Palm sugar is a natural sweetener originally extracted from the lymph of some palms of the genus Phoenix, such as the Species dactylifera and the Specie sylvestris . Today, palm sugar is also derived from the sap of the palm belonging to the genus Arenga and Species pinnata, as well as from the plant identifiable in the genus Nypa and Specie fruticans .
Palm sugar is often labeled with the name of the plant of origin, which is why it is possible to find many types (for example, Arenga sugar); just think that the cultivation of palms affects the entire African continent as well as the Asian continent.
Palm sugar is obtained by boiling (until it thickens) the sap extracted from the palm tree inflorescences; its marketing takes place both in semi-liquid and in crystallized form. In a few cases, rather than the inflorescences, the trunk of the plant is used directly.
The variability of the various types of sugar is extremely wide. Some consider palm sugar and coconut sugar (coconut palm sugar) two totally different products but, to be honest, it can be a food obtained by the same and identical process compared to other palms. In Tahilandia for example, the distinction between sugar obtained from the trunk of the sugar palm and the analogue obtained from the coconut palm inflorescence is particularly accentuated. However, for the vast majority of palm sugars, the difference is purely semantic rather than chemical-nutritional.
