Is Palm Sugar Good for You? (A Look at Its Nutritional Profile, GI Value, and Antioxidants)
Key takeaways:
Palm sugar is made from the clarified sap of palm flowers, while cane sugar comes from the juice of sugar cane.
There are three types of cane sugar: unrefined (8% to 14% molasses), raw (2% to 3% molasses), and refined cane sugar (0% molasses; indistinguishable from table sugar).
On a per-100-gram basis, palm sugar is more nutrient-dense than brown and cane sugar. However, given the recommended daily added sugar intake limit, that’s unlikely to matter for your health.
Ultimately, remember that sugar is sugar is sugar. Treat all types of sugar the same; minimize your consumption as much as possible.
A sprinkle of sugar can do wonders to tomato sauce (balances the acidity), meat marinades (makes for the perfect brown crust), and freshly baked bread (gives a fun, crackly texture). But sometimes, the one-dimensional sweetness of table sugar can feel a little … meh.
And that’s when your fingers drift toward the palm sugar in the grocery store’s sugar section.
You can almost taste the deep, complex butterscotch slash caramel flavor promised by their seductive, golden-brown hues. Then, from the corner of your eye, another beautiful golden-yellow sugar catches your attention. Cane sugar.
“Huh,” you think as you hold a packet of palm sugar in your left hand and cane sugar in your right. Which should you choose? Is one healthier than the other? Let’s find out.
What is palm sugar?
Palm sugar is a type of jaggery sugar (i.e., an unrefined natural sweetener) made by boiling the clarified sap collected from palm flowers — this could be from a variety of palm trees, including palmyra, date, toddy, and coconut palms — until it is reduced to sugar crystals.
Depending on how much moisture is removed and its processing method, palm sugar is available as:
Blocks, which must be shaved or grated for use in recipes
A paste-like form, which is generally sold in plastic tubs
Granulated sugar, which is a good choice for baking
Palm sugar can have different names in different regions; for example, just in Southeast Asia:
Malaysia and Singapore: Gula Melaka (yep, that deliciously sticky syrup drizzled onto your chendol)
Indonesia: Gula Aren
Thailand: Nam Tan Pip
What is cane sugar?
Cane sugar refers to sugar that’s specifically obtained from the clarified juice of sugar cane. There are three main types of cane sugar depending on how much molasses was left (or, in some cases, added back) during the manufacturing process:
Unrefined cane sugars: Contain 8% to 14% molasses. Sub-varieties include muscovado, piloncillo, jaggery, sucanat, and panela.
Raw cane sugars: Contain 2% to 3% molasses and include sub-varieties like demerara and turbinado.
Refined cane sugars: Contain 0% molasses. They’re basically the same as your table sugar. (Note: table sugar can also be made from the root of a sugar beet plant, but regardless of their source, refined cane and beet sugar are chemically identical once refined — both are pure sucrose.)
Palm vs. cane sugar nutrition: how do they stack up?
Alright. Now that you know the difference between palm and cane sugar, let’s see how they compare nutrition-wise*.
We’ll also include brown sugar as a reference source (since a common perception is that brown sugar is a healthier alternative to granulated sugar).
Note that exact values may differ based on factors such as processing method and product brand. We’ve intentionally left out refined cane sugars from the comparison table as, as mentioned earlier, they’re indistinguishable from “white” sugar.
| Brown sugar/ 100g | Palm sugar/ 100g | Raw cane sugar /100g | Unrefined cane sugar /100g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories/cal | 380 | 337 | 399 | 357 |
| Total sugars/g | 97 | 84.2 | 99.2 | 85.7 |
| Protein/g | 0.12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Iron/mg | 0.71 | 0.04 to 1.58 | 0.37 | 0.32 |
| Magnesium/mg | 9 | 0.54 to 31.00 | 2 | Unknown |
| Potassium/mg | 133 | 65.28 to 1,326.0 | 29 | Unknown |
| Manganese/mg | 0.064 | 0.009 to 2.23 | 0.046 | Unknown |
| GI value | 71 | 70.1 | 60 | 69 |
Two things are likely to stand out to you:
Palm sugar is more nutrient-dense than the other sugars.
Raw cane sugar has the most blood-glucose-level-friendly GI value.
Glycemic index
Let’s talk about glycemic index (GI) values first. As a quick refresher, the glycemic index uses a scale from one to 100 to rank carbohydrates based on how quickly and how much they raise blood glucose after eating.
Those that cause the most rapid rise in blood glucose are given higher GI values, while those that cause a more gradual rise in blood glucose are given lower GI values:
Low GI: 55 or less
Moderate GI: 56 to 69
High GI: 70 or higher
So, both types of cane sugar are in the moderate GI category, while brown and palm sugar are in the high GI category.
But here’s the thing.
The difference between unrefined cane sugar and palm or brown sugar’s GI values isn’t even that big (69 versus 70.1 and 71, respectively).
While raw cane sugar’s GI value is arguably significantly lower than the others, saying that consuming it is “good for blood glucose levels” is 100% unjustified. It’s still sugar.
Nutrient-density
And speaking of sugar, the truth is that you shouldn’t be eating 100 grams of any of those sugars daily — no matter how “unrefined” or “nutrient-rich” they purportedly are. According to a 2023 meta-analysis published in The BMJ, the high consumption of added sugar is associated with significantly higher risks of 45 adverse health outcomes, including:
Type 2 diabetes
Gout
Obesity
High blood pressure
Heart attack
Stroke
Cancer
Early death
This is why the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends limiting the intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake. The WHO also suggests reducing free sugar intake further, to less than 5% of total energy intake, for additional health benefits.
Based on the average 2,000-calorie diet:
10% limit: 50 grams or ~12 teaspoons of free sugar
5% limit: 25 grams or ~6 teaspoons of free sugar
While palm sugar might seem like a good source of nutrients from a 100-gram perspective, dividing those numbers by four would prove otherwise. For example, 25 grams of palm sugar gives you (at most) 331.5 mg of potassium.
That’s just 7.1% of your Daily Value (DV).
Wait, what’s Daily Value again? The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) created the daily value system to help consumers determine the level of various nutrients they’re getting from a packaged food by reading its nutrition label.
The Daily Value refers to how much of a nutrient you should consume daily based on a 2,000-calorie diet. In the case of potassium, it’s 4,700 mg.
Back to our point: as you can now tell, palm sugar is not a good source of nutrients.
What about antioxidant content?
The higher a sugar’s molasses content, the more plant-derived, bioactive compounds (e.g., phenolic compounds and flavonols) it’ll contain. This means, in order from highest antioxidant activity to lowest, it’ll be:
Palm sugar (content unknown, but it retains most of the original molasses)
Unrefined cane sugar (8% to 14%)
Brown sugar (3% to 10%)
Raw cane sugar (2% to 3%)
However, given the tiny amounts of added sugar you’re supposed to eat, whatever beneficial plant-derived compounds you'd get would ultimately be insignificant. For context, you’d need to consume more than 200 grams of molasses to get the same amount of antioxidants in 100 grams of berries.
If you’d like to increase your overall antioxidant intake to stave off oxidative damage — which has been linked to many chronic health conditions and premature aging — you’d do best by adding more of the following to your plate instead:
Cruciferous vegetables (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts)
Mushrooms
Nuts (e.g., walnuts, pistachios, and pecans)
Pulses (e.g., beans, lentils, peas, and chickpeas)
Berries (e.g., strawberries, cranberries, blueberries)
Remember that sugar is sugar is sugar
Yes, palm sugar and cane sugar (raw and unrefined) are less refined than granulated sugar. But, as we’ve established in this article, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re healthier.
If you wish to keep your metabolic health in tip-top shape, don’t fixate on picking the “best” sugar. It doesn’t exist. Treat all types of sugar the same — and minimize your consumption of them as much as possible. Here’s how you could start:
Learn to read nutrition labels. Pick foods and beverages with the lowest added sugar content.
Skip the fruit juices and smoothies. Eat whole fruits and/or drink water, no-sugar-added coffee, or tea.
Use less sugar in your cooking.
Sweeten your baked goodies with fruits (e.g., mashed bananas and blended dates), vegetables (e.g., sweet potatoes), and/or non-nutritive sweeteners (e.g., monkfruit extract).
Cut back on your consumption of ultra-processed foods.
Get seven to nine hours of good-quality sleep nightly. Sleep deprivation has been shown to influence cravings for sweet foods.
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