10 reasons to love maple
1. It’s in our Nature.
Our beautiful, majestic sugar maple trees produce a treasure: their sap. Maple products all derive from this single ingredient. No colorants, no artificial flavourings, no preservatives.
2. The taste is incomparable.
With a sweetness and aroma that have no equal, maple improves the taste of foods to which it’s added. Maple products stimulate the fifth sense of taste, umami, the discovery of which revolutionized the culinary world. No wonder that chefs everywhere love to cook with maple.
3. It contains mineral nutrients and vitamins.
One 60 mL (1/4 cup) serving of maple syrup provides over 72% of your daily nutritional requirement of manganese, 27% of riboflavin, 17% of copper and 6% of calcium.
4. It contains polyphenols.
Maple syrup contains 67 separate polyphenols, nine of which are unique to it. One of these polyphenols, Quebecol, occurs naturally when the sap is boiled to produce syrup.
5. It comes in many forms.
Syrup, butter, taffy, sugar, flakes, NAPSI-certified maple water … there’s a maple product for every taste and occasion. And these products are available all year round. Why wait for sugaring season to enjoy the pleasure of maple taffy?
6. It’s so easy to cook with.
In most recipes, you can simply replace sugar with an equal quantity of maple syrup. Substitute each cup of sugar by reducing the quantity of liquid in the recipe by 60 ml (¼ cup). If syrup is used instead of a liquid sugar such as honey or agave nectar, it’s one-to-one.
7. It’s a natural source of energy.
Before, during, and after exercise, maple products are a winning option. They provide simple carbohydrates that metabolize into glucose easily, and act as fuel for physical activity.
8. It knows no boundaries.
We’re not the only ones who love maple! Maple products are one of our finest exports, going to more than 50 countries. People are enjoying them right now in Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and India. Feel the pride!
9. It’s good for the environment.
In Québec, the 34 million maple trees under production in our sugar bushes provide ecological goods and services that are essential to the well-being of all humans, to a value of some $1 Billion CAD per year. Just one example: producing sugar maples capture the equivalent of the carbon produced by 290,000 cars every year!
10. It makes us happy.
Family outings to the sugar shack, that first maple taffy on the snow, Mom’s maple syrup pie, the comfort of maple butter on toast on a winter morning… Happiness is Maple!
