Magnification of grains of sugar, showing their
monoclinic hemihedral crystalline structure.
Magnified crystals of refined sugar
In non-scientific use, the term '''sugar''' refers to
sucrose (also called "table sugar" or "saccharose") — a white
crystalline
solid disaccharide. Humans most commonly use sucrose as their sugar of choice for altering the
flavor and properties (such as
mouthfeel, preservation, and texture) of
beverages and food. Commercially-produced table sugar comes either from
sugar-cane or from
sugar-beet. Manufacturing and preparing food may involve other sugars, including
palm sugar and
fructose, generally obtained from fruit.
In this informal sense, the word "sugar" principally refers to
crystalline sugars; but a great many foods exist which principally contain sugar: these generally appear as
syrups, or have specific names such as "
honey" or "
molasses". Many of these comprise mostly sugar; and sugar may dissolve in water to form a syrup.
Scientifically, ''sugar'' refers to any
monosaccharide or
disaccharide. Monosaccharides (also called "simple sugars"), such as
glucose, store chemical
energy which
biological cells convert to other types of energy.
In a list of ingredients, any word that ends with "ose" will likely denote a sugar. Sometimes such words may also refer to any types of
carbohydrates soluble in
water.
In culinary terms, the
foodstuff known as 'sugar' delivers a
primary taste sensation of
sweetness. Apart from the many forms of sugar and of sugar-containing foodstuffs, alternative non-sugar-based
sweeteners exist, and particularly interest people who have problems with their
blood sugar level (such as
diabetics) and people who wish to limit their
calorie-intake, but while enjoying sweet foods to a greater degree. Both natural and synthetic examples exist with no significant
carbohydrate (
calorie) content, for instance
stevia (a
herb) and
saccharin (produced from naturally occurring but not necessarily naturally
edible substances by inducing appropriate
chemical reactions).
Etymology
The
English word "sugar" ultimately originates from the
Sanskrit word ''sharkara'' or ''Å›arkarÄ'', which means "sugar" or "pebble". It came to
English by way of
French,
Spanish and/or
Italian, which derived their word for sugar via
Arabic from the
Persian ''shakar'' (whence the
Portuguese word ''açúcar'', the Spanish word ''azúcar'', the Italian word ''zucchero'', the Old French word ''zuchre'' and the contemporary French word ''sucre''). (Compare the
OED.) Note that the English word ''jaggery'' (meaning "coarse brown Indian sugar") has similar ultimate etymological origins.
Sugar as food
Originally a luxury, sugar eventually became sufficiently cheap and common to influence standard cuisine.
Britain and the
Caribbean islands have cuisines where sugar usage has become particularly prominent.
Sugar forms a major element in
confectionery and in
desserts.
Cooks use it as a
food preservative as well as for sweetening.
Concerns of vegetarians and vegans
The sugar-refining industry often uses
bone char (
calcinated animal bones) for decolorizing. This concerns vegans and vegetarians: about a quarter of the sugar in the US gets processed using bone char as a filter (about half of all sugar from sugar cane; the rest gets processed with
activated carbon). As bone char does not get into the sugar, the relevant authorities consider sugar processed this way as
parve/
kosher.
Vegetarians and vegans may also object to the impact that the burning of the cane fields (a common part of the harvesting practice) has on insects, rats, snakes and other life residing in the fields.
[1]
The killing of such species parallels the killing of bees in the course of the production of
honey, another sweetener that vegans usually avoid.
Sugar and health
Whereas historically rotting teeth once seemed the most prominent health-hazard from the use of sugar, first the growth in the usage of
rum (a sugar-cane derivative) and then concerns about
type 2 diabetes and
obesity have gradually come into prominence.
Tooth-decay
Tooth-decay, arguably the most prominent health hazard associated with the use of sugar, can damage teeth in many ways. Bacteria in the mouth metabolize sugar into various acids. When the
pH at the surface of the tooth drops below 5.5 (known as the "critical pH"), the acids start dissolving
tooth-enamel. This results in decay of the tooth.
Diabetes
Diabetes, a disease that causes the body to metabolize sugar poorly, occurs when either:
# the body's cells ignore
insulin, a chemical that allows the metabolizing of sugar (Type 2 diabetes)
# the body attacks the cells producing the insulin (Type 1 diabetes)
When glucose builds up in the bloodstream, it can cause two problems:
# in the short term, cells become starved for energy because they do not have access to the glucose
# in the long term, frequent glucose build-up can damage many of the body's organs, including the eyes, kidneys, nerves and/or heart
However, while sugars may adversely affect those with diabetes, science has not proven that sugars cause diabetes.
Obesity
In the
United States of America, a scientific/health debate has started over the causes of a steep rise in obesity in the general population — and one view posits increased consumption of carbohydrates in
recent decades as a major factor.
[2]
Obesity can result from a number of factors including:
★ an increased intake of energy-dense foods — high in fat and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients; and
★ decreased physical activity.
[3]
United Nations nutritional advice
In 2003, four
United Nations agencies, (including the
World Health Organization (WHO) and the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)) commissioned a report compiled by a panel of 30 international experts. The panel stated that the total of free sugars (all monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by manufacturers, cooks or consumers, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups and fruit juices) should not account for more than 10% of the
energy-intake of a healthy diet, while
carbohydrates in total should represent between 55% and 75% of the energy-intake (table 6, page 56 of the WHO Technical Report Series 916, ''Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases'': see http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/AC911E/ac911e07.htm#bm07.1.3 ).
Sugar producers’ nutritional advice
On the other hand, the
Sugar Association of the United States of America insists that other evidence indicates that a quarter of human food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.
Debate
Argument continues as to the value of extrinsic sugar (sugar added to food) compared to that of intrinsic sugar (sugars - seldom sucrose - naturally present in food). Adding sugar to food particularly enhances taste, but has drawbacks of boosting
calories, among other negative effects on health and physiology.
In the
United States of America, sugar has become increasingly evident in food products, as more food-manufacturers add sugar or
high-fructose corn-syrup to a surprising variety of consumables. Candy-bars, soft drinks, chips, snacks, fruit-juice, peanut-butter, soups, ice-cream, jams, jellies, yogurt, and many breads have added sugars.
Five Alive, for example, which portrays itself as "all natural" and has pictures of five different types of fruit on its label, comprises only 41% fruit juice, having
high fructose corn syrup as its prime ingredient.
Many doctors argue that health authorities should classify sugar and
high-fructose corn-syrup as
food-additives.
[4]
Some go so far as to call refined sugar a
poison.
[5]
The anthropologist and dentist Weston A. Price, writing in 1939,
[6]
correlated the use of refined sugar (and refined grains) with malnutrition in pregnant women, malformation of the palate and jaw in their children, followed by cramping of teeth in adolescence (leading to crooked teeth and the removal of "wisdom teeth" molars). Price correlated other ailments and the impaired function of the pituitary or master gland with consumption of refined sugar, as well as rates of infant mortality, subnormal intelligence, delinquency, and incarceration. He also correlated the underdevelopment of the pelvis which in women would lead to complications (pain, death, etc.) in childbirth.
Virtually all of these symptoms became the norm in modern populations consuming typical amounts of refined sugar and other "modern foods of commerce". Besides the rotting of teeth, interruptable or resumable merely by removing or reintroducing white sugar into a diet, the correlations with consumption of refined sugar may relate less to the consumption of refined sugar itself than to the absence of the consumption of "nourishment", a category in which Price did not include refined sugar.
Nutrition
Sugar-cane in its natural form provides a rich source of vitamins and
minerals, but refined sugar lacks many nutrients.
Sugar and hyperactivity
Sugar (not only sucrose, but also other varieties such as glucose) may cause some children to become
hyperactive — giving rise to the terms "sugar high", "
sugar rush" and "sugar buzz".
Recent studies financed by the sugar-industry found that in a party situation all children became very active after only some had consumed sugar, thus demonstrating the lack of a direct link between individual consumption of sugar and individual levels of hyperactivity in that party context, even when the researchers focused on children with a presumed "sugar-sensitivity". If sugar-industry researchers believe sugar does not contribute to hyperactivity, or if parents and teachers believe in the possibility of a sugar-high, their respective biases may cause them to perceive children accordingly after consumption of sweets and sugary beverages through
observer-bias. (Note that the experiments did not take place in the context of a control-group following a base diet-level matching the recommendation of the WHO/FAO (stated above) to avoid the impacts of added extrinsic sugars cited above, nor in a controlled setting — and so could not give credible results.)
Some commentators believe that children and adults show the hyperactive effects of sugar equally. On average, Americans eat or drink approximately five pounds of sugar a month.
[7]
Production
Harvested sugarcane ready for processing
Table sugar (sucrose) comes from plant sources. Two important sugar crops predominate:
sugarcane (''Saccharum spp.'') and
sugar beets (''Beta vulgaris''), in which sugar can account for 12% to 20% of the plant's dry weight. Some minor commercial sugar crops include the
date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera''),
sorghum (''Sorghum vulgare''), and the
sugar maple (''Acer saccharum''). In the
financial year 2001/
2002, worldwide production of sugar amounted to 134.1 million
tonnes.
The first production of sugar from sugar-cane took place in
India.
Alexander the Great's companions reported seeing "
honey produced without the intervention of bees" and it remained exotic in Europe until the Arabs started cultivating it in
Sicily and
Spain. Only after the
Crusades did it begin to rival honey as a sweetener in Europe. The Spanish began cultivating sugar-cane in the
West Indies in 1506 (and in
Cuba in 1523). The
Portuguese first cultivated sugar-cane in
Brazil in 1532.
Most cane-sugar comes from countries with warm climates, such as Brazil,
India,
China,
Australia,
Fiji and
Mexico. In 2001/2002
developing countries produced over twice as much sugar as developed countries. The greatest quantity of sugar comes from
Latin America, the
United States, the
Caribbean nations, and the
Far East.
Beet-sugar comes from regions with cooler climates: northwest and eastern Europe, northern Japan, plus some areas in the United States (including California). In the northern hemisphere, the beet-growing season ends with the start of harvesting around September. Harvesting and processing continues until March in some cases. The availability of processing-plant capacity, and the weather both influence the duration of harvesting and processing - the industry can lay up harvested beet until processed, but frost-damaged beet becomes effectively unprocessable.
The
European Union (EU) has become the world's second-largest sugar exporter. The
Common Agricultural Policy of the EU sets maximum quotas for members' production to match supply and demand, and a price. Europe exports excess production quota (approximately 5 million tonnes in
2003). Part of this, "quota" sugar, gets subsidised from industry levies, the remainder (approximately half) sells as "C quota" sugar at market prices without subsidy. These
subsidies and a high import
tariff make it difficult for other countries to export to the EU states, or to compete with the Europeans on world markets.
The United States sets high sugar prices to support its producers, with the effect that many former consumers of sugar have switched to
corn syrup (beverage-manufacturers) or moved out of the country (candy-makers).
The cheap prices of glucose syrups produced from wheat and corn (maize) threaten the traditional sugar market. In combination with
artificial sweeteners, drink manufacturers can produce very low-cost products.
Cane
Main articles: Sugarcane
Since the 6th century BCE cane-sugar producers have crushed the harvested vegetable material from sugar-cane in order to collect and filter the juice. They then treat the liquid (often with
lime (calcium oxide)) to remove impurities and then neutralize it. Boiling the juice then allows the sediment to settle to the bottom for dredging out, while the scum rises to the surface for skimming off. In cooling, the liquid crystallizes, usually in the process of stirring, to produce sugar crystals.
Centrifuges usually remove the uncrystallized syrup. The producers can then either sell the resultant sugar, as is, for use; or process it further to produce lighter grades. This processing may take place in another factory in another country.
Beet
Sugar beets
Beet-sugar producers slice the washed beets, then extract the sugar with hot water in a "
diffuser". An alkaline solution ("
milk of lime" and
carbon dioxide from the lime kiln) then serves to
precipitate impurities (see
carbonatation). After filtration, evaporation concentrates the juice to a content of about 70% solids, and controlled crystallisation extracts the sugar. A centrifuge removes the sugar crystals from the liquid, which gets recycled in the crystalliser stages. When economic constraints prevent the removal of more sugar, the manufacturer discards the remaining liquid, now known as
molasses.
Sieving the resultant white sugar produces different grades for selling.
Cane versus beet
Little perceptible difference exists between sugar produced from beet and that from cane. Tests can distinguish the two, and some tests aim to detect fraudulent abuse of
EU subsidies or to aid in the detection of adulterated
fruit-juice.
The production of sugar results in residues which differ substantially depending on the raw materials used and on the place of production. While cooks often use cane molasses in food, humans find molasses from sugar beet unpalatable, and it therefore ends up mostly as industrial
fermentation feedstock, or as animal-feed. Once dried, either type of molasses can serve as fuel for burning.
Culinary sugars
Grainier, raw sugar
So-called 'raw sugars' comprise yellow to brown sugars made by clarifying the source syrup by boiling and drying with heat, until it becomes a crystalline solid, with minimal chemical processing. Raw beet sugars result from the processing of sugar-beet juice, but only as intermediates ''en route'' to white sugar. Types of raw sugar include ''
demerara'', ''
muscovado'', and ''
turbinado''.
Mauritius and
Malawi export significant quantities of such specialty sugars. Manufacturers sometimes prepare raw sugar as loaves rather than as a crystalline powder, by pouring sugar and molasses together into molds and allowing the mixture to dry. This results in sugar-cakes or loaves, called ''
jaggery'' or ''gur'' in India, ''pingbian tang'' in China, and ''panela'', ''panocha'', ''pile'', ''piloncillo'' and ''pão-de-açúcar'' in various parts of Latin America. In South America, truly raw sugar, unheated and made from sugar-cane grown on farms, does not have a large market-share.
'Mill white sugar', also called 'plantation white', 'crystal sugar', or 'superior sugar', consists of raw sugar where the production process does not remove colored impurities, but rather bleaches them white by exposure to
sulfur dioxide. Though the most common form of sugar in sugarcane-growing areas, this product does not store or ship well; after a few weeks, its impurities tend to promote discoloration and clumping.
'Blanco directo', a white sugar common in India and other south Asian countries, comes from precipitating many impurities out of the cane juice by using ''phosphatation'' — a treatment with
phosphoric acid and
calcium hydroxide similar to the carbonatation technique used in beet-sugar refining. In terms of sucrose purity, blanco directo is more pure than mill white, but less pure than white refined sugar.
'White refined sugar' has become the most common form of sugar in
North America as well as in
Europe. Refined sugar can be made by dissolving raw sugar and purifying it with a
phosphoric acid method similar to that used for blanco directo, a
carbonatation process involving calcium hydroxide and carbon dioxide, or by various filtration strategies. It is then further purified by filtration through a bed of
activated carbon or
bone char depending on where the processing takes place. Beet sugar refineries produce refined white sugar directly without an intermediate raw stage. White refined sugar is typically sold as ''granulated sugar,'' which has been dried to prevent clumping.
Granulated sugar comes in various crystal sizes — for home and industrial use — depending on the application:
★ Coarse-grained sugars, such as ''sanding sugar'' (''nibbed sugar'' or ''sugar nibs'') find favor for decorating
cookies/
biscuits and other desserts.
★ Normal granulated sugars for table use: typically they have a grain size about 0.5 mm across
★ Finer grades result from selectively sieving the granulated sugar
★
★ ''caster'' (or ''castor''
[8]) (0.35 mm), commonly used in baking
★
★ ''superfine'' sugar, also called ''baker's sugar'', ''berry sugar'', or ''bar sugar'' — favored for sweetening drinks or for preparing
meringue
★ Finest grades
★
★ ''
Powdered sugar'', ''10X sugar,'' ''confectioner's sugar'' (0.060 mm), or ''icing sugar'' (0.024 mm), produced by grinding sugar to a fine powder. The manufacturer may add a small amount of
anti-caking agent to prevent clumping — either
cornstarch (1% to 3%) or tri-
calcium phosphate.
Sugar-cubes close-up
Retailers also sell 'sugar-cubes' or lumps for convenient consumption of a standardised amount. Suppliers of sugar-cubes make them by mixing sugar crystals with sugar syrup. invented sugar-cubes in 1841.
Brown sugar crystals
'
Brown sugars' come from the late stages of sugar refining, when sugar forms fine crystals with significant molasses-content, or from coating white refined sugar with a cane molasses
syrup. Their color and taste become stronger with increasing molasses-content, as do their moisture-retaining properties. Brown sugars also tend to harden if exposed to the atmosphere, although proper handling can reverse this.
The World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations expert report (WHO Technical Report Series 916 Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases) defines 'free sugars' as all monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups and fruit-juices. This includes all the sugars referred to above. The term distinguishes these forms from all other ''culinary sugars'' added in their natural form with no refining at all.
'Natural sugars' comprise all completely unrefined sugars: effectively all sugars not defined as ''free sugars''. The WHO Technical Report Series 916 Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases approves only natural sugars as carbohydrates for unrestricted consumption. Natural sugars come in fruit, grains and vegetables in their natural or cooked form.
Chemistry
Biochemists regard sugars as relatively simple
carbohydrates. Sugars include
monosaccharides,
disaccharides, trisaccharides and the oligosaccharides - containing 1, 2, 3, and 4 or more monosaccharide units respectively. Sugars contain either
aldehyde groups (-CHO) or
ketone groups (C=O), where there are
carbon-oxygen double bonds, making the sugars reactive. Most sugars conform to (CH
2O)
n where n is between 3 and 7. A notable exception,
deoxyribose, as its name suggests, has a "missing" oxygen atom. As well as being classified by their reactive group, sugars are also classified by the number of carbons they contain. Derivatives of trioses (C
3H
6O
3) are intermediates in
glycolysis. Pentoses (5 carbon sugars) include
ribose and deoxyribose, which are present in
nucleic acids. Ribose is also a component of several chemicals that are important to the metabolic process, including
NADH and
ATP. Hexoses (6 carbon sugars) include glucose which is a universal substrate for the production of energy in the form of ATP. Through
photosynthesis plants produce glucose, which has the formula C6H12O6, and then convert it for storage as an energy reserve in the form of other carbohydrates such as
starch, or (as in cane and beet) as sucrose.
Many pentoses and hexoses can form
ring structures. In these closed-chain forms, the aldehyde or ketone group is not free, so many of the reactions typical of these groups cannot occur. Glucose in solution exists mostly in the ring form at
equilibrium, with less than 0.1% of the molecules in the open-chain form.
Monosaccharides in a closed-chain form can form
glycosidic bonds with other monosaccharides, creating disaccharides (such as sucrose) and polysaccharides (such as starch).
Enzymes must
hydrolyse or otherwise break these glycosidic bonds before such compounds will
metabolise. After digestion and absorption the principal monosaccharides present in the blood and internal tissues are: glucose, fructose, and galactose.
The prefix "glyco-" indicates the presence of a sugar in an otherwise non-carbohydrate substance. Note for example
glycoproteins, proteins to which one or more sugars are connected.
Simple sugars include
fructose,
glucose,
galactose,
maltose,
lactose and
mannose. Disaccharides occur most commonly as sucrose (cane or beet sugar - made from one glucose and one fructose), lactose (milk sugar - made from one glucose and one galactose) and maltose (made of two glucoses). These disaccharides have the formula C
12H
22O
11.
Hydrolysis can convert sucrose into a syrup of fructose and glucose, producing ''invert sugar''. This resulting syrup is sweeter than the original sucrose, and is useful for making confections because it does not crystalize as easily and thus produces a smoother finished product.
History
Sugarcane, a tropical grass, probably originated in
New Guinea. During
prehistoric times its culture spread throughout the
Pacific Islands and into
India. By 200 BC producers in China had begun to grow it too. Westerners learned of sugarcane in the course of military expeditions into India.
Nearchos, one of Alexander the Great's commanders, described it as "a reed that gives honey without bees".
Originally, people chewed the cane raw to extract its sweetness. The process of making sugar by evaporating juice from
sugarcane developed in
India around 500 BC. In South Asia, the
Middle East and
China, sugar became a staple of cooking and
desserts.
Early refining methods involved grinding or pounding the cane in order to extract the juice, and then boiling down the juice or drying it in the sun to yield sugary solids that resembled gravel. The Sanskrit word for "sugar" (''sharkara''), also means "gravel". Similarly, the
Chinese use the term "gravel sugar" (
Traditional Chinese: ç ‚ç³–) for table sugar.
Cane sugar outside Asia
A sugar-cane cutter in
Cuba
The Arabs and Berbers introduced sugar to Western Europe when they conquered the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century AD.
Crusaders also brought sugar home with them after their campaigns in the
Holy Land, where they encountered caravans carrying "sweet salt". Crusade chronicler
William of Tyre described sugar as "very necessary for the use and health of mankind."
The 1390s saw the development of a better press, which doubled the juice obtained from the cane. This permitted economic expansion of sugar plantations to
Andalucia and to the
Algarve. The 1420s saw sugar-production extended to the
Canary Islands,
Madeira and the
Azores.
In August 1492
Christopher Columbus stopped at
Gomera in the
Canary Islands, for wine and water, intending to stay only four days. He became romantically involved with the Governor of the island, Beatrice de Bobadilla, and stayed a month. When he finally sailed she gave him cuttings of sugarcane, which became the first to reach the New World.
The Portuguese took sugar to
Brazil.
Hans Staden, published in 1555, writes that by 1540
Santa Catalina Island had 800 sugar-mills and that the north coast of Brazil,
Demarara and
Surinam had another 2000. Approximately 3000 small mills built before 1550 in the New World created an unprecedented demand for
cast iron gears, levers, axles and other implements. Specialist trades in mold making and iron casting were inevitably created in Europe by the expansion of sugar. Sugar mill construction is the missing link of the technological skills needed for the
Industrial Revolution that is recognized as beginning in the first part of the 1600s.
After 1625 the
Dutch carried sugarcane from South America to the Caribbean islands — from
Barbados to the
Virgin Islands. The years 1625 to 1750 saw sugar become worth its weight in gold. Contemporaries often compared the worth of sugar with valuable commodities including musk, pearls, and spices. Prices declined slowly as production became multi-sourced, especially through British colonial policy. Formerly an indulgence of the rich, sugar became increasingly common among the poor. Sugar-production increased in mainland North American colonies, in
Cuba, and in
Brazil. African
slaves became the dominant plantation-workers as they proved resistant to the diseases of
malaria and
yellow fever. (European
indentured servants remained in shorter supply, susceptible to disease and overall forming a less economic investment. European diseases such as
smallpox had reduced the numbers of local
Native Americans.) But replacement of Native American with African slaves also occurred because of the high death-rates on sugar-plantations. The British West Indies imported almost 4 million slaves, but had only 400 000 Blacks left after
slavery ended.
With the
European colonization of the Americas, the
Caribbean became the world's largest source of sugar. These islands could supply sugar-cane using slave-labor and produce sugar at prices vastly lower than those of cane sugar imported from the East. Thus the economies of entire islands such as
Guadaloupe and
Barbados became based on sugar-production. By 1750 the French colony known as
Saint-Domingue (subsequently the independent country of
Haiti) became the largest sugar-producer in the world.
Jamaica too became a major producer in the 18th century.
Sugar-plantations fueled a demand for manpower; between 1701 and 1810 ships brought nearly one million slaves to work in Jamaica and in
Barbados.
During the eighteenth century, sugar became enormously popular and the sugar-market went through a series of
booms. The heightened demand and production of sugar came about to a large extent due to a great change in the eating habits of many Europeans. For example, they began consuming
jams,
candy, tea, coffee, cocoa, processed foods, and other sweet victuals in much greater numbers. Reacting to this increasing craze, the islands took advantage of the situation and began harvesting sugar in extreme amounts. In fact, they produced up to ninety percent of the sugar that the western Europeans consumed. Of course some islands were more successful than others when it came to producing the product. For instance, Barbados and the British Leewards can be said to have been the most successful in the production of sugar because it counted for 93% and 97% respectively of each island’s exports.
Planters later began developing ways to boost production even more. For example, they began using more
manure when growing their crops. They also developed more advanced mills and began using better types of sugar-cane. Despite these and other improvements, the price of sugar reached soaring heights, especially during events such as the revolt against the Dutch and the
Napoleonic Wars. Sugar remained in high demand, and the islands' planters knew exactly how to take advantage of the situation.
As Europeans established sugar-plantations on the larger Caribbean islands, prices fell, especially in
Britain. By the
eighteenth century all levels of society had become common consumers of the former luxury product. At first most sugar in Britain went into tea, but later
confectionery and
chocolates became extremely popular. Many Britons (especially children) also ate jams. Suppliers commonly sold sugar in solid cones and consumers required a
sugar nip, a pliers-like tool, to break off pieces.
Sugar-cane quickly exhausts the
soil in which it grows, and planters pressed larger islands with fresher soil into production in the nineteenth century. In this century, for example, Cuba rose to become the richest land in the Caribbean (with sugar as its dominant crop) because it had the only major island land-mass free of mountainous terrain. Instead, nearly three-quarters of its land formed a rolling plain — ideal for planting crops. Cuba also prospered above other islands because Cubans used better methods when harvesting the sugar crops: they adopted modern milling-methods such as water-mills, enclosed furnaces, steam-engines, and vacuum-pans. All these technologies increased productivity.
After the
Haïtian Revolution established the independent state of
Haiti, sugar production in that country declined and
Cuba replaced Saint-Domingue as the world's largest producer.
Long established in
Brazil, sugar-production spread to other parts of
South America, as well as to newer European colonies in
Africa and in the Pacific, where it became especially important in
Fiji.
In Colombia, the planting of sugar started very early on, and entrepreneurs imported many African slaves to cultivate the fields. The industrialization of the Colombian industry started in 1901 with the establishment of the first steam-powered sugar mill by
Santiago Eder.
The rise of beet sugar
In 1747 the German chemist
Andreas Marggraf identified sucrose in
beet root. This discovery remained a mere curiosity for some time, but eventually Marggraf's student
Franz Achard built a sugarbeet-processing factory at
Cunern in
Silesia, under the patronage of King
Frederick William III of Prussia (reigned 1797 - 1840). While never profitable, this plant operated from 1801 until it suffered destruction during the
Napoleonic Wars (ca 1802 - 1815).
Napoleon, cut off from Caribbean imports by a British
blockade and at any rate not wanting to fund British merchants, banned sugar imports in 1813. The beet-sugar industry that emerged in consequence grew, and today, sugar-beet provides approximately 30% of world sugar production.
While no longer grown by slaves, sugar from developing countries has an on-going association with workers earning minimal wages and living in extreme poverty.
In the developed countries, the sugar industry relies on machinery, with a low requirement for manpower. A large beet-refinery producing around 1,500 tonnes of sugar a day needs a permanent workforce of about 150 for 24-hour production.
Mechanization
Beginning in the late 18th century, sugar production became increasingly mechanized. The
steam engine first powered a sugar mill in
Jamaica in
1768, and soon thereafter, steam replaced direct firing as the source of process heat.
In 1813 the
British chemist
Edward Charles Howard invented a method of refining sugar that involved boiling the cane juice not in an open kettle, but in a closed vessel heated by steam and held under partial vacuum. At reduced pressure, water boils at a lower temperature, and this development both saved fuel and reduced the amount of sugar lost through
caramelization. Further gains in fuel efficiency came from the
multiple-effect evaporator, designed by the
African-American engineer
Norbert Rillieux perhaps as early as the 1820s, although the first working model dates from 1845. This system consisted of a series of vacuum pans, each held at a lower pressure than the previous one. The vapors from each pan were used to heat the next, and little heat wasted. Today, multiple-effect evaporators are employed widely in many industries for evaporating water.
The process of separating the sugar from the molasses also received mechanical attention: David Weston first applied the centrifuge to this task in
Hawaii in 1852.
Measuring sugar
See also
International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis
Dissolved sugar content
Scientists use degrees
Brix (symbol °Bx), introduced by
Antoine Brix, as units of measurement of the mass ratio of dissolved substance to water in a liquid. A 25 °Bx sucrose solution has 25 grams of sucrose sugar per 100 grams of liquid. Or, to put it another way, 25 grams of sucrose sugar and 75 grams of water exist in the 100 grams of solution.
An infrared Brix sensor measures the vibrational frequency of the sugar molecules, giving a Brix degrees measurement. This does not equate to Brix degrees from a density or refractive index measurement because it will specifically measure dissolved sugar concentration instead of all dissolved solids. When using a refractometer, one should report the result as "refractometric dried substance" (RDS). One might speak of a liquid as having 20 °Bx RDS. This refers to a measure of percent by weight of ''total'' dried solids and, although not technically the same as Brix degrees determined through an infrared method, renders an accurate measurement of sucrose content, since sucrose in fact forms the majority of dried solids. The advent of in-line infrared Brix measurement sensors has made measuring the amount of dissolved sugar in products economical using a direct measurement.
Sugar purity
Technicians usually measure the purity of sugar, i.e. the sucrose content, by
polarimetry — the measurement of the rotation of plane-polarized light by a solution of sugar.
Europeans used to measure sugar's worth by its color: the whiter, the more demand. It became a class symbol to have the whitest sugar. The poor ate mainly brown sugar, and many still do. Some modern tastes have reversed this trend, favoring brown/raw sugar as more "natural".
Sugar economics
Historically one of the most widely-traded commodities in the world, sugar accounts for around 2% of the global dry cargo market. International sugar prices show great volatility, ranging from around 3 to over 60 cents per pound in the
past 50 years. Of the world's 180-odd countries, around 100 produce sugar from beet or cane, a few more refine raw sugar to produce white sugar, and all countries consume sugar. Consumption of sugar ranges from around 3 kilogrammes per person per annum in Ethiopia to around 40 kg/person/yr in Belgium. Consumption per capita rises with income per capita until it reaches a plateau of around 35kg per person per year in middle-income countries.
World raw sugar price for the calendar years 1960-2006
Many countries subsidize sugar-production heavily. The European Union, the United States, Japan and many developing countries subsidize domestic production and maintain high tariffs on imports. Sugar prices in these countries have often exceeded prices on the international market by up to three times;
today, with world market sugar futures prices
currently strong, such prices typically exceed world prices by two times.
Within international trade bodies, especially in the
World Trade Organization, the "
G20" countries led by Brazil have long argued that because these sugar markets essentially exclude cane-sugar imports, the G20 sugar-producers receive lower prices than they would under
free trade. While both the
European Union and United States maintain trade agreements whereby certain developing and
less-developed countries (LDCs) can sell certain quantities of sugar into their markets, free of the usual import tariffs, countries outside these preferred trade régimes have complained that these arrangements violate the "
most favoured nation" principle of international trade.
In 2004, the
WTO sided with a group of cane-sugar exporting nations (led by Brazil and Australia) and ruled the EU sugar-régime and the accompanying ACP-EU Sugar Protocol (whereby a group of African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries receive preferential access to the European sugar market) illegal. In response to this and to other rulings of the WTO, and owing to internal pressures on the EU sugar regime, the European Commission proposed on
22 June 2005 a radical reform of the EU sugar régime, cutting prices by 39% and eliminating all EU sugar exports. The African, Caribbean, Pacific and
least developed country sugar-exporters reacted with dismay to the EU sugar proposals, arguing for a fairer reform of the EU régime which would foster development and contribute meaningfully to the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals. On
25 November 2005 the Council of the EU agreed to cut EU sugar prices by 36% as from 2009. It now seems that the
U.S. Sugar Program could become the next target for reform. However, some commentators expect heavy lobbying from the U.S. sugar-industry, especially from the
Fanjul Brothers, the single largest individual contributors of
soft money to both the Democratic and Republican parties.
[9]
[10]
Small quantities of sugar, especially specialty grades of sugar, reach the market as '
fair trade' commodities; the fair-trade system produces and sells these products with the understanding that a larger-than-usual fraction of the revenue will support small farmers in the developing world. However, whilst the Fairtrade Foundation offers a premium of USD 60.00 per tonne to small farmers for sugar branded as "Fairtrade", government schemes such the U.S. Sugar Program and the
ACP Sugar Protocol offer premiums of around USD 400.00 per tonne above world market prices.
See also
★
Biobutanol
★
Brown sugar
★
Brix
★
Palm sugar
★
Caramel
★
Corn syrup
★
Fermentation
★
Glycomics
★
Golden syrup
★
Holing cane
★
Natural brown sugar
★
Stevia, a herb many times sweeter than pure sugar
★
Sugar plantations in the Caribbean
★
Sugar loaf
★
Sugar substitute
★
List of unrefined sweeteners
★
Rock candy
★
Barley sugar
External links
History and culture
★
Plant Cultures: botany, history and uses of sugar cane
★
Big Sugar: documentary
★
"From sweet on the table to fuel in the tank: the millenary history of Sugar Cane"
Food
★
Cook's Thesaurus: Sugar (www.foodsubs.com)
Health
★
Expert Report on diet and chronic disease (WHO/FAO)
★
Center for Science in the Public Interest sugar-labeling campaign
Social and environmental
★
Ethical Sugar NGO
★
The politics of sugar
★
Harvesting Poverty: America's Sugar Daddies
Trade
★
Wide range of information about sugars, from the Canadian Sugar Institute, a non-profit trade association of Canada's manufacturers of refined sugar
★
Least Developed Countries sugar site
★
African, Caribbean and Pacific sugar exporters
★
Sugar Traders Association of the UK
★
European Union sugar-régime proposals
★
WTO ruling on the EU sugar-régime
★
U.S. Sugar Import Program
★
Sugar Association of London
★
Sugar Statistics at Chronos Shipping website
★
Sample trade-sugars
Sugar and hyperactivity
★
"The Myth of the Sugar Buzz" article from Skepticism.Net
Chemical
Bibliography
★ A C Hannah, ''The International Sugar Trade'', ISBN 1-85573-069-3
★ William Dufty, ''Sugar Blues'', ISBN 0-446-34312-9
References
1.
http://www.sucrose.com/harvest.html
2.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F04E2D61F3EF934A35754C0A9649C8B63
3. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/index.html
4.
M. Linda Vahrenkamp, "Your Immune System and Refined Sugars", ''Your Health Magazine''
5.
"Dye, Michael, "Sugar: Leaving a Legacy of Dental Decay, Obesity, and Dysfunctional Immune Systems for our Children""
6.
Weston A. Price:
''Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effect''. Hoeber: 1939.
Retrieved from http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc.html — 2007-07-20
7.
http://www.cspinet.org/new/sugar_limit.html
8. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) classifies both spellings as correct, but "castor" used to prevail.
9.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/29/opinion/29SAT1.html?ex=1385442000&en=6c3b44e5d7b72a09&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
10.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/coinop_congress/97mojo_400/boller.html
العربية
ä¸å›½
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिनà¥à¤¦à¥€
Italiano
日本語
Português
РуÑÑкий
Español
