Coconuts are scientifically known as cocos nucifera. In the Philippines, only coconuts are exclusively tapped for any commercial coco palm sugar production.

Coconut palm sugar is only one of the many kinds of palm sugar, but it is the only with clinical studies to prove its low glycemic index properties (i.e. slow release of glucose in the blood stream which doesn’t cause sugar spikes for diabetics)

“Palm sugar” from Cambodia are usually from the toddy palm (Borassus flabellifer). In Indonesia, it’s the popular Aren/Arennga Palm (Arenga saccharifera syn. A. Saccharifera, Arenga Pinnata). While in Thailand, the traditional practice is to mix their palm sugar with cane sugar or beet sugar to hasten crystallization.

In these countries they make no distintion between “palm sugar” and “coconut sugar.”

This “unsustainable harvesting” talk is nonsense when applied to coconuts. There are different methods of harvesting sap from palm trees, depending on the palm type.

It’s true that sap is harvested from spadix that produces the flowers, and eventually the nuts. But a coco tree can have multiple spadices at the same time. A tree can be be productive for 50-60 years. So, in theory, there is no immediate need for those nuts until then.

A coco tree stock planted 50 years ago, may not necessarily be the same kind of cultivar you would want to plant again. I certainly would rather check for new and improved cultivars from national research agencies, which can replace my grove. That’s the only prudent thing to do.

Harvesting sap from cocos doesn’t kill the tree.

Another type of palm is the Aren which takes 12-15 years to grow, and will only have a productive life of 3 years when tapped for sap.

There are other palm types that require felling the tree (therefore killing it) and burning the tree just to harvest the sap. An example is African palmyra palm (Borassus aethiopium) where the sap is harvested until the tree is dead – a torturous 3 month process.

A hectare of coconuts (approximately 100 trees) can produce 3.3 tonnes of sugar every year for fifty years. A hectare of sugarcane will produce 10 tons of sugar.

A one hectare coconut stand will absorb 4.78 tonnes of CO² every year, but for the same period a hectare of sugar cane during preharvest burning will release approximately 480,000 tonnes of CO².

To produce one kilo of cane sugar, 1,500 liters of water is needed for irrigation while a coconut tree can subsist without artificial irrigation.

Coconut farmers in the Philippines engaged in sap production practice rotation cycles, which gives the trees a 3 months resting period every year. Tapping a coconut tree for sap has been found beneficial since been found to actually improve the coconut yields.

I sincerely hope that this information dispel this wrong notion about coconuts and coco palm sugars.

Feel free to contact me if you have further questions.

It has an eastern philosphy base to it, the main theme is working with emotions. It might be the kind of thing you’re like your children to read when they get to 14 or 15.