Maple health bennies

[maple flats]

My wife just slid a copy of the March 2012 Good Housekeeping magazine in front of me. On Pg 48 there is a picture of a bottle of pure maple syrup and this is printed on the bottle: Sweet Surprise
Researchers at the University of Rhode Islande recently analyzed maple syrup and found that it contains 54 polyphenols- healthy compounds that may protect against cancer and diebetes. But read labels: Only the real deal has these disease fighters. Products labeled "pancake syrup are made from corn syrup and other sweeteners and flavored to taste like the stuff from trees. ...
Here is another study helping our sales.
Dave

[Bucket Head]

Start making copies of that artical! Everybody should have a copy of that displayed somewhere in the sugar house. Just make sure you laminate it first...

[CBOYER]

This information came from last spring:

http://www.purecanadamaple.com/next-champion-food/


Dr. Seeram’s work at URI is supported by a grant funded by The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, in conjunction with the Conseil pour le développement de l’agriculture du Québec (CDAQ) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) on behalf of the Canadian Maple Syrup Industry.

[Clarkfield Farms]

On July 5th, 2010 I injured my back and left hip in a really bad fall that pinned my legs at the knees against a stump behind me and I fell over backwards. The stump was/is about 30" diameter, and if you can picture my feet to knees on one face of the stump on the uphill side, my knees to base of spine across the top of the stump, and from the base of the spine to the top of the shoulders along the downhill face of the stump opposite the location of my feet to knees, and then my neck and head contorted and twisted among the roots of the stump on the downhill side... and it all happened in an instant, like a whip being cracked. And no one around to help. I did the worst thing I could've done, I got mad at my utter helplessness and started twisting and struggling and during the process caused a lot more injury to the hip and lower back than otherwise would have been.

There wasn't a lot that could be done according to the PT folks and the doctor, it's a rather long story. Every minute was agony. Getting into bed was a painful ordeal, getting out in the morning was the worst. I couldn't turn or roll over unless all of me was in one rigid line; any sort of twisting motion sent me into some of the worst things I've ever experienced. This went on for months. Right up until about mid-March last year, 2011.

I was fortunate enough to meet up with Dave Klish, maple flats, and apprentice under him for the 2011 season. One Thursday (?) morning on the mid-March day, I was tending the evaporator when Dave came in to see how things were going and handed me a bag of pressed maple sugar, a gift from his wonderful wife Joan. A craving I didn't even know was there kind of overwhelmed me and I ate a piece of maple candy/sugar right then. Within a few moments, I kid you not, things went wild - in a good way - in my lower back and left hip/pelvic area. It was like cutting the core of an old golf ball and the little rubberband type stuff just goes crazy unraveling; that's how it felt in my back. For the first time since 7/5/10, the pain was gone. My back was loose, and it sounded like bones just popping into place. Not very scientific descriptions, I know. But what you might want to know is that that morning, according to my wife (my wife and daughter might have suffered more than me just watching me agonize over the most simple things, like sitting down, standing up, going to bed and getting up in the morning), it took me a little over 17 full minutes to get out of bed in the morning.

That was at about 9:40 or so in the morning. By about 1:00 PM, the pain started to creep back. On a hunch (and because I was craving it!), I had another piece. Within minutes, the pain was gone again.

That night was the first night that I slept straight through since July 5, 2010, and the pain didn't return.

The next day I was still excellent. I worked that day without any pain. That night I got on the computer and started obsessing over all the valid information I could find; I say "valid" because there is, as we all know, an internet information garbage-to-good ratio of roughly 1-billion to 1. I stuck 100% with university and AMA research papers and information, and I encourage everyone to take the same steps and see for yourself, just be warned there's a ton of nonsense and false claims mostly put out there by the disciples of Miss Information.

What I found was amazing... in the equivalent of approximately 2-tablespoons of pure maple syrup, there is 100% minimum daily requirement of a whole host of good-for-you stuff, not the least of which are zinc, copper, boron, manganese, magnesium and a whole host of other trace minerals, and a very healthy dose of calcium etc. I will not make an attempt to recall from memory all of the things, like I said do it yourself and then you KNOW, you don't have to wonder if I got it right. At least one of the papers also indicated that since the minerals already had been taken up by phytoabsorption of whatever word it is for the process whereby plants take minerals from the ground and make the minerals into a form which we can readily digest and assimilate (OK, it's like this - we can't get the minerals out of the ground by going out and eating a handful of dirt, but the plants do it in a way that when we eat the plants we are able to utilize those same minerals in that same handful of dirt; unfortunately almost all "vitamins" and minerals are made from minerals straight from the dirt or the lab, not from fresh plants), the body almost immediately assimilates them upon ingestion, some even sublingually (under the tongue) before we even swallow. Another paper indicated that the copper and manganese levels in the maple sugar were sufficient for almost immediate relief from certain arthritic pain and to help quench pain from strains and sprains in muscles and joints. DOH!!! Wow, I hit the motherlode. Or so I thought....

The next day, Saturday, I was working with Dave and at the end of the day we were finishing up in the woods after dark and he mentioned how it looked like I was getting around better than he'd seen me do before. I started babbling on about what I'd found out, Dave cautioned me about making health claims about our product, I said I wasn't making the claims, the university and medical research papers were, and then Dave said to still be careful because the sugars would bring on problems of their own.

BLAM! That was true, lots of things are caused by that...

So, that night after I got home I again diligently perused the same research papers that i'd found before, only this time I went through them a lot more thoroughly. What I found was that if I had only read through some of them to their end, certain ones contained information about extensive experiments dealing exclusively with the possible negative effects of the high sugar levels in both maple syrup and maple sugar, and that they concluded that not only do the sugars in maple NOT cause or contribute to the onset of type 2 diabetes (or certain other issues such as candida, etc), but that it actually could (as in, "possibly," as in "warrants further investigation") help in keeping it at bay. There is a LOT more than just what I've written here, but again - CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF. Never just take my word for it. A common conclusion regarding the sugars, not the minerals and other consituent components, was that this sugar was unprocessed; the only "process" was removal of water by heat.

When I find something good that will help people in need, well... if you think I write too much or talk too much normally, you oughta see me when I find out something like this. I talked to everybody that asked wow, you can walk! how'd you do it?!?!, everybody that I knew suffered from lower back pain (one of the papers dealt with this as a primary focus), everyone that I knew knew someone who did suffer... Guess what? Most scoffed. A few ridiculed me for talking nonsense. And a very few listened. Fewer still actually did something about it, and of the 4 who did, every one of them is better for regularly having some amount of maple syrup daily. First among them is ME. My father is also one of them and at 94, he's in otherwise great health if only the doctors would leave him alone.

If you're waiting for me to say I'm just kidding, or that I'm trying to hawk our wares, you're gonna grow old waiting. In fact you'll die of old age and I still won't. I'm not nuts, go look for yourself. I'm also not making any guarantees; I can't and won't. Maybe the pain from which you suffer isn't the type that this will help. Maybe maybe maybe, all over the place, I know. But for you men: Several of the studies also indicated that the mineral blends and concentrations found in maple syrup/sugar are outstanding for prostate health and, POSSIBLY, helping with certain causes of ED. That's as far as I'm going with that. And for women and men, the minerals et al are good for bones.

OK, like I said, see for yourself. I'll try to shut up for awhile but now I'm all wound up about it. I have to leave for work in about 2 minutes anyhow. :) God help the people I'll be working with! :)

[802maple]

If you got to vermontmaple.org you can find I believe a flier we are giving out for about a year now on this very subject.

[maplefrank]

If you got to vermontmaple.org you can find I believe a flier we are giving out for about a year now on this very subject.

i tried finding this........with no luck......:(