Sugar cane grows in tropical and warm temperate zone. This is a plant that prefers sufficient sunlight, warmth and water. From a Chinese medical perspective, it is good at transporting the Earth essence (sweet flavor) from the soil into itself, storing it in its stem. Some sugar cane has green skin, while some has blackish purple skin. Green sugar canes resonate more with spring Wood Qi, which is good for clearing Ministerial Fire in the Triple Burner system, while purple ones resonate with Water (blue) and Fire (red) Qi, which forms the energetic structure of hexagram 63: “Water and Fire Communicating” 水火既濟. Purple sugar canes are good for connecting the Heart and Kidney, assisting a person’s sleep by calming the spirit.
Sugar Canes are rich in Yang Qi and they nourish the body fluids very well. Unrefined dark brown sugar contains more Yáng Qì (life force) and Jīng (essence) of this plant.
Refining sugar requires removing the outer coating of raw sugar crystals. Then phosphoric acid and calcium hydroxide are added to precipitate calcium phosphate particles, which entrap the “impurities” and absorb them. They are skimmed off. Then sugar is decolorized through filtration process. White sugar does not contain minerals such as calcium, potassium, iron and magnesium.
When sugar reached this stage, there is barely and Yang Qi left. It has become a Yin substance — the physical material that does not bare much life force, if any.
People under stress and pressure tend to indulge in sweets. The Yin substance would make a hyperactive brain feel calm, pleasant, and grounded. For children who are growing rapidly, they need a lot of Yin substance to help their physical body grow bigger. If at such ages they eat too much refined sugar and processed food, which have very little nutritional values, they might not be able to gather enough nutrients to support their growth.
Excessive Yin substance hinders our body’s physiological mechanisms and ability to regulate water metabolism by creating a lot of dampness and phlegm. This is why people who have diet that contains too much sugar tend to be overweight or obese.
Saliva 津液 is considered a form of elixir in Daoism. It is extremely precious and it is the key for longevity. Issues of depleted body fluids such as dry mouth, eye, nose or genitalia indicates that Qi mechanism of the body has been compromised, and that the body is unable to transport and transform fluids into usable resources. Eating too much refined sugar tends to lead to wasting thirst syndrome (diabetes), which is a manifestation of diabetes.
Honey is produced by bees. First, nectar is extracted from flowers by a bee’s long, tube-shaped tongue and stored in its extra stomach, aka crop. While sloshing around in the crop, the nectar mixes with enzymes that transform its chemical composition and pH, making it more suitable for long-term storage.
When a honeybee returns to the hive, it passes the nectar to another bee by regurgitating the liquid into the other bee’s mouth. This regurgitation process is repeated until the partially digested nectar is finally deposited into a honeycomb.
Once in the comb, nectar is still a viscous liquid — nothing like the thick honey you use at the breakfast table. To get all that extra water out of their honey, bees set to work fanning the honeycomb with their wings in an effort to speed up the process of evaporation.
After most of the water has evaporated from the honeycomb, the bee seals the comb with a secretion of liquid from its abdomen, which eventually hardens into beeswax. Away from air and water, honey can be stored indefinitely, providing bees with the perfect food source for cold winter months.
So honey contains nectar of flowers as well as bee’s saliva. It is the bee’s elixir. Natural honey is great for moisturizing dryness. However, some bee farmers feed bees with sugar water, which reduces the quality of honey.