt inside?

If it is 99.9 % clean or just 95 % does not make any difference.

[bina]

brown palm sugar was used but either way u look at it, sugar was a commodity that not everyone had. even honey: in my husband's village, to get honey, no one buys it. they go out , look for a beehive and get the honeycomb. theydont raise bees either. so eating honey is a rare event. and if most agricultural families were self sufficient/subsistance level, i doubt they had access to sugar from cane/palm to be used in cooking rather they would chew on sugar cane as a desert in and of itself. its a lot of work to get sugar from cane or palm. my husband's parents and family dont use sugar for more then a tiny bit of sweetner as they have to buy it. i went out and bought sugar (for my coffee and to make american style pancakes at one point). husband doesnt eat with lots of sugar as he wasnt raised on food that was sweet or sweetened either although here we eat a lot of sweet cakes and desserts.

probably similar to sugar usage in colonial america. the richer u were the more access u had to sugar/honey no matter the source of the sweetner.

moving to the foodies section btw, probably get better answers.

bina

israel

[Starlifter]

Moderators perhaps this is better in Health section?

Great information. I really don't know how to cook. I can rebuild an automatic transmission, build a house but I'm not a cook. I asked my mia who is an excellent cook. She can cook Thai, Italian, American, and any other type to perfection. She says Thai food doesn't use that much sugar for sweetener. This leads me back to my original question about the use of sugar particular granulated sugar in food sources and being overweight. I assume it may be more the amount of sugars in snack food, sodas verses that which may be used to sweeten a food dish that is responsible for some becoming over weight. It appears sugar has been around in Thailand for a long time. I know lack of exercises, inactivity plays a part. I used to think that 99.9 percent of Asians were small, petite individuals but now know that number is less than that. I know individuals who lost weight simply by drastically reducing the amount of sugar intake (according to them). If this is true and Thais don't use much sugar then why are there Thais that appear over weight? I assume genetics play a bigger role in weight issues than just what you eat.

[Tokay]

Nam than sai deang is what we use. Not sure of spelling but it's the local brown sugar, made from Oy (cane). Not to be confused with nam oy, which is sweet water made from sugar cane, while nam than sai deang is sugar from the sugar cane.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Royk]

Palm sugar and unrefined sugar(Namtan Dang) were used before the granulated sugar. Palm sugar is a required ingredient in many Thai dishes including some Nam Prik, Somtum and Nam Kra Ti added to certain desserts. The unrefined sugar is a specified ingredient in many old Chines desserts and drinks.

Best regards,

Roy

[sbk]

Sweetener is not a rich man's commodity down south, palm sugar and coconut sugar are widely available and cheap. Many people used to make their own. Honey is same as Bina's experience, go out find a hive. Many people would often move the hives nearer their house, or build something for the hives to ensure the bees stayed rather than just assume that they could go out and find a random hive when they wanted honey however, and beekeeping has been around forever.

That said, I don't see how sugar/honey/palm sugar are processed by the body any differently. They are all sugars.

[edwardandtubs]

The evils of "refined sugar" is one of the myths of the "holistic" health and "wellness" industries. The reality is that after you eat it, it is quickly broken down into glucose and fructose in exactly the same way as honey or palm sugar. The only difference is there's a little bit of extra "gunk" in honey and palm sugar.

[Godolphin]

The evils of "refined sugar" is one of the myths of the "holistic" health and "wellness" industries. The reality is that after you eat it, it is quickly broken down into glucose and fructose in exactly the same way as honey or palm sugar.

And then stored in the body as fat.