How Sweet It Is

What could be more Canadian than pure maple syrup? Delicious and versatile, there are endless ways to use maple products, so you can serve up this delectable flavour at any meal!

Pure maple syrup and other maple products are made from a single ingredient: maple sap. It takes an average of 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. Maple syrup and associated products stimulate umami, the fifth basic taste that has a rich or meaty flavour. It’s so much more than just a topping for pancakes: Maple can be used in sweet or savoury dishes from smoothies and puddings to stews and salads. Maple syrup can even be used as a stand-in for vanilla extract, giving your baking a hint of that mapley goodness.

Pure maple syrup is good for you, too! With loads of nutritious vitamins and minerals, a 60 ml serving provides 72 percent of the daily nutrition requirement of manganese (1.65 mg), 27 percent of riboflavin (0.35 mg), 17 percent of copper (0.15 mg) and 6 percent of calcium (75 mg). There is no recommended daily allowance for polyphenols, but there are 78.2 mg of them in a 60 ml serving of pure maple syrup. Canadian maple syrup contains 67 different polyphenols, nine of which are unique to it. One, called quebecol, is naturally produced when the sap is boiled down to make maple syrup. Scientific research is ongoing to determine the antioxidant activity of maple’s polyphenols.

The maple industry is also good for the environment. A recent study confirms that maple forests are a source of environmental benefits valuable to the planet. The forests help to capture carbon in the atmosphere, cleaning the air, providing oxygen and positively impacting the climate.