Village Hub: A Sweet Sustainable Solution

[progressoid]

An easy to copy but patented sugar palm factory Willie Smits has developed, demonstrates how community capacity-building and community empowerment can promote economic development while conserving the natural environment.

[hunter]

1. Sadly, it will never be able to compete with sugar cane in our capitalist world economy.

But I'll bet distinctive, high quality rums, beers, and wines would do very well on the world market.

Sugar Palm products: Palm sugar beer and other alcoholic beverages from the Sugar Palm

(By Willie Smits)

We already knew that the palm juice that drips from the cut of flower stems of the sugar palm starts fermenting almost immediately. This is the problem when one wants to make palm sugar, necessitating large amounts of fuel wood to immediately boil the sugary juice to stop the fermentation. When left by itself after just a few hours the alcohol concentration already reaches 5-6% and within 24 hours the concentration can get close to 10%! Obviously there are some very beneficial substances in the palm juice that support the activity of the yeast. People that drink a glass of palm wine everyday tend to be very healthy and reach ripe old ages.

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http://www.masarang.nl/en/what-we-do/sugar-palm-beer-the-role-of-sugar-palm.shtml