Starter Kit. Idea 135 of 500. Cluster 6
Kithul treacle and jaggery as a named origin sweetener, the way maple syrup is Canadian, with a range of recipes and ready products that use it in place of white sugar, each tested for its glycaemic index so the label can say what it does
The mechanism, from the book
Dilmah says it earns over 3 times the national average price for tea, because it does its own blending, branding and packing. The proof has been sitting inside the industry all along.
The first step
Start from the research: a study in the Ceylon Medical Journal in 2022 measured the glycaemic index of kithul treacle as low, which means it raises blood sugar more slowly than table sugar, though it is still sugar. Buy treacle from 2 tappers whose purity you can check, develop 3 products with it, a granola, a sauce and a dessert, and have one tested for its glycaemic index by a university food laboratory. Take the result and the samples to 3 health-food buyers.
- Who pays first
- A health-food shop or café abroad whose customers want a natural sweetener with a measured, lower effect on blood sugar.
- What leaves today
- Kithul is sold as a cheap syrup with no name, while maple syrup and agave carry the premium for the same idea of a natural sweetener.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask whether they can test glycaemic index or know who can.
- Forest Department. Ask whether tapping kithul palms on this land needs permission.
Check before you spend
That the treacle is pure and tested, that any health claim on the label is backed by a proper test, and what rules apply abroad.
Find out these three numbers
- What do shops abroad pay for a bottle of kithul treacle?
- What does a glycaemic index test cost?
- How much treacle can tappers supply each month?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.