This article first appeared in Kannada in ಕ್ಷ ಕಿರಣ, Dr Shashikiran Umakanth’s column in the Vishwavani daily. The Inside Story is its English edition. ಈ ಲೇಖನವನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಓದಿ
These days, many households have stopped buying white sugar altogether and have stocked their kitchens with jaggery instead. Tea, coffee, payasa, everything now gets jaggery. “We use only jaggery, so we will never get diabetes. It is 100 percent healthy,” many people tell me with a touch of pride.
But is this a fact, or just a sweet illusion? Let us see what science has to say.
The Trouble With the Name “Sugar Disease”
In everyday Kannada, we call diabetes sakkare kaayile, literally “the sugar disease”. This very name has planted a mistaken idea in people’s minds: that it is a disease you get only from eating sugar, so eating jaggery must be safe.
Diabetes is also called madhumeha, and madhu means honey. Does that mean you get diabetes only from eating honey? Of course not. In the same way, just because the disease is called the sugar disease, jaggery does not get a free pass.
The Chemical Truth
Scientifically speaking, what sugar and jaggery both contain is sucrose. Whether you eat sugar or jaggery, once it is digested, the sucrose in it is converted into glucose, and that glucose goes straight into your blood.
The glycaemic index of the two is also more or less the same, so both raise your blood sugar at about the same speed. And to bring it back under control, your pancreas has to produce just as much insulin either way.
So whatever form your sweet comes in, your blood glucose goes up. For someone with diabetes, jaggery is every bit as dangerous as sugar.
The Nutrient Illusion
“Jaggery contains iron and magnesium, so it is very good for health,” some people say. True, since jaggery is not refined, some of the natural minerals from the sugarcane juice remain in it. But the amount of these minerals in the one spoonful of jaggery you stir into a cup of tea is, medically speaking, negligible.
To meet your body’s daily needs from the minerals in jaggery, you would have to eat enormous quantities of it every single day. Eat that much, and the huge load of calories that comes with it will pile on the kilos and bring you closer to illness, not to better health.
Myths and Facts
Myth: “People with diabetes can eat jaggery instead of sugar.”
Fact: Your pancreas cannot tell whether the sweet you just ate was white or brown. Jaggery raises your glucose level just as quickly as sugar does. If you have diabetes, neither sugar nor jaggery is good for you.
Myth: “Drinking jaggery in hot water first thing in the morning melts away belly fat.”
Fact: Jaggery carries just as many calories as sugar, about 380 calories per 100 grams. To lose weight, you need to cut down on calories, not add more of them by drinking jaggery water.
Myth: “Jaggery flushes the toxins out of the body.”
Fact: Your body already has its own detox system: your liver and your kidneys. Nothing we eat or drink can “cleanse” the body.
So Is Jaggery Not Better Than White Sugar?
Jaggery is slightly better than white sugar for just one reason. To make white sugar so white, it is bleached using chemicals such as sulphur dioxide. Jaggery does not go through that chemical process.
That is all there is to it. The idea that eating jaggery instantly boosts your health has no scientific basis.
A Final Word
Do not think of jaggery as a medicine or a “health food”. It is just another sweet. Use it in moderation during festivals and special occasions, and enjoy it. But if you overindulge, telling yourself “after all, it is only jaggery”, the effect on your body will be exactly the same as eating sugar.
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