My Sweet Encounter With A Sugar Cane

Well, it finally happened.

After years of wondering, I had my first encounter with a sugarcane — I mean a bona fide, bamboo-like shoot from the ground.

Yes, the other night at a classy restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I satisfied my long-held curiosity and actually nibbled on some sugar cane over dinner!

Seriously, my shrimp kabobs were grilled with a thin slice of sugar cane shoved through them (you know, like a stick).

Given that I’m sensitive to the powdered, processed stuff, I very cautiously chomped a couple of times on the sugar cane.

It had a subtle, sweet taste — nothing like overpoweringly sweet granuated sugar.

I suspected, rightly, that I wouldn’t be affected, because for once in my life, I was actually eating sugar in its natural state! Yep, had no reaction to speak of — is that cool or what?

Which brings me to this question: How can the processed, powdered sugar be touted as "natural" when it goes through all kinds of machines and takes many steps to reach our tables?

Sugar cane that comes out of the ground is natural, and clearly — at least, as I witnessed — a tiny bit of gnawing on the totally natural, unprocessed substance doesn’t wreak havoc on at least this person with hypoglycemia.

Thoughts? Comments?

3 thoughts on “My Sweet Encounter With A Sugar Cane

  1. I often wondered why it was ok to call refined sugar “natural.” Sure, it is not synthetic, but it certainly is not NATURAL! There’s nothing natural about a refined chemical! I wish that it would be labeled as a chemical rather than a food…interesting, thank you!

  2. I love Sugar Cane and go out of my way to buy it when it’s available.
    It is not overwhelmingly sweet, as you say. However, I have not eaten anything that so accentuates foods of other flavors. For example; try a piece of sugarcane, then try something salty or spicy. You might be surprised how it will wake up the flavor!

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