Natural sweeteners maple syrup, agave, and honey are complex mixtures with bioactive components that might confer health benefits

Pass the syrup! Maple syrup is a complex mixture of compounds, incuding bioactive components that might confer health benefits.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i15/ACS-Meeting-News-Looking-Beyond.html

http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i15/ACS-Meeting-News-Looking-Beyond.html

http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i15/ACS-Meeting-News-Looking-Beyond.html

Maple syrup, agave, and honey are well-known for their roles as sweeteners. As such, their primary constituents are simple sugars such as sucrose and fructose. But scientists exploring the composition of these sweeteners are finding them to be surprisingly complicated.

These sweet mixtures contain many other classes of compounds, especially polyphenols, some of which may have bioactivity that imparts health benefits. Scientists hope to identify the beneficial compounds and eventually increase their concentration in sweeteners, so sweets can be more than just treats. Researchers described their latest findings in a symposium sponsored by the Division of Agricultural & Food Chemistry at the American Chemical Society national meeting held last month in Dallas.

Maple syrup is produced from sap of certain maple species, especially the sugar maple, Acer saccharum, which is native to eastern North America. Maple syrup is produced only in the U.S. and Canada, and about 80% of the world’s supply comes from Quebec.