Molasses

Molasses

Molasses

What is it:

Molasses is a sweetener that is derived from sugar cane or sugar beets. As it offers a more full-bodied smoky flavor, it is commonly used in baking. During the process of refining sugar, molasses is the part that is normally oiled out and removed. After the sugar cane or sugar beets are crushed to extract their juice, the juice is boiled down to separate out the sugar crystals that go on to produce refined sugar, and the end product is a thick syrup that retains various minerals and vitamins. The sugars in molasses are primarily sucrose, with lower amounts of glucose and fructose.

Rating:

Molasses is a minimally processed sweetener that contains various beneficial minerals and vitamins. However, it is still very high in sugar which has been linked to many adverse health effects such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In supplemental form, molasses may be useful in the treatment of iron-deficiency anemia as it is rich in iron and contains compounds that can help improve iron absorption.  Molasses does contain acrylamide, which may be a possible carcinogen, however, no research has associated blackstrap molasses with cancer.

Resources:

How we rate ingredients

Health is like a bank account, certain ingredients make a deposit into your health bank, meaning they add to
your health. Certain ingredients withdraw from your health bank. We want health promoting ingredients in our diet. To keep things simple, we rate ingredients on a green, yellow, red scale:

Clean

It is naturally occurring in food and has no harmful effects on the body. It is real food. It is health promoting.

Caution

It goes into one or more of the below categories

We Avoid

It is known to have a harmful effect on the body (ex. All food colorings, Natural Flavors, MSG, Potassium bromate, aspartame, artificial flavors)

Top Ingredients To Avoid

Advantame is a non-nutritive, high-intensity artificial sweetener that is similar …

Recent Articles

Get the dirt on clean eating

Stay in the know with the latest ratings, articles, and our newsletter, The Dirt.