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maple syrup
2023 Syrup is Going, Going, Almost Gone…
We are so thankful for our loyal base of Ohio State maple syrup fans. In fact, our repeat customers do such a good job of cleaning out each new inventory release, that there is very little leftover to share with potential new customers. This year, 80% of our released stock sold within 2 weeks including every single one of our special 5-year commemorative glass etched bottles.
We do have some OSU maple syrup left. If you are interested, please visit the OSU Maple Store through the Woodland Stewards website and purchase quarts for pick-up (either on Columbus or Mansfield campus) or doorstep delivery. Time is of the essence as we are down to just 75 or so jugs remaining. The proceeds from syrup continue to support excellent hands-on, field-based student internships in the sugarbush and in the broader Ecolab at Ohio State Mansfield. Thanks!
More Benefits of Maple: Monthly Maple REVIEW
September’s REVIEW piece bangs the same exact drum as our August post. Put simply, the benefits of maple syrup are VAST, and this article by Faez Mohammed and team expand the discussion beyond nutritional to also include pharmacological and sensory attributes. how do big trees make baby trees and what factors promote or inhibit that process. In case you are interested in reading the full article which was published just over a month ago, “Nutritional, pharmacological, and sensory properties of maple syrup: A comprehensive review” is available here.
While this article is not presenting new research, the authors are doing the hard work of sampling the existing literature and drawing together a synthetic summary of what many many others have discovered in the past. 95 total research articles factor into this particular review. Here are some interesting facts and tidbits that I found interesting as I read through the paper.
1) A major reason that maple syrup has a long list of nutritional benefits and something like white granulated sugar has a long list of known negative impacts is that maple syrup is NOT processed by humans as a refined sugar, instead maple syrup is processed as a source of carbohydrates.
2) Maple syrup is often compared to other natural sweetener alternatives. Maple syrup contains 60.5 grams sugar per 100 total g. This is less sugar than honey (68 g), molasses (74.7 g), and of course high fructose corn syrup (75.7 g).
3) When we say something is an antioxidant, we are referring to a substance that reduces free radicals that are loose like a “bull in the china shop” wreaking havoc on cells and cell membranes. For something to arrest and capture free radicals is to possess antioxidant properties. Maple syrup is known to have antioxidant properties that come primarily from 2 types of compounds. Without getting overly technical and going into specifics, early season syrup has anti-oxidizing properties due to 1 set of compounds, and syrup made from sap harvested from the second half of the season relies on a different type of compound to chase down and capture free radicals. That is cool!!
4) When we say something has antiproliferative properties, we are referring to a substance that keep cancer cells from multiplying quickly and without impediment. It turns out maple syrup has these properties too! But some maple syrup is better at slowing the growth rates of cancer cells than others. Past research has found darker color maple syrup has a greater ability to slow harmful cell production than lighter grades of syrup. Certain phenolic compounds register higher in darker colored syrup, and it is believed these substances are the active agents at play in antiproliferative defenses.
5) If you can get your hands on this article, it is absolutely a great resource. I could list a number of additional points that reflect the general tenor of #3 and #4, but suffice it to say this post would grow real long real fast. Again, here is a link to the abstract and research article in full.
I want wrap up this REVIEW by focusing on a small subsection within the larger article titled “Effect of maple syrup production processes on its nutritional value and component bioactivity.” In other words, what should the maple syrup production process look like to enhance and bolster the nutritional and medical benefits of finished maple syrup product? Here are a couple quick takeaways in closing. Antimutagenic (preserving DNA integrity) properties seem to be highest in the earliest lightest color syrup made in the season. Darker syrup grades are better equipped to fight cancer cells. Drying syrup (making some value-added products) reduces total phenolic content (the agents responsible for antiproliferative defense) and antioxidant capacities. This is my own two cents, but I get the growing sense that investigating the intricate and minute details of maple syrup in terms of its chemical structure, molecular compounds, and different properties, traits, and characteristics is like a medical explorer penetrating the deepest and darkest most remote corners of the tropics where previously undiscovered plant species may hold the spark to the next game-changing pharmacological revolution. Remarkable stuff!!
Maple Nutrition: Maple Monthly REVIEW
You might have spent some of the last month or so under a rock if you have not caught at least a glimpse of month’s REVIEW article, actually presentation. Much ado has been made of the research presented at the 2023 American Society for Nutrition conference, “Substituting refined sugars with maple syrup decreases key cardiometabolic risk factors in individuals with mild metabolic alterations, a randomized, double-blind, controlled crossover trial.” The hubbub surrounding the research has landed the work across major news outlets, morning talk shows, health blogs and podcasts, and of course, the Maple Syrup Digest.
Do some searches for Dr. Andre Marette and Dr. Marie-Claude Vohl’s recent research trial or open the latest issue of the Maple Syrup Digest, and you will have tons of information at your fingertips. Here’s the skinny on the research. You or I would recognize the study participants as normal-looking, average Americans – not fitness models, but certainly not too unhealthy either. Everybody in the trial participated in both sides of the experiment, but participants did not know when they participated in each half. The beauty of this design is that each participant serves as his or her own control for optimal comparability. In one half of the experiment, participants supplemented their daily nutrition intake with a flavored sucrose syrup, and then participants flip-flopped to consuming a couple tablespoons of the real McCoy – maple syrup.
Here are the key takeaways put as simply as possible:
1) Maple syrup helped participants manage their blood sugar levels, which has obvious implications for diabetes-related risk.
2) Maple syrup consumers had a lower blood pressure, which reduces risk for cardiovascular disease.
3) Maple syrup slowed the accumulation of android fat, a double whammy health benefit.
In short, this new research trial is some of the clearest and most irrefutable evidence for maple syrup health benefits yet! In a more wordy paragraph and excerpted from a 2022 review paper on maple syrup, here’s a great synopsis of the health benefits of maple.
Of the many natural sweeteners, maple syrup is recognized as a much superior alternative to refined sugar for not only its mineral content, but also for its high concentration of phenolic compounds with bioactivity properties, i.e., anti-mutagenic, anti-radical, antioxidant, and anti-cancer. Compared to dextrose, corn syrup and brown rice syrup, maple syrup brings about lower glucose and insulin responses, which make it a healthier substitute for refined sugars in our diet.
Memorize that block quote to recite next time a potential customer is waffling at whether or not to pony up some hard-earned cash for your delicious maple syrup.
Ohio State Maple Syrup BACK IN STOCK
The Ohio State Maple Store is back in stock. Our 2022 syrup inventory has officially hit the shelves, and you can place your order here.
Glass half pints and jug pints, quarts, and half gallons are available. Orders can be shipped to your door (extra fee) or picked up at the Franklin County Extension Office off Kenny Road in Columbus or from Riedl Hall on Ohio State Mansfield campus in Richland County.
We are so appreciative of the support everyone has shown in purchasing syrup. Thanks to your purchases, we have employed 5 different students working field-based experiential jobs just this calendar year alone. One full-time student and 2 part-timers during our 2022 maple research season, and 2 additional full-time positions that just recently completed summer fellowships.
Raising the Bar on Syrup Quality
Maple grading and syrup quality are major topics at just about every maple winter meeting. Why has this topic taken on a heightened sense of importance? What is driving this interest? As the popularity of maple syrup products continues to grow, we are introducing more new customers to pure maple syrup. As interest grows, so does the number of questions about content, grading and nutritional value. Consumers are curious!
What is the difference between pure maple syrup and table syrup?
Is pure maple syrup truly a superior product?
Is pure maple syrup worth the higher price?
In most stores, you can find maple syrup right above the pancake flour. Shelf space is minimal and is often shared with Log Cabin, Mrs. Butterworth, and other corn syrup derivatives. The first thing consumers notice is that pure maple syrup is substantially more expensive. They may also take time to read the labels. The lower priced competition has a multitude of ingredients. Many ingredients are difficult to pronounce and not something a savvy customer wants to consume. So, they gravitate to the pure maple syrup which contains only one ingredient, Pure Maple Syrup. Many assume that because they are paying a premium price it must be a premium product. Consumers today assume a direct relationship between price and quality, and for the most part, do not mind paying a premium price for something they truly enjoy.
You only have one opportunity to make a good first impression!
There is variability in pure maple syrup sold across the country. There are USDA Standards for color and density. Density is straight forward, at least 66.0 or 66.9, depending on where you live. But grading standards by color can be confusing. To add even more mud to the water, many states do not require grading; color grading is voluntary. Remember, much of the syrup marketed in the US, especially outside the maple producing regions, is sold in box stores.
Most of the time, syrup sold in a box store is good syrup. It is sweet and with an excellent maple flavor, but occasionally there is a surprise. Until a bottle of syrup is opened and tasted, a bad bottle of syrup often looks exactly like good syrup; although, there is a tendency for poor quality syrup to wear a more generic label. You might compare buying a generic bottle of syrup to buying a box of “Cracker Jacks”, you are wondering what sort of prize will be inside. Customers can avoid bad surprises by buying from local producers who confidently and proudly attach the name of their operation to the label.
The flavor of our maple products is the single most important aspect of maple grading. Flavor more than anything else sells the product; however, grading for flavor is also one of the least understood aspects of quality syrup production. Syrup flavor varies for a multitude of reasons. Some would say it is subjective, but it is not. Each grade has its own identifiable and unique flavor profile. Because each grade is unique and prized for its own reasons, blending grades is discouraged and should be avoided. However, blending syrup grades is not restricted and it does happen. So, what exactly happens to flavor when two grades of pure maple syrup are combined to achieve a more desirable color? To put it simply, colors blend but flavor does not. Blended syrup might look attractive, but the flavor is just off. While the average consumer may not detect the difference, a discerning palate will.
If the following principle is true, for every effect there is a cause, off-flavored syrup can often be traced back to mistakes made by the producer. No one who has ever run an evaporator will deny that. Ten minutes too long on the evaporator, poor sanitation or running too late in the season, can all result in off flavors and sub-standard syrup. Mistakes happen, and in most cases, they are not intentional. That syrup should be allowed to enter the on-the-shelf marketplace. To salvage the syrup, these mistakes often end up in a barrel sold on the bulk market for whatever price the producer can get. This is what everyone does, right?!
Overall, the industry does a good job of grading density and color and is gradually placing more emphasis on quality. However, it is the responsibility of everyone involved to know when something has gone wrong. Because we are selling a food product, we need to know where to draw the line. We need to encourage producers who want to learn more about the process of making quality maple syrup to attend local or regional maple grading and quality workshops. While state regulations may enforce a bare minimum, a state’s producers should strive for better than just barely passing. Raising the bar on maple syrup quality can only be achieved through mutual cooperation and education at all levels of the industry.
Footnote: Substandard syrup quality and grading errors aren’t just a brick-and-mortar problem. Check out this article from The Maple News, courtesy of research done out of University of Vermont, that examined online syrup sales and these exact same issues.
New OSU Maple Syrup SHOP
We are excited to have a new maple shop up and running on the Woodland Stewards website. The new shop gives us a few new features to track orders and supplies a bit better. The 2021 syrup run is all bottled and waiting on your orders as the Holiday season approaches. We have 1/2 pint glass bottles available in addition to pint, quart, half gallon, and gallon (gallons by request only) available in jugs.
I am happy to report that syrup sales placed 2 part-time students and a full-time recent graduate in the field throughout last winter’s sugaring season. From both a production standpoint (how the maple syrup is produced and hands-on learning of that process) and research standpoint (how to ask good research questions and how to set up experiments to get answers), each student had an incredible enriching experience thanks to your support of the program.
10/9 Fall into Maple Tour Stop at Ohio State Mansfield
The 2021 International Fall into Maple Tour is scheduled for October 8-17. On Saturday, October 9th, you have a great chance to visit with members of the Ohio State Maple team at Ohio State Mansfield between 10 AM-6 PM. Visitors will be able to tour the research sugarbush, purchase OSU maple syrup, and see some new maple educational materials that we are excited to debut. From 10 AM-noon, we will be serving a pancake breakfast to tailgate for the Ohio State versus Maryland football game that starts at noon. Look for the event tent in the Ohio State Mansfield parking lot #8 and come see us.
Maple Story Map – Students Are Key to Maple Success
Given that Ohio State is a university and has well over 60,000 students enrolled, making the statement – “students were involved” – seems like a needless statement of the obvious. But in the case of the Mansfield Maple program and larger Ecolab initiative, the fact needs to be explicitly stated. Students have been heavily involved.
The maple program itself is the fruition of a student report inventorying the Mansfield campus’ forest resources back in 2013. A simple charge to “explore potential of the mature forest for a maple sugarbush” and subsequent student effort to do the project scoping have led to a whole host of tangible outcomes, not the least of which is a re-invigoration of the School of Environment and Natural Resources’ (SENR) commitment to non-timber forest products.
And student involvement has continued to this very day. Ecolab student interns assisted in the Mansfield sugarbush installation and have participated annually in tapping and other system maintenance tasks. Students have performed invasive species management in the maple stand and catalogued each individual tapped tree throughout the sugarbush. A student research team helped establish the complimentary crop tree release demonstration area that targets sap-producing maples as one of the focal stand management objectives. And last year, a Capstone group of SENR seniors explored new ways to assess and management for sugarbush tree health and vigor. The deliverable outcome of their project was a well-crafted Story-Map linked here. We encourage you to view the high-quality work of our Forestry and Wildlife seniors and learn about crop tree management, the threat of invasive plant species to our native biodiversity, and the potential effects of climate change on future sugarbush resilience.
Students have been an integral part of making OSU Maple a success. By purchasing maple syrup and showing your support of the program, you can make sure student support remains a centerpiece of the initiative moving forward. We are proud of our students and are thrilled to know that Ohio’s maples will be in safe hands for future generations.
Author: Gabe Karns 
Ohio State Maple Syrup AVAILABLE
Maple syrup from The Ohio State University-Mansfield campus is available for purchase. Produced from sap of the research and demonstration sugarbush, the maple syrup is bottled in 1/2 pint (glass bottles), pint, quart, and half gallon containers (rest are jugs). As an extra bonus, the 2020 run of syrup, which is currently available, carries the 150th sesquicentennial logo for OSU’s important anniversary.
Importantly, OSU syrup sale proceeds contribute to maintenance of the sugarbush, seed money for research, funding maple-related student internships and research opportunities, and more. To place an order, visit Ohio State’s Woodland Stewards website. We can ship syrup to your door or you can request a pick-up in Columbus or in Mansfield.
For those already shopping for holiday gifts, a case of 20, 1/2 pint glass bottles is available at a good discount. Email karns.36@osu.edu for discount details.
Click on the Mansfield Maple tab for more information about the sugarbush at OSU-Mansfield!