PCA lays sweet hopes 

on coconut sap sugar

TAGBILARAN CITY, February 14 (PIA)--Here is one sweet story and believe it, it has something to do with going nuts. 

For people who have been advised to go low on high fructose diet, a sweetener is now crawling into the mentality of the health conscious, and this is coco-sap sugar. 

Now touted as a sweetener which performs just like ordinary sugar but has low glycemic index, coco-sap sugar, also called coco-sugar might just bring back the farmer's waning interest in the country's coconut industry. 

Philippine Coconut Authority Bohol manager Emiliano Romero shares his high hopes for the coco-sugar, even as he admits that he has been using this as his sweetener at home, days after he learned of the simple technology in preparing it. 

Speaking at the Kapihan sa PIA, Romero said they have shifted their attention to coco-sugar to be able to help farmers earn more from their coconuts. 

That same week at the Kapihan, world trading price for copra, a semi-processed coconut which is still the country's leading exported agricultural product, nose dived from P31 to P29. 

A kilo of copra can come from three or four coco nuts and its processing to copra could even go high that selling it at P29 is a losing proposition for small coconut farmers, Romero explained. 

Over this, and with the still huge need for processing plants and large scale post production technologies, the PCA now slices on the coco-sap as a feasible alternative for high income especially for those into harvesting coconut sap for tuba. 

Coco sugar is technically a coconut palm sugar, and is from the sugary fluid which circulates in teh coconut. 

Harvesting, according to PCA is still like gathering the sap for tuba, but the freshly harvested sap which is collected in containers have to be processed within two hours after harvest or bacterial would have developed and render the sap sour. 

From the coconut palm's flower, a cut is made using a sharp scythe and the liquid sap is collected in containers. 

At least two gallons of coconut sap can produce a kilo or coco sugar, Romero said. 

After some tow gallons or more is collected, the sap is then strained, to keep off the impurities which can burn black when the sap is placed under heat to allow the water to evaporate. 

While the sap is slowly boiled over fire, you have to keep stirring until you get granules, that is when you can have sugar, he added. 

While regular table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are the main manes in sweeteners, it is unlike coconut sugar that retain nutrients found in the coconut palm, according to the Department of Agriculture. 

Among these are minerals iron, zinc, calcium and potassium, along with some short chain fatty acids, polyphenols and antioxidants that may also provide some health benefits, healthline.com claimed. 

What is rare however in coconut sugar is a fiber called inulin, which is that which makes the coco-sap sugar, and as a fiber, it is not absorbed in digestion. 

A kilo of coco sugar can go from P300-to 500 and with two-hour frequency in gathering sap, a farmer who collects his sap can cash in big, PCA said. 

The PCA has been giving free technology transfers on cocosugar, and other coconut product processing, in a bid to keep the farmers earning while the international buying price for copra is in a low down. 

Those Small Coconut Farmer Organizations who are willing to be trained in coco-sugar can come to PCA in Bohol, Romero capped the radio forum aired over DyTR. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

PCA manager Emil Romero explains the economic and health benefits of cocosugar especially for people with diabetes. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)