9 Surprising Uses for Molasses You Didn’t Know About

Molasses 101

Maybe you’re mostly familiar with molasses when baking—check out these amazing gingerbread recipes for the holidays, for example. But there’s so much more this syrupy sweet stuff. According to the green-living website Care 2, the thick brown liquid is created as the byproduct of processing sugar cane and sugar beets. Molasses contains trace amounts of minerals and vitamins needed by the body, including calcium, magnesium, and potassium, all of which are integral to bone health and the possible prevention of heart disease. Molasses is often used as a syrup or a replacement for sugar, but there are also a surprising number of other uses for the syrup. You can find different forms of the syrup for consumption or use at many food stores or specialty organic shops.