What you Never Knew About Maple Syrup
As the weather heats up Sugar shacks across the East coast are getting ready for boiling. You can tell a spring day by the streams of smoke rolling up above the maple forests. What most people don’t know is that the maple syrup industry uses tons of chemicals and animal products such as bacon fat in their products.
Maple syrup is becoming more and more of a delicacy. The golden liquid is a perfect and vitmain/mineral rich substitute for sugar.
However, when buying maple syrup there are a few things you want to consider. First of all, many maple syrup producers use tubing with multiple taps that suck the sap out of the trees in a way that is harmful to them.
The old time technique involved boring a hole into the trunk and attaching a bucket to the tree. This is the method my family and I used on our farm in Eastern Quebec. Definitely more labour intesive, but also much more in the interest of the continued health and life of the trees themselves. While certified organic maple syrup producers still often use tubing, they are limited to one tap or hole from which the sap is collected.This ensures a much longer and healthier life for the maple sugar forests.
Organic certification also guarantees that no chemicals or pesticides/insecticides have been used on the trees or in the tubing. Apparently many syrup producers use formaldehyde in the process of tapping the trees, which personally is not something I relish the thought of adding to my breakfast.
Depending on the time of year different grades of syrup are produced. This is based on the water coming from the tree, not on human design, though it is possible to thicken the syrup by simply boiling it down a bit more. In the mass market, grade A is considered the lightest, which also has the least strong maple flavour. The grading system doesn’t tell you anything about the purity of the syrup as it simply relates to what time of year the syrup was produced. It also says nothing about the organic or non-organic certification. Many maple syrup labels claim to be “pure” but this is not a sign of no chemicals either.
Another thing to look for is kosher maple syrup. When the sap is boiled and then canned it naturally produces a kind of white froth on the top. What many don’t know is that mainstream syrup producers often put bacon fat into their syrup to get rid of the froth! To avoid this you need to find not only organic, but kosher maple syrup.
If anyone has any extra advice or thoughts on the benefits or considerations of maple sugar production I would love to hear. We are looking to reconstruct our sugar shack and get back into production on a small scale in the next couple of years at Heartroot farm.
For some more basic descriptions of organic maple syrup, here’s a link.
Tags: food, health, kosher, maple syrup, organic
Mar 19, 2009
Hi Kyra. I’m a maple producer from the northern Adirondack mountains. We still produce our syrup the old fashioned way, gathering by hand and especially avoiding tubing. I’ll explain why in a minute. We also (for a similar reason) only bottle in glass and use stainless steel throughout our process. The current organic standard for maple syrup is a bit of a joke, and in fact a very weak standard which we easily exceed. My issue with the standard is that it allows tubing, which of necessity has Bpa in it to keep it flexible. This chemical is a well known estrogen imitator and has been in the news lately (finally) as a real problem in our food processing. Hand carry methods avoid it entirely , but are hugely more labor intensive. As of now, no one has figured out a way to do large scale production without it, hence the organic certification companies allow it, or they would have no one to certify, and charge for the certification (no business model there) Working intensively for 6 weeks each spring, we’re only able to bottle off 50 gallons or so, and need to charge a premium to make any profit at all. We’re not going up against WalMart and Sams club here, were competing with other large scale producers (1000 taps and more) who use tubing, vacuum and reverse osmosis to create product less labor intensively. Some pay the certification fee, some do not, but most actually meet the organic standard as written. With that, it’s still a lot healthier than the fake stuff, so if you can’t find syrup like ours, still buy real maple syrup over the fake.
Few use bacon fat any more, any fat will do to manage the over-boil, including milk… We use organic safflower oil.
Then, if it’s bottled in a plastic jug or plastic lined can, your pulling more junk out of the plastic into the syrup. Buy only glass bottled syrup.
Here’s my request. If we want to see more (truly) organic maple syrup in the market, be willing to pay a little more for hand carried. Lets get the Bpa out of the mix. If you want to try some real deal old style with none of the nasty modern chemistry, contact me at beckert@newandimproved.com (my real job)
Bob
Mar 19, 2009
It seems this article is railing histrionically against an industry that is genuinely hand produced, local to a few geographic areas and operates in a time honored and clean way – mostly by people who do it for love of the product, not because they can make a living at it.
Likely, any pesticide present have their genesis in ground water sources near the maples – as you are producing something made from an early sap run, and not a harvest of something grown through the season. The reverse osmosis process is addressed only by saying “it’s more harmful”, but we can rest assured that the author has done the right thing growing up, and will again – how convenient. None of the small production “organic certification” racket is mentioned, and little of the process by which production actually occurs is addressed. Being certified organic costs more than many small producers can afford to pay, despite the means of their production. Maple surgaring falls in a short season with long hours, when the sap is really running, many sugar shacks will operate for 48 straight hours. This takes a coordinated effort by a group of devoted people. It takes understanding employers and lots of hands on deck. In my case, it took a community of friends and family to keep the cottage maple syrup industry running in our backyard.
Other issues, plastic and chemicals therein, are far more likely to play a prevelant and pertinent role in the life and health of the average consumer.
Know your producers, buy local, produce yourself, know the source: you begin to know the full story.
Please refrain from further half informed, partial story submission, Kyra. You’d do everyone a favor by making the whole picture apparent.
Mar 19, 2009
Bob (beckert@newandimproved.com) I get a syntax error when I try and pulling up your site…for some reason…but would like to read more.
Kyra…thanks for the heads-up on kosher versions of maple syrip…had no idea…
Mar 19, 2009
Bob (beckert@newandimproved.com) I was unable to log onto your site…but would like to…keep getting “syntax error”…might just be my computer…
Krya…thanks for the info on ‘kosher’ maple syrup…had no idea.
Mar 19, 2009
Bob, thanks for adding that info! I wasn`t aware of the added chemical effects of tubing…makes sense though. As if there isnt enough estrogen floating around in our evironments these days, what with water containing heavy amounts now and many mass produced meats…
My family and I used to produce the old fashioned way and keep the syrup in jars as well but we only produced for ourselves and a few friends…Also good to know about the variety of oils that can be used. I think in my region people still use bacon fat some, but we are really in the backwoods of Quebec
Thanks again.
Mar 19, 2009
Bob, this beckert@newandimproved.com is an email address
Mar 19, 2009
Real maple syrup is the best taste in the whole wide world!
Mar 20, 2009
I went to Paul Smiths College and learned how to make maple syrup the old fashioned way. I’ll look for your product.
Mar 20, 2009
Here at Sterling College in Vermont, we knock just one tap into the trees. To keep the foam down during boiling we use a really tiny amount of butter – does the trick! I really admire Bob for hand carrying everything; yes, people must expect to pay extra for that kind of labor! We use a team of draft horses and it still takes awhile! Yay sugaring season, it’s here!
Mar 20, 2009
Here at Sterling College in Vermont, we knock just one tap into the trees. To keep the foam down during boiling we use a really tiny amount of butter – does the trick! I really admire Bob for hand carrying everything; yes, people must expect to pay extra for that kind of labor! We use a team of draft horses and it still takes awhile! Yay sugaring season, it’s here!
Mar 21, 2009
Thanks for all of the interest and kudos gang. I’ve been cranking away for the last couple of days and I’m beginning to look like the incredible hulk once again. I think the green tint might be algae though… Time to shower. And eat. And sleep.
In terms of fertilization and pesticides, I don’t really think that any producers do that, certainly not any that I know about, as you’re really dealing with a forest, and forestry level applications of anything like that would be cost prohibitive. Now the backyard producer with a few ornamental maples in their suburban lot is another thing. Lots of fertilizer and horticultural spray opportunities there, but not a worry for purchasers.
It’s been a long time since cyanide or formaldehyde was used as well. It was a method to keep the tap holes flowing longer, but once again, that’s not done today. You can’t get anything like that anyway unless you have a friend that is a spy who does lots of missions but never has to kill themselves. J
Paul Smiths (they’re sugar bush is 6 miles from me) has to use taps and vacuum, as it’s a large operation. They make a great product, but as I said, it has to be done with tubing due to scale of operation. Hans is finally starting to bottle some up in glass instead of plastic though, which is a smart move.
I really don’t think the vacuum is tough on trees, Kyra, as what it’s really doing is moving the sap through the tubing’s low spots by pulling air in through the myriad of air leaks in the tubing.
It would be great if you wanted to get back into it. I’d recommend you get a copy of “The North American Maple Producers Manual” Here:
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/story.php?id=3925
Those of you who asked for how to purchase, thanks. Details should be in your in-box by now.
Jul 10, 2009
here is a really good example of why certification will not work and organic will only work as a stepping stone and can never be a solution. bureaucracy is a problem and that means that government can never be looked to for solutions (even if they do have an organic garden in their lawn). people have to return to functional families and communities and stop looking to ‘others’ to do their work and make everything easy. i wrote an article on the food industry and use the Muslim community as an example of how certification does not work and will never work. when it comes to organic part of the problem is that corporations will always usurp and taint the efforts. but that is not the root of the problem. the root is something far deeper and simpler than that. the root of all our problems is that we have a false value-system in place so that everything that comes out of it is problematic. it is like planting bad seeds and wondering why all the plants are sick and diseased.
Jul 10, 2009
ooops, here is the link to the article:
http://www.seehearspeak.com/?p=5
Jan 18, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by We Like It Raw, Juli Novotny. Juli Novotny said: @welikeitraw @nika7k: bacon fat in maple syrup http://bit.ly/5HjC24 READ the comments though. not used much anymore.
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