About SugaVida

Product

SugaVida translates to mean ‘Sugar of Life’ and is the 100% pure, unrefined nectar of Borassus flabellifer (Palmyra tree).

It has been an important part of Ayurvedic medicine, the world’s oldest whole-body healing system, for over 5000 years.

Ayurveda is based on the belief that health and wellness depends on the balance between the mind, body, and spirit.

Over the centuries, this special nectar has been used to maintain respiratory, digestive, blood and eye health, and is known in India as the ‘sugar for diabetics’ due to its low glycaemic index, it’s ability to support normal insulin functions, and the fact it’s low in fructose. This makes it far safer for diabetics than agave nectar, rice sugars or any other natural sweeteners.

SugaVida can be used as an alternative to sugar and other sweeteners in drinks, cooking, baking and anywhere you would normally use sugar, helping you in your quest for balance and wellness. Start your journey here.

How does SugaVida compare with other sugars and sweeteners?

Process

SugaVida is ethically and sustainably produced from blossom of the towering Palmyra trees found in Southern India.

With a life span of about 100 years, it takes 15 years for each Palmyra tree to grow before it can begin bearing fruit. Incredibly, the trees are self-healing and do not spread infection, so there’s no need to use pesticides or herbicides. It means your body can enjoy a nourishing product unpolluted by industrial chemicals.

To harvest the nectar, each Palmyra tree must be scaled and tapped by a highly skilled tapper. This is normally done twice a day between March and December. If they miss this by just one hour, the fruit will self-heal and they will have to wait another 15 days before being able tap it again without damaging the tree.

Once the sap is released, we use a proprietary and gentle method of heating SugaVida into a malted elixir, which is then powdered to make it easy to use.

Palmyra trees grow in many tropical countries and the nutritional benefits vary from region to region. Our Palmyra sugar comes from the nutritionally dense soil of Tamil Nadu in Southern India, giving it the highest nutritional profile in the world. So when you buy SugaVida you can be assured you’re buying the highest quality and purest Palmyra blossom nectar there is.

The trees are never cut down as they provide nourishment, employment and shelter for those who live and work the land. Every part of it is used, from the leaves for roofing on houses to the wood of dead trees as the building blocks.

We work directly with farmers’ cooperatives to ensure they are paid a fair wage and the community as a whole benefits.

People

SugaVida has been brought from India to the West by Kristina Locke.

Kristina first got involved with natural medicine while at University in Manchester. Having suffered recurrent bouts of bronchitis and a series of antibiotics that made her feel weak and awful, she realised there had to be a better way to keep healthy. Thankfully she has an open-minded family who visit acupuncturists, osteopaths and other alternative therapies and who cook real food at mealtimes. So she made a vow to avoid Western medicine, which only made her worse, and to only use natural methods of healing and food to keep healthy.

She made a full recovery.

A life-long foodie, Kristina travelled the world from an early age, always seeking out the best food, from Michelin-starred restaurants to Bangkok street food markets. She has always loved cooking for family, friends and big groups. And her sister, a qualified nutritional chef and food writer and stylist, also opened her eyes to nutritional gourmet food and preparing organic, seasonal food.

After an early career in PR and marketing Kristina helped to bring the natural medicine and supplement company QLink to the European market. At the same time, she also studied yoga and became increasingly interested in India and Ayurvedic medicine, spending time in India every year visiting retreats, yoga teachers and Ayurvedic hospitals and centres.

She then became a fully qualified yoga teacher specialising in the Ayurvedic diet and brought that knowledge to Conscious Food UK Ltd, a business she set up in 2009 as the UK’s first award-winning gluten, wheat and dairy free gourmet snacks company, in partnership with Conscious Food India, the leading artisan organic food company. That lead to the development of the cult- classic digestive aid d’mix, the first ever digestive aid to incorporate chewing as part of the treatment.

She also wrote the Alastair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay guide to India & Sri Lanka developing an even deeper knowledge and understanding of travel and hotels in India, focusing on small guesthouses, homestays, organic farms, lodges and palaces where she further cultivated her Indian culinary skills.

Many of her Indian friends and colleagues say she knows India and Indian food better than they do!

Throughout her travels and studies in India she kept coming across Palmrya jaggery (unrefined sugar) – either in treatments and remedies or in home cooking – and experienced its wonderful therapeutic benefits and taste.

With obesity and diabetes levels on the rise across the UK and Europe, due to our high consumption of refined sugar, Kristina made it her mission to source the best quality organic Palmyra Jaggery and bring it to the West. However, it wasn’t that simple. Traditionally Palmyra Jaggery is sold in big blocks – full of sand, grit and even bugs – so not very practical to use. By partnering with her supplier in India, who had created a way of making it into a powder without losing the key nutrients, she was able to bring you the rich elixir that is SugaVida in powdered form. This makes it versatile, and easy to use in drinks, baking and cooking.

To date, SugaVida has been a big hit across the world and is used by top doctors, nutritionists, Michelin starred and patisserie chefs, as well as leading food companies producing a whole host of different food including chocolate, raw chocolate, ice cream, cakes, cereals and smoothies.

Kristina’s mission is to make SugaVida the world’s leading natural sugar substitute and help millions of people across the planet switch to healthier diets using SugaVida to improve their health and wellbeing.