copyright J.N. Urbanski

There are plenty of maple syrup producers in the Catskills. It’s worth paying more for local sugar and seeing how it’s made. It’s one of the fussiest and most complicated ways of harvesting a pure product. The machinery and equipment used gets more sophisticated and expensive every year. Farmers and producers use miles of tubing to collect the sap that sometimes get chewed by bears and squirrels, at which time somebody has to spend all day walking miles around a forest to find the leak. You have to condense, by boiling, 50-60 gallons of maple sap to yield one gallon of syrup. It’s completely organic.

If you buy maple syrup instead of buying foreign sugar, the North Eastern US, where billions of gallons of syrup are produced every year, will benefit by 5-7 times the value of your purchase: meaning if you spend one dollar in your local community on maple syrup, the benefit to the community will be five to seven dollars. So the $22.5 spent on the Tree Juice (pictured below $20 for the large and $2.50 for the small) has a local value of $112.5-$157.50. There’s no measurement declared on the large Tree Juice, but it is slightly smaller than a 24-ounce mason jar. The Vly Creek Maple syrup was $10 for 250 ml or 8.5 fluid ounces.

More facts about maple syrup:

– no artificial colouring, flavouring, preservatives or additives
– same calcium concentration as milk
– contains folic acid, biotin and niacin, which convert proteins and sugars to energy
– virtually sodium-free
– encourages growth and production of red blood cells
– has no fat and no proteins and is a good source of calcium, iron and thiamin

New York State is the third largest maple syrup producer in the world, but has a marketing problem. People in New York City see Canadian maple syrup on the shelves more than New York State maple syrup. If you live in New York City, there’s no reason to buy Canadian maple syrup. Buy local sugar.

copyright J.N. Urbanski

copyright J.N. Urbanski