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Sugar

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Food and agriculture

   Magnification of typical sugar showing monoclinic hemihedral crystal
   stucture.
   Enlarge
   Magnification of typical sugar showing monoclinic hemihedral crystal
   stucture.

   In non-scientific use, the term "sugar" means 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.

   In science, sugar refers to any monosaccharide or disaccharide.
   Monosaccharides (also called "simple sugars"), such as glucose, store
   energy which biological cells use and consume. In a list of
   ingredients, any word that ends with "ose" probably denotes a sugar.

   In culinary terms, the foodstuff known as sugar delivers one of the
   primary taste sensations, that of sweetness.

Etymology

   The English word "sugar" may ultimately originate from the Sanskrit
   word sharkara or śarkarā, which means "sugar" or "pebble". It probably
   came to English by way of the French, Spanish and/or Italians who
   derived their word for sugar from the Arabic al sukkar (whence the
   Portuguese word açucar, the Spanish word azúcar, the Italian word
   zucchero, the Old French word zuchre and the contemporary French word
   sucre). The Arabs in turn presumably derived their word from the
   Persian shakar, derived from the original Sanskrit. Compare the OED.

   Note that the English word jaggery (coarse brown Indian sugar) has
   similar ultimate etymological origins.

Production

   Harvested sugarcane ready for processing
   Enlarge
   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 and Australia. 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 U.S. 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

   Cane-sugar producers crush the harvested vegetable material, then
   collect and filter the juice. They then treat the liquid (often with
   lime (calcium oxide)) to remove impurities and then neutralize it with
   sulfur dioxide. Boiling the juice then allows the sediment to settle to
   the bottom for dredging out, while the scum rises to the surface and
   for skimming off. In cooling the liquid crystallises, usually in the
   process of stirring, to produce sugar crystals. Centrifuges usually
   remove the uncrystallised 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

                                                             Beta vulgaris

   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

   So-called Raw sugars comprise yellow to brown sugars made from
   clarified cane-juice boiled down to a crystalline solid with minimal
   chemical processing. Raw sugars result from the processing of
   sugar-beet juice, but only as intermediates en route to white sugar.
   Types of raw sugar available as a specialty item outside the tropics
   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 tong in China, and panela, panocha,
   pile, and piloncillo in various parts of Latin America. Truly raw sugar
   is unheated, made from sugar cane grown on farms in South America, and
   very difficult to find.

   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. This is the most common form of sugar in
   sugarcane growing areas, but 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 decolorized 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 favour 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 sugar (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

   Brown sugar crystals
   Enlarge
   Brown sugar crystals
     * 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.

   Retailers also sell sugar cubes or lumps for convenient consumption of
   a standardised amount.

   Brown sugars derive from the late stages of sugar refining, when sugar
   forms fine crystals with significant molasses-content, or by coating
   white refined sugar with a cane molasses syrup. Their colour 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.

Chemistry

   Sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose (left); and fructose, important
   molecules in the body.
   Sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose (left); and fructose, important
   molecules in the body.

   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[2]O)[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[3]H[6]O[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 is
   then converted 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 sucrose, 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[12]H[22]O[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

   The process of making sugar by evaporating juice from sugarcane
   developed in India around 500 BC. 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. Sugar
   refining developed in the India, Middle East and China, where 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: 砂糖) for table sugar.

   Sugar later spread to other areas of the world through trade.

The history of cane sugar in the West

   A sugar cane cutter in Cuba
   Enlarge
   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".

   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. Prices declined
   slowly as production became multi-sourced, especially through British
   colonial policy. 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.)

   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 animal 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 prices 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. The previous luxury
   product began, by the eighteenth century, to be commonly consumed by
   all levels of society. At first most sugar in Britain was used in tea,
   but later candies and chocolates became extremely popular. Sugar was
   commonly sold in solid cones and required a sugar nip, a pliers-like
   tool, to break off pieces.

   Sugar-cane quickly exhausts the soil, and growers 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 was the only
   major island that was free of mountainous terrain. Instead, nearly
   three-quarters of its land formed a rolling plain which was ideal for
   planting crops. Cuba also prospered above other islands because they
   used better methods when harvesting the sugar crops. They had been
   introduced to modern milling methods such as water mills, enclosed
   furnaces, steam engines, and vacuum pans. All these technologies
   increased their 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.

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 his student Franz Achard built a sugarbeet-processing
   factory at Cunern in Silesia, under the patronage of 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. Cuba continued as a large producer of sugar until the
   late 20th century, when the collapse of the Soviet Union took away its
   export market and the industry collapsed.

   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 which 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.

Sugar as food

   Magnified crystals of refined sugar
   Magnified crystals of refined sugar

   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 prominent element in confectionery and desserts. Cooks
   use it as a food preservative as well as for sweetening.

Health concerns

   Whereas 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 the predominance of concerns about diabetes and
   obesity gradually came to prominence.

   In 2003, four United Nations agencies, 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). However, 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.

   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 the perceived drawback of boosting calories.

   In the United States, a scientific/health debate has started over the
   causes of a steep rise in obesity in the general population — and one
   view posits increased carbohydrate consumption in recent decades as a
   major factor.

Sugar economics

   In many industrialized countries, sugar has become one of the most
   heavily-subsidized agricultural products. The European Union, the
   United States, and Japan all maintain elevated price-floors for sugar
   through subsidizing domestic production and imposing high tariffs on
   imports. In recent years, sugar prices in these countries have exceeded
   prices on the international market by up to three times.

   Within international trade bodies, especially in the World Trade
   Organization, the " G20" countries led by Brazil have 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 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, the European Commission proposed on 22
   June 2005 a radical reform the EU sugar regime, cutting prices by 39%
   and eliminating all EU sugar exports. The African, Caribbean, Pacific
   and Least developed country sugar-exporters have reacted with dismay to
   the EU sugar proposals, arguing for a fairer reform of the EU regime
   which would foster development and contribute meaningfully to the
   achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

   Small quantities of sugar, especially speciality 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.

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