Sugar

, the most common sugar.]]

Sugar is a term for a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor. In food, sugar almost exclusively refers to sucrose, which primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet. Other sugars are used in industrial food preparation, but are usually known by more specific names—glucose, fructose or fruit sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc.

Currently, Brazil has the highest per capita production of sugar.

Sugar, because of its simpler chemical structure, was once assumed (without scientific research) to raise blood glucose levels more quickly than starch, but results from more than twenty studies demonstrate that sugar and starch cause blood glucose to rise at similar rates. This finding showed that controlling all carbohydrates is necessary for controlling blood glucose levels in diabetics, the idea behind carbohydrate counting. Some experts believe that eating excessive amounts of sugar does not increase the risk of diabetes, although the extra calories from consuming large amounts of sugar can lead to obesity, which may increase the risk of diabetes. found that "SSBs [sugar-sweetened beverages] may increase the risk of [metabolic syndrome] and type 2 diabetes not only through obesity but also by increasing dietary glycemic load, leading to insulin resistance, β-cell dysfunction, and inflammation."

In regard to contributions to tooth decay, the role of starches is disputed. Lower rates of tooth decay have been seen in individuals with hereditary fructose intolerance.

History

Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times. It was not plentiful or cheap in early times—honey was more often used for sweetening in most parts of the world.

Originally, people chewed sugarcane raw to extract its sweetness. Sugarcane was a native of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store and to transport. Crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around 5th century AD. Indian sailors, consumers of clarified butter and sugar, carried sugar by various trade routes. During the reign of Harsha (r. 606–647) in North India, Indian envoys in Tang China taught sugarcane cultivation methods after Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649) made his interest in sugar known, and China soon established its first sugarcane cultivation in the seventh century. Chinese documents confirm at least two missions to India, initiated in 647 AD, for obtaining technology for sugar-refining. In South Asia, the Middle East and China, sugar became a staple of cooking and desserts.

During the Muslim Agricultural Revolution, Arab entrepreneurs adopted sugar production techniques from India and then refined and transformed them into a large-scale industry. Arabs set up the first cane sugar mills, refineries, factories and plantations. The Arabs and Berbers spread the cultivation of sugar throughout the Arab Empire and across much of the Old World, including Western Europe after they conquered the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century AD. Ponting traces the spread of the cultivation of sugarcane from its introduction into Mesopotamia, then the Levant and the islands of the eastern Mediterranean, especially Cyprus, by the 10th century. He also notes that it spread along the coast of East Africa to reach Zanzibar. Crusade chronicler William of Tyre, writing in the late 12th century, described sugar as "very necessary for the use and health of mankind".

In August 1492 Christopher Columbus stopped at La 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, Beatriz de Bobadilla y Ossorio, and stayed a month. When he finally sailed she gave him cuttings of sugarcane, which became the first to reach the New World.

In 1792, sugar rose to a high price in Great Britain. The East India Company were called upon to help lower the price of sugar. Lieutenant J. Paterson, of the Bengal establishment, reported that sugar-cane could be cultivated in British India with many advantages, and at less expense than in the West Indies. As a result, a number of sugar factories were established in Bihar in British India.

More recently it is manufactured in very large quantities in many countries, largely from sugar cane and sugar beet. In processed foods it has increasingly been supplanted by corn syrup.

Etymology

feeding on sugar crystals]] The etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. The English word "sugar" originates from the Arabic word سكر sukkar, itself derived from Sanskrit शर्करा sharkara. It most probably came to England by way of Italian merchants. The contemporary Italian word is zucchero, whereas the Spanish and Portuguese words, azúcar and açúcar respectively, have kept a trace of the Arabic definite article. The Old French word is zuchre - contemporary French sucre. The earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρη [sákχari]. A satisfactory pedigree explaining the spread of the word has yet to be done. Note that the English word jaggery (meaning "coarse brown Indian sugar") has similar ultimate etymological origins (presumably in Sanskrit).

Terminology

Popular

The term sugar usually refers to sucrose, which is also called "table sugar" or "saccharose." Sucrose is a white crystalline disaccharide. It is often obtained from sugar cane or sugar beet. Sucrose is the most popular of the various sugars for flavoring, as well as properties (such as mouthfeel, preservation, and texture) of beverages and food.

Chemical

"Sugar" can also be used to refer to water-soluble crystalline carbohydrates with varying sweetness. Sugars include monosaccharides (e.g., glucose, fructose, galactose), disaccharides (e.g., sucrose, lactose, maltose), trisaccharides, and oligosaccharides, in contrast to complex carbohydrates such as polysaccharides. Corn syrup, dextrose, crystalline fructose, and maltose, for example, are used in manufacturing and preparing food.

Baking weight/mass volume relationship

Different culinary sugars have different densities due to differences in particle size and inclusion of moisture.

The Domino Sugar Company has established the following volume to weight conversions:

Brown sugar 1 cup = 48 teaspoons ~ 195 g = 6.88 oz

Granular sugar 1 cup = 48 teaspoons ~ 200 g = 7.06 oz

Powdered sugar 1 cup = 48 teaspoons ~ 120 g = 4.23 oz

Bulk density

Dextrose sugar 0.62 g/mL

Granulated sugar 0.70 g/mL

Powdered sugar 0.56 g/mL

Beet sugar 0.80 g/mL

Purity standards

The International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis sets standards for the measurement of the purity of refined sugar, known as ICUMSA numbers; lower numbers indicate a higher level of purity in the refined sugar.

==Chemistry== : a disaccharide of glucose (left) and fructose (right), important molecules in the body.]] Scientifically, sugar loosely refers to a number of carbohydrates, such as monosaccharides, disaccharides, or oligosaccharides. Monosaccharides are also called "simple sugars," the most important being glucose. Almost all sugars have the formula (n is between 3 and 7). Glucose has the molecular formula . The names of typical sugars end with "-ose," as in "glucose", "dextrose", and "fructose". Sometimes such words may also refer to any types of carbohydrates soluble in water. The acyclic mono- and disaccharides contain either aldehyde groups or ketone groups. These carbon-oxygen double bonds (C=O) are the reactive centers. All saccharides with more than one ring in their structure result from two or more monosaccharides joined by glycosidic bonds with the resultant loss of a molecule of water (H₂O) per bond.

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 become metabolised. After digestion and absorption. the principal monosaccharides present in the blood and internal tissues include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Many pentoses and hexoses can form ring structures. In these closed-chain forms, the aldehyde or ketone group remains unfree, 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.

Natural polymers of sugars

Biopolymers of sugars are common in nature. Through photosynthesis plants produce glucose, which has the formula , and 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 (table sugar). Sucrose has the chemical formula . Starch, consisting of two different polymers of glucose, is a readily degradable chemical energy stored by cells, convertible to other types of energy.

Cellulose is a polymer of glucose used by plants as structural component.

DNA and RNA are built up of the sugars ribose and deoxyribose. The sugar in DNA is deoxyribose, and has the formula C₅H₁₀O₄.

See also

Barley sugar

Biobutanol

Brown sugar

Caramel

Glycomics

Holing cane

List of unrefined sweeteners

Saccharophilic pathogen

Sugar alcohol

Sugarloaf

Sugar plantations in the Caribbean

Sugar substitute

References

Further reading

A C Hannah, The International Sugar Trade, Cambridge: Woodhead, 1996. ISBN 1-85573-069-3

External links

Cook's Thesaurus: Sugar

Category:Sanskrit words and phrases Category:Carbohydrates Category:Excipients Category:Granular materials Category:Nutrition Category:Sugar