Palm jaggery in India and its Health benefits

Sap extract from Palmyra tree

Palm jaggery is almost like a jaggery that is made out of sugarcane juice. Palm jaggery is made from the sap extract of Palm Trees in Southern India. These trees are also known as Toddy palm trees or Palmyra trees. The Jaggery is processed from the unfermented Palmyra tree sap called Neera in kannada language. It is highly priced due to its medicinal properties. It has an intense, earthy taste or reminiscent of chocolates in its taste.

The palm jaggery obtained after processing is darker and richer in color. It is slight salty to taste but much healthier of the two. Due to its cooling effects over human body, it is of high value. It does not have the bone meal content which is used for whitening processed sugar. The price of the palm jaggery is double that of sugar.

The first extract of the palm juice which is boiled at high temperatures, is being added with a little salt. The added salt then acts as a preservative. This also prevents the jaggery from becoming too sweet. When it gets cooled, it is poured into a long cone made of palm leaves. The preservation of the final product is done by wrapping the cone with rice straws. At home, the consumers finely slice the cone, so that the jaggery is cut into disc shapes leaving a palm ribbon around its edges. Some families simply dry the extracted palm juice on mats. Others do it on lime floors called the kobas. After it dries, the jaggery is being stored in an air-tight container which preserves it for nearly one year.

Healthy Palm Jaggery discs of Dakshina Kannada district

Palm Jaggery in India

People of northern and western India prefer the sugarcane jaggery. But the people of the South, especially the South Kanara district, will not see beyond palm jaggery when it comes to adding this sweet flavoring agent to their home made sweet dishes. In Kannada language, the localites of the south kanara district call it Ole Bella.

Palm jaggery is quite popular in the Southern states of Tamil Nadu (called Karupatti vellam or pana vellam), Karnataka (it is called thaati bella in some places and Olebella in Mangalore, which is believed to be the best), Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

In the south Indian families of the coastal region of Mangalore and also the Keralites of the Malabar coast, palm jaggery has a big role. It is used in the preparation of delicacies like payasams and neyyai appams. Mangaloreans use the same to prepare puddings and sweets. In temples, it is distributed with banana, or a bit of coconut, as prasadam . In the Calcutta city of West Bengal state, it is an important ingredient in sweets like Payeesh, Nalan gurer sandesh and Nalan gurer moa.

Why the palm jaggery has to be fed to the cow?

The body temperature of few hybrid cows fall down after a calf is born. Their neck gets tightened and breathlessness might follow. As per the veterinary doctors, the reason is lack of calcium content in the body. If immediate action is not taken the cow may reach to the coma state. The calcium is supplied to the body in the form of liquid. If palm jaggery is fed to the cow problem gets solved.

Three or four weeks prior to the birth of the calf, 100gm of jaggery is being fed for 5 days. After its birth ¼ kg of jaggery is fed so that there is no calcium deficiency. It is advisable to feed the minerals to the cow, if it is too weak and in unhealthy condition.

Usefulness of Palm jaggery  

•    Palm Jaggery is rich in calcium, iron and other useful vitamins and minerals.
•    One of the tastiest and healthy products. It is used in the preparation of sweet dishes.
•    The medicinal properties in it make it a unique product that can be used by people of all ages.
•    It may be used sufficiently by people who suffer from diabetes.
•    It is used as a substitute of sugar in the preparation of coffee, tea, etc.
•    Panakam or Juice is prepared by adding black pepper and palm jaggery, to a glass of water. Sometimes a pinch of cardomom(elaichi) is also added to get a good flavor and taste.
•    In the South Kanara district region, most of the time it is given to women who give birth to a child. If the mixture of powdered palm jaggery and black jeera are given to such women, then impurities in the breast milk would disappear and baby gets the white and clean milk during breast feeding. Even in the case of milking cows, the same thing is repeated after it gives birth to a calf.

Palm Jaggery sellers at Mangalore

Buy Palm jaggery online:

It is available in websites like weiku.com. Even though nutritional content is far greater than all other commercially available sweeteners, confirm the product quality before buying them online.

Beware of adulterated jaggery

Palm jaggery utilization has spread to the East and West Bengal and the consumption is more in cities of the Bihar state, too. Like most other commodities, the commercial production of jaggery has also been corrupted by the lime addition to create it in larger volumes. In the Southern states, the consumer need not fear of such adulterations, because most families are having the palm plantations. They make their palm jaggery production, at their own houses. They use only the first extract of the palm juice, for this purpose.
Mangaloreans expect the basic ingredients to be available to them all the time. They are discerning eaters. So, they depend on Mangalore stores that have mushroomed all over India. All these stores provide them with Palm jaggery which is finally in the form of hard discs. The sweet dish, payasam prepared at home does not taste good for these people without the palm jaggery.

Author owns the Copyrights of the content in this blog post. Copying in part or full of this content if found will be dealt strictly.

To read more topics on Healthy Fruits and Vegetables either click on the link OLDER POSTS at the bottom or CLICK ON Blog Archive in the side bar.

Comments

Dreamreachout 2 years ago
Hey, palm jaggery was always available in Calcutta and West Bengal and it is always used to make sweet delicacies including payesh(payesham). In Bengali, it is called "Tal Patali"!!
However, date jaggery is more prefered here and other varieties like sugar-cane etc. are also used.
Thumbs up for highlighting our indigenous savouries!!
Author 2 years ago
Thank you...dreamreachout. I hope that people all over the world might start consuming this product due to its medicinal properties.

Valeriebelew2 years ago from Metro Atlanta, GA, USA
Sounds like an excellent sweetener, tasting good with medicinal properties. I am trying to eat only healthy foods, that contribute something to my health, rather than only taste good. Thanks for this topic. (: v
Author 2 years ago
Hi Valerie...this is indeed an excellent sweetener. But for those people who use sugar daily, might find it little difficult to get adjusted to this new sweetener.

Suny51 2 years ago
Hello Vivek,great one, very informative and takes me back to my stay in South India thats like my second home and still I have my best memories related with the places you have mentioned here and the taste of the stuff, I love it.beautiful.
Author 2 years ago
Thanks for the comment..suny. It's nice to hear from you saying that south India is your second home. I think you have a good experience traveling all over India. Am i right?
Suny51 2 years ago
Vivek,I did my Management from their(Bangaluru,now) and was posted in Belgaum for training for many months,that was fun,I spent more time traveling the places and lesser time in job assigned to me and was transfered to Delhi as a punishment,but I still go to S.India often.
Author 2 years ago
Well, that's fine. Your topic on Kumarparvat shows that you were also active in S.India.

Rls8994 2 years ago from Mississippi
Great health topic! I'm all about being healthy! Did not know about palm jaggery. Thanks for the great information about this.
Author 2 years ago
rls8994...Thanks for the encouraging comment.

indivar reddy 23 months ago
I am happy to find this article as i was interested to know about the palm jaggery and its process. This article cleared all doubts and very informative, thanks for the info Indivar

Lex123 22 months ago
Great information. I was looking for this info, and landed on your article.

Katharella 21 months ago from Lost in America
Is it possible to find the ingredients to make true palm jaggery in America?
Author 21 months ago
I don't know exactly whether you can get this extract of palm tree in the USA. It depends on the species of palm trees that grow in a particular region. Borassus flabellifer is the species grown in India and some parts of Asia.
Please have a look at these pages - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_wine and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borassus_flabellifer.
If this extract is made available in the US, then surely it is possible to make the jaggery at your place.
Katharella 21 months ago from Lost in America
Thank you. There is a grocer by me that specializes in organics that are not at other grocers. I'll copy the wiki pages and take with. Thanks again.

Jwood00 21 months ago from the other side of morning
Interesting topic. I've never heard of this before.

Rudra19 months ago
Didn’t know palm jagerry was so big.
surya 6 months ago
Very informative thank you for such a nice article
Author 6 months ago
Thanks Surya for the comments.

Thumatirajesh 6 months ago
Please Clarify that the Palm Jaggery is not made out of Sugar Cane and it is made out of Palm trees extracts. Am I correct? Thanks for your valuable information. Rajesh
Author 6 months ago
thumatirajesh...Yes, of course it is made out of Palm tree sap and not Sugarcane.

Camille Banche 4 months ago
Yes yes I do know of the Palm Jaggery--we sure gave it to cows and cattle--India is where I was born--USA is where I live.How very wonderful.Glad to have found you all. Super,
Author 4 months ago
Thanks for the comment..Camille. Glad to know that you were born in India. Palm Jaggery is a useful sweetener. But many people outside India have yet to learn about it.

Ramu 4 months ago
You said Palm Jaggery is made of Palm Sap? Sap is nothing but the liquid that oozes out from the palm tree ... Does that mean Palm Jaggery is made out of Toddy (kallu... they call it in Telugu)
Author 4 months ago
Yes, of course. It is made from kallu.

kaavyah 4 months ago
very informative,vivek.But just wanted to know one more thing. Is karupatti high in carbohydrates,like sugar or is it low-carb?
Author 4 months ago from India
Karupatti does not have low concentration of carbohydrates. But better than sugar because it has medicinal properties.

honeybee29 3 months ago
I saw in an online news bulletin that palm tree extract would help people that had strokes. What can you tell me about this?
Author 3 months ago
That property is found in Acai palm and not in this type of Palm.