Pure Maple Syrup Ingredients

There is a chance your pancake syrup isn't pure maple syrup, but rather an imitation made with corn syrup. Real maple syrup is made from the sap of sugar, black or red maple trees. During the spring, maple producers -- also called sugarmakers -- drill a hole in the side of the tree, also called "tapping," and collect the raw sap to make pure maple syrup. They must collect about 10 gallons of sap to make just one quart of real maple syrup. Does this Spark an idea?

Sugar

Straight from the tree, maple sap contains approximately 2 or 3 percent sugar. This can vary, because sugar content tends to be higher in the morning. Pure maple syrup contains about 66 to 67 percent sugar because sugarmakers boil down the raw sap to remove much of the water. The type of sugar in maple syrup is primarily sucrose, with small amounts of fructose and glucose sugars.

Early Native Americans were the first to harvested maple sap and boil it down to make maple sugar. Maple sugar is just maple syrup with much more water taken out. They used the sugar to sweeten their foods and beverages.

Water

Maple sap is comprised of about 98 percent water, and it doesn't have much flavor. After boiling the maple sap to remove much of the water, the pure maple syrup contains approximately 33 percent water. Not all of the water is removed, however, as that would result in maple sugar instead of maple syrup.

Nutrients

Unlike refined sugar, which lacks nutrition, maple syrup contains trace amounts of vitamins, minerals and amino acids. The primary minerals in maple syrup include calcium, magnesium, potassium and manganese. The vitamins in maple sugar include trace amounts of vitamins A, B2 (riboflavin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyridoxine), H (biotin), B9 (folic acid) and B3 (niacin). Amino acids are considered the building blocks of protein; trace amounts of amino acids are also found in pure maple syrup.