My mom considers "tubo" as the reason why she and her sisters all have strong jaws and teeth. She said that they used to peel off the sugarcane's skin using only their teeth and then they would chomp and gnaw away, spitting out the dried out fibrous bits afterwards.

There's probably some truth to that because unlike her and her mighty teeth, I had two impacted wisdom teeth which had to be surgically removed (ouch!).

Our generation also had our fair share of sugarcane while growing up, however, these were already skinned, chopped to bite sized pieces and left to cool inside the refrigerator, a refreshing treat to munch on during those long and languid Cebu/Ipil summer days.

I've seen some sugarcane juice stalls in the mall and I've had a glass, but really, nothing compares to the real thing. It must be all that crunching and spitting that makes the difference.