Tackling diabetes: More people take to jaggery

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 26

As Punjab has registered a huge number of diabetes cases as compared to most of the other states, this disease has become the most talked about malady in almost every house.

The question is have residents started realising the ill effects of their strong liking for sugar in food items and making a cut in its quantity to maintain good health.

No, this cut looks a little unlikely but a large number of them have started switching over to gur (jaggery), a traditional Punjabi sweetener made from sugarcane.

While most of the sugar mills in this area, situated at Budhlada, Faridkot, Jagraon and Zira are closed for many years and are facing liquidation, farmers in the rural areas have started setting up new mini-gur making units.

Having forgotten the indigenous techniques of making gur, farmers are relying on migrants from Uttar Pradesh to run these units.

Though Punjab imports a huge quantity of gur from Uttar Pradesh every year, the local gur-making business is also on the rise as they use no or negligible amount of chemicals to clean the impurities in it.

Due to indiscriminate use of chemicals in making of gur, this coarse sweetener is now no more a much-loved inducement for connoisseurs of good food, said Umendra Dutt, executive director of Kheti Virasat Misson (KVM), a voluntary organisation promoting organic agriculture and farm products.

So, in their attempt to make this traditional sweetener popular once again, some farmers in this region have started growing natural (organic) sugarcane to make jaggery, using no chemicals, thus enriching gur with its natural goodness of minerals and vitamins present in sugarcane juice, he said.

Two decades ago, it was not only western Uttar Pradesh, which was known as gur cottage industry, but in a cluster of every three-four villages in this region of Punjab, there was a kulhada (a small gur manufacturing unit) where farmers used to make gur using their home-grown sugarcane to meet their family demand.

The sweetener started losing its essential qualities when farmers in Punjab and UP began to use excessive urea to get high yields.

There is a high use of chemicals which act as cleaning agents and give white colour to gur, said Amarjit Sharma, an organic farmer.

Like sugar, manufacturing of gur in UP involves usage of chemicals such as sodium hydrosulphite, super phosphate, decolite, urea, soft stone powder and ammonium bicarbonate.

So, the gur which was known for treating many infections and health problems, is no more a favourite in our plates, said Dutt.

Now, some farmers have started growing sugarcane and kulhadas have also started appearing.

“We are hopeful of more and more farmers resuming the old-time practice of making gur for their own consumption,” said Gurmail Dhillon, another farmer.

Healthy option

As avoiding sugar altogether doesn’t seem like an easy or feasible solution but one can opt for natural substitutes for sugar. Jaggery and honey are good, unlike sugar. It is advisable to consume preferably organic jaggery and honey or the varieties that undergo minimum chemical processing. Rich with several vitamins and minerals, including potassium, magnesium, iron, and antioxidants, gur is highly beneficial