Replacing sugar with maple syrup, good or bad idea? A study answers

Is replacing sugar with maple syrup really a good idea? Is it better for your health?

To try to answer this question, Quebec researchers, jointly funded by Quebec maple producers and the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, as part of its “Healthy Food Program” initiative, conducted a study. .

Researchers surprised by this result

This was carried out according to the rules of the art, against placebo (flavored sugar syrup), and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, the Journal of Nutrition (Source 1). It turns out that replacing refined sugar with two tablespoons of maple syrup would reduce several cardiometabolic risk factors.

“Decades of research have taught us that maple syrup is much more than sugar. It contains more than 100 natural compounds, including polyphenols, which are known to prevent disease in part through their anti-inflammatory effects”, underlined Dr. André Marette, lead author of the study, in a press release (Source 2). “Given that the fundamental chemistry of maple syrup is unique, I wondered whether ingesting maple syrup instead of an equivalent amount of refined sugar would have a different impact on cardiometabolic health and the gut microbiota in the human. The results were extremely encouraging. I didn’t expect to see…

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