Wholesome Sweeteners Gift Basket Event!

 This has been a very sweet week.

It's day 5 of my Wholesome Sweeteners review. This week I've, baked, cooked, sprinkled, and stirred in the sweetness. All the sugars I've used have been very high quality, and have made everything sweeter. Wholesome Sweeteners are more than just sugar, they also offer Organic Agave Syrup(in several flavors), Organic Molasses, and Organic Raw Honey. We didn't get to try the Honey, but just looking at the picture makes my mouth water. I love real honey, and I think that I might have to order some to see if it's as good as it looks! 

This week I've had a lot of fun, making everything taste a little sweeter. At the same time, I've been learning a lot about Fair Trade, and what it means to me as a consumer. I've also been learning about sugar in general, and I wanted to share some basic information thanks to Wholesome Sweeteners. 

Information on Sugar Cane

Like many grasses, organic sugar cane is one of nature's best photosynthesizes, converting up to 2% of the sunlight it receives into carbohydrates, or sugars. The cane looks like bamboo, and every year farmers reserve ten percent of each harvest for replanting. The cane is cut into foot-long batons, and the sugar cane stalks are planted in a shallow trench.  The cane is sprinkled with chicken manure and other organic fertilizers and covered in topsoil. 

The weeding for organic sugar cane is all completed by hand, which is very labor-intensive but an important part of the production process.  Beck~ Think of the labor involved in just weeding your own garden!

Sugar cane’s growing cycle varies from place to place; it generally takes from nine to 12 months for cane to mature. It grows to over 8 feet tall and then it is hand harvested with machetes.  The leaves are sliced off in the field and left where they fell. They protect the topsoil; provide a natural weed suppressant and an important source of nutrients that slowly leach back into the soil. Beck~ I thought the leaves staying right where they fall was an interesting fact. I can't believe it cane take a full year for the can to mature.

The sugar cane crop is often rotated every three years with nitrogen-fixing vegetables such as beans.  Crop rotation allows the soil “to rest,” helps replace the nitrogen that is lost from the soil, and provides a field in which farmers can grow a variety of vegetables for their family and community. 

My father used to work for a farmer when he was younger, and this is something he talked about a lot. He would get upset when he noticed a farmer not rotating his crops enough. My dad would say things like," he's ruining the soil!" I grew up watching the fields where we lived knowing which farmers farmed "the right way" according to my dad. I'm glad to know Wholesome Sweeteners farms the dad approved way! LOL~ Beck

Wholesome Sweeteners wants to make this review even SWEETER than it already was. 

They are sponsoring a Giveaway just for my readers. How sweet of them!

Enter to win a Wholesome Sweeteners Gift Basket (pictured below)

Just use the rafflecopter form to enter.

This is open to US residents only, and to those 18 years or older. 

Feel free to do as many or as few entries as you would like, completing the first 2 entries unlock all the rest! Please only hit enter on the entries you've actually completed, since all entries will be verified.
 Thanks, and Good Luck!
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