Maple sugar is extracted from the sap of the maple tree, which is heated at high temperatures to remove excess water, and then it becomes maple syrup similar to honey, with an average of 40 liters of sap extracted to produce 1 liter of syrup. The quality of the syrup is divided into three grades according to color, clarity and taste. The best grade is the one that retains the original flavor of the maple tree and can be eaten directly, while the second grade is used to make cakes and candies.

It is one of Canada's most famous specialty products. Seventy percent of the world's maple sugar products are now concentrated in Quebec. This maple syrup is sweet as honey, unique flavor, rich in minerals, is a very distinctive natural nutritional products, said to be able to beauty, but also to lose weight, popular.

Before and after 1600, has begun to record about "Indian syrup", is the Indian first discovered the maple tree sap, and with the "local method" in the maple tree trunk digging groove, drilling holes to collect maple tree sap. The "Indian syrup" of that time is the predecessor of today's "maple syrup". Maple sugar is rich in minerals, organic acids, and has fewer calories than sucrose, fructose, and corn sugar, but it contains much more calcium, magnesium, and organic acids than other sugars, which can replenish a weak body with unbalanced nutrition. Maple sugar is not as sweet as honey, with a sugar content of about 66% (honey contains about 79%-81% sugar?o granulated sugar is as high as 99.4%).

The most common maple sugar product is maple syrup, and people love to eat pancakes and French toast dipped in syrup, as well as topping ice cream, yogurt and milkshakes with syrup. Canadians also like to eat maple sugar on top of snow, which is icy and sweet, with a softer texture, and a pleasant sensation of snow and sugar slowly sliding down the throat.

Maple syrup can be divided into several different sugar content, and therefore different uses: some suitable for making hard candy and cream, some suitable for direct consumption, some suitable for cooking. In fact, maple syrup has many uses in cooking, but it is not well known, such as foie gras drizzled with maple syrup is a favorite delicacy of connoisseurs. There are many other maple sugar products, such as maple sugar butter, maple sugar jelly (it smells good and is ideal for spreading on toast, and even better with a little bit of cheese), hard candies, granulated sugar, maple-sugar mustard, maple jam, marshmallows, and so on.

Canada has a famous dish called "Maple Sugar Pan-fried Salmon": salmon is marinated in pepper and cinnamon, pan-fried, served with a mixture of mashed potatoes and shredded vegetables, and then drizzled with maple sugar. It has protein, starch, vitamins, and fiber in one serving, and the lingering aroma of maple sugar from the trees is the soul of the dish.

Honey is the main product of bees and is a sweet, viscous, transparent or translucent liquid. Honey is primarily derived from nectar, followed by manna and honeydew. Nectar is the secretion of nectar glands inside the flower of plants, manna is the excretion of aphids, leafhoppers, etc., and honeydew is the secretion of nectar glands outside the flower of plants. Bees use the tongue suction tube to suck the nectar glands of plants, sap or aphids, leafhoppers, the sweet juice secreted by the honey tube, through the mouthparts of the bees mixed with saliva and temporarily stored in the honey bladder, after returning to the nest, spit out in the hive room, after repeated brewing and become.

Honey is the nectar that bees suck from the nectar plant's flower and nectar glands with their tongue straws, and after bringing it back to the beehive, they spit the nectar into the hive from the honey sacs, and then repeatedly inhale and spit it out through the bees, and then the nectar mixed with the enzyme of the nectar sacs' secretion is stored in the hive. Under the action of the enzyme, the polysaccharide in the nectar is decomposed into glucose and fructose, and the water is reduced to about 20%, and the mature honey is basically formed, so people can use the centrifugal action of the honey shaker to obtain the finished product of the original quality of the honey, and from the food science point of view, the honey belongs to the plant food.

Physical properties of honey: Pure, high-quality, fresh, mature honey is a viscous, transparent or translucent gelatinous liquid with a sweet flavor and a strong aroma. Honey of lower quality often has a bitter, astringent, sour or foul odor. It is easily transformed into different degrees of crystallization at temperatures below 10°C or when left for too long. The physical traits they exhibit vary depending on the type of honey source.

The main ingredients of honey

The fact that honey has endured for thousands of years is related to the many unique nutrients it possesses. The main components of honey are:

(1) glucose and fructose that can be directly absorbed by the human body, about 65-80%;

(2) a variety of amino acids, including 8 essential amino acids that the human body can not synthesize, about 0.3%;

(3) more than 20 kinds of minerals with the human body serum contains almost the same proportion of the human body, about 0.06%;

(4) more than 20 kinds of vitamins that promote human growth and metabolism;

(5) a variety of active enzymes.

Medicinal health effects of honey

Li Shizhen in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" elaborated honey as: "clearing heat also, tonifying the middle also, detoxification also, pain relief also." Modern Chinese medicine, honey can mainly prevent and control:

(1) gastrointestinal diseases: constipation, duodenal ulcer, colitis, dysentery in children.

(2) nervous system diseases: insomnia, headache.

(3) Infectious trauma, burns, frostbite.

(4) Cosmetology.