Irina Kamshilina
Cooking for someone is much more pleasant than cooking for yourself))
Content
As an alternative to the usual white refined sugar from beets, other options are increasingly being offered: unrefined, caramel, cane product. Nutritionists continue to insist on the dangers of “sweet poison”, and food industry quickly switches to advertising various analogues aimed at replacing regular refined sugar.
Cane sugar and regular sugar - what's the difference?
Sucrose is a carbohydrate, an essential nutrient that serves as a source of energy, so necessary for brain activity. The product obtained not only from beets, but also from reed plants is also white. The brown color is due to the purification process without the recrystallization method (refining of raw materials) used in the processing of sugar beets. This is the first difference between cane sugar and regular beet sugar, but, in essence, they are the same.
What is brown sugar? During the technological purification of sucrose from cane plants, molasses is released - black molasses. The result is the same granulated sugar, but with a slightly lower calorie content and a different composition of microelements. The body does not feel any special differences from the consumed sugar product, whether it is white or brown. The suggestion that molasses contains more vitamins and minerals than molasses is still being studied.
Real cane sugar
To produce this type of food sucrose, the noble sugar cane plant (Saccharum officinarum or Saccharum spontaneum) is cultivated. Real cane sugar on our shelves should be exclusively imported: the region where cane grows is Australia, India, Brazil, Cuba. Product packaging must contain information about the place where the plant grows and packaging. The color of sugar varies from light to dark brown and depends on the region of cultivation and the concentration of molasses: the more molasses, the darker the shade.
Main types of brown sugar product:
- muscovado;
- turbinado;
- Demerara.
Muscovado sugar
Muscovado sugar (it can also be called Barbados sugar) is obtained by first boiling the juice; it contains 10% molasses. Muscovado crystals are dark, sticky to the touch, and have a strong caramel scent. When they are added, the baked goods acquire a special honey color, the aroma of molasses and do not go stale for a long time. Muscovado is also suitable for adding to coffee.
Sugar Turbinado
Turbinado sugar is partially refined, processed with water steam (turbine), which is why it got its name. This is a high-quality biological product: no chemicals are used for its production. chemical elements. Turbinado sugar crystals are dry, crumbly, golden to brown in color, depending on the processing time, and are used to sweeten tea and coffee drinks, cocktails, and for preparing salads and sauces.
Demerara Cane Sugar
This type is more often found in stores, made by the Mistral company from raw materials from the tropical island of Mauritius. These are brown-golden solid large crystals. Demerara cane sugar is ideal for tea, coffee, and cocktails. It caramelizes perfectly, revealing a rich taste and pleasant aroma in the process. This type of cane sugar does not dissolve well in dough, but will look great as a sprinkle on baked goods.
Cane sugar - calories
“Sweet poison” consists of 88% sucrose. The calorie content of cane sugar and refined sugar is not fundamentally different: 377 kcal versus 387 kcal per 100 g. This calorie content is 18% of the daily intake based on the use of 2000 kcal/day. The energy value in the proportions of BZHU: 0% proteins / 0% fats / 103% carbohydrates, that is, it contains a lot of carbohydrates and calories - it will not help you lose weight!
Cane sugar - benefits
You can get a lot of healthy elements from sucrose. What is the difference between brown sugar and regular white sugar? First of all, the benefits of cane sugar are due to the presence of B vitamins necessary for metabolic processes. In the West, it is used by vegetarians to compensate for iron deficiency: it contains a lot of magnesium and iron, while refined sugar contains no magnesium at all, and several times less iron. The unprocessed sugar product retains the beneficial elements of molasses: sodium, calcium, copper, zinc, phosphorus, potassium, and is useful:
- for those who are recommended to have a “sweet diet” for liver problems;
- to regulate pressure;
- to normalize fat metabolism;
- to accelerate protein metabolism;
- to remove toxins from the body;
- For nervous system;
- for diabetics: there is no particular difference in using it instead of refined sugar for diabetes; you need to monitor the dose and kilocalories.
How to check cane sugar for authenticity
Characteristic Brown color, which can range from dark brown to golden, does not guarantee authenticity. The shade depends on the concentration of molasses and the location of the plant. But molasses itself is used as a dye for refined products, so it is important to be able to distinguish a fake so as not to buy refined beetroot colored with caramel. You can check cane sugar for authenticity like this.
IN Lately Cane sugar began to gain incredible popularity, and all thanks to the rich content of microelements: magnesium, iron, zinc, phosphorus. Many vegetarians use this type sugar to eliminate iron deficiency, and adherents healthy eating replace refined sugar with it. Today you can buy “cane sugar” in almost any store, but is it real?
How do you get it?
Let's figure it out. First of all, it is worth understanding that cane sugar is obtained by evaporating cane juice, while beet sugar undergoes long-term purification, which is necessary - without it, this type of sugar will simply be tasteless. However, manufacturers resort to tricks - they cover refined sugar with molasses and pass it off as unrefined cane sugar. As you already understand, there is no benefit in such a product. How to choose real cane sugar?
What kind of sugar is there?
How to distinguish - 5 ways to check
In fact, real cane sugar can be easily distinguished by the following characteristics:
- Aroma: bright, saturated, quite specific, vaguely reminiscent honey.
- Form: represents solid, dry heterogeneous mass. Real cane sugar does not have a crystalline, free-flowing form, unlike beet sugar.
Real cane sugar
- Hardens when exposed to air. This feature also manifests itself in the case of grinding the product to a powder state, but this problem can be easily solved with the help of a blender. Fake cane sugar (beet sugar coated with molasses) does not have this property.
- Change in liquid color. When using cane sugar as a sweetener, any liquids can be seen its cloudiness, however, themselves sugar cubes do not lose their brown color, which cannot be said about his tinted double. Beet sugar treated with molasses will also contribute to the cloudiness of the drink, but the sugar itself will turn white.
- Rich taste palette. Cane sugar is less sweet, but very rich, multifaceted taste, which can be compared to the taste of honey.
How to be sure that you have not been deceived? And did you buy real cane sugar? How can you tell the difference between infused brown sugar and colored sugar? Let's refute some myths or confirm their reality!
Grade
Myth: Cane sugar is beet sugar colored brown.
Reality: this is wrong!
Cane sugar, or brown sugar as it is often called, is sugar made from sugar cane. In the production of cane sugar, sugar cane is subject to minimal industrial processing, as a result of which cane sugar retains sugarcane molasses and, accordingly, a number of valuable microelements such as calcium, iron, phosphorus, etc. The darker the sugar, the higher the concentration of molasses in it.
However, you should know that white cane sugar is also available on the market! It will not retain the sugarcane molasses, but has a mild flavor and a delicate tropical aroma.
Myth: In order to determine the authenticity of cane sugar, you need to dissolve it in water.
It is believed that fake sugar can be detected by dissolving it in warm water. If the liquid turns the color of sugar, then most likely this is a useless fake.
Reality: it's a lie!
All cane sugar tends to color water. The molasses, which envelops the sugar crystals, dissolves first, coloring the water. This is due to the peculiarities of cane sugar production!
Cane sugar is produced by crystallizing molasses obtained from sugar cane juice. To start the growth of crystals, small slices of sucrose are added to the molasses. A sucrose crystal begins to form around these particles. Since sucrose has a dense crystalline structure, most of the cane molasses cannot be fixed inside the crystal, but only in its microcracks.
Since the outer part of the crystals has more microcracks, the overwhelming amount of cane molasses is fixed there. And, accordingly, when dissolved, unrefined cane sugar crystals, first of all, lose molasses and become discolored, and the solution becomes colored.
Myth: real cane sugar should “prove itself” when in contact with iodine.
There is an opinion that there is one effective way bite through adulterated sugar. You need to take iodine and drop it into sugar syrup. If the sugar has acquired a bluish tint, then this is natural cane sugar; otherwise, it is fake.
Reality: it is a myth!
This myth appeared due to the fact that saccharides (in particular, starch/bread) interact with iodine, turning bluish (previously, the presence of bread in cutlets was determined by dripping iodine onto their cracks). However, this only applies to polysaccharides such as starch (the main constituent of bread).
Cane sugar is predominantly a monosaccharide, which by its nature does not behave this way when in contact with iodine. That's why this method sugar authentication is not effective! Sugar will not turn blue - and it shouldn’t!
Myth: Real cane sugar can be distinguished by taste and smell.
Reality: This is true!
White sugar has only one taste and practically no smell, but cane sugar has a lot of nuances of taste and aroma. You can distinguish a genuine product by its characteristic taste and smell. Add a few pieces of cane sugar to a cup of tea or coffee, stir it and taste the drink - real cane sugar will highlight the taste of the drink without distorting it, adding an exquisite piquant note to a cup of tea or coffee.
Myth: To determine the real sugar, you need to carefully study the product packaging.
Reality: This is true!
In the store, before purchasing cane sugar, carefully study the information on the packaging. Pay special attention to the country of origin of cane sugar. Respectable sugar comes from Mauritius, Cuba, Brazil, USA, Costa Rica or Guatemala.
A few years ago, cane sugar served with tea or coffee was considered truly exotic, which could only be appreciated by visitors to expensive coffee shops and restaurants. Then the beautiful, brown lumps appeared on the shelves of many grocery stores. The people, believing nutritionists on screens broadcasting about the dangers of ordinary refined sugar and the benefits of unrefined sugar, introduced it into their regular diet.
Indeed, brown (unrefined, unrefined) sugar, which is essentially condensed and evaporated sugar cane juice, has a bright aroma, unique taste and unusual color. It contains a number of useful microelements - calcium, phosphorus, iron, etc. The darker the cane sugar, the more residual molasses (cane molasses) it contains, and therefore valuable nutrients.
Name one useful product the tongue does not turn with sweet poison. Therefore, brown sugar has become a constant companion in the diet of people who care about their health. Such popularity of unrefined sugar, the price of which is several times higher than the cost of white sugar, may benefit unscrupulous manufacturers. After all, regular refined sugar, tinted brown, can be passed off as natural unrefined cane sugar.
Consumers increasingly question authenticity brown sugar, claiming that sugar is being adulterated on a massive scale. Buying a real cane product is almost impossible even in expensive supermarkets.
To find out how things really are, experts consumer magazine Kachestvo.RU purchased five samples of cane sugar and sent them to the laboratory for testing. There, chromatographic analysis of the dye and assessment of the organoleptic characteristics of the samples were carried out. As a result, experts confirmed consumers’ guesses. The packages contained regular refined sugar coated with a film of cane molasses.
Experts did not determine what this refined sugar is made from - cane or beets. By and large, this doesn't matter. Refined cane and beet sugar differ little from each other. They contain one solid sucrose - an easily digestible carbohydrate. True, there is a slight difference in its level. Cane sugar contains slightly less sucrose. This is why many people notice that cane sugar is not as sweet. Both contain virtually no useful microelements.
That is, only a thin film of molasses is responsible for the promised microelements and dietary properties in these samples. But even on this, as they say, thank you. After all, there was an assumption that manufacturers even replace molasses with a regular caramel (sugar) color, reducing the value of the product to zero.
Expert opinion:
The quality of three samples does not correspond to the information on the label: “MISTRAL”, Brown&White “Golden Demerara”, BILLINGTON’S “Natural Demerara”. The samples do not correspond to the declared category of “unrefined cane sugar”, but are white crystalline sugar with the addition of cane molasses (molasses). The same can be said about the other two samples: “MILFORD” and “DANSUKKER” from the Nordic Suggar company. True, there the manufacturers delicately wrote “brown” and “dark” cane sugar, which in its essence is also unrefined.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to hold people accountable for such tricks with sugar in Russia. There are no special regulations that would prohibit the passing off of refined sugar coated in a molasses shell as cane sugar. The technical regulations for sugar have not been adopted and are under consideration in the form of a draft. And in the end, that document will probably leave a loophole for manufacturers, without defining clear terms and definitions that can be used to identify products.
Why, when producing dark sugar, go to such complex technological tricks, subjecting the sugar to several treatments (first purified and refined, and then added molasses), it’s actually not difficult to guess. Another thing is not clear: how long will the driving by the nose of consumers, confident that they buy natural unrefined sugar for crazy money, continue? After all, in the end they get a hand-cooked analogue. The benefits (nutritional value) of which, due to the content of cane molasses, can be negated by-products processing refined sugar from which it is made.
Interesting Facts
Sugar cane, brought by the Arabs from India, began to be cultivated in the Middle East already in the 3rd century BC, and, most likely, it was the Persians who, by repeatedly digesting the raw material, were the first to produce a kind of refined sugar. The Arabs, who captured the Persian state of the Sassanids, quickly became addicted to sweets and in their campaigns of conquest in the 7th-8th centuries. brought sugar to the Mediterranean countries.
The enterprising Spaniards and Portuguese, who became acquainted with this sweet plant, eventually founded its plantations in the Canaries, Madeira and Cape Verde.
In the 15th century, sugar cane made its main journey - to New World, and cane sugar plantations were created in America.
In Russia, “our own” cane sugar appeared in 1719, when, by order of Peter the Great, merchant Pavel Vestov built the first sugar factory in St. Petersburg.
Cane sugar is sold in refined, unrefined and unrefined forms (and this is its difference from beet sugar, which is edible only in refined form).
About twenty years ago, a group of Western nutritionists declared that it is better to prefer brown cane sugar, which has undergone minimal industrial processing, to classic refined white sugar. Such an unrefined product brings certain benefits to the human body, since thanks to molasses it contains a whole range of useful microelements.
The main types of cane sugar that can be found on our shelves today:
Demerara sugar- named after the district of Demerara in British Guiana, where it originally came from. The crystals are relatively hard, large, sticky, and golden brown in color. The main supplier of Demerara sugar is the island of Mauritius, and it is refined at enterprises in England and Canada and is very common in these countries as a coffee sweetener.
Muscovado sugar- cane sugar with a strong odor of molasses, unrefined, crystallized immediately after the first boiling of the juice. The crystals are larger than regular brown sugar, but not as large as Demerara, and are very sticky and flavorful. Dark muscovado sugar dark brown. Its rich color, thanks to its high molasses content, can add zest to any culinary experiment.
Turbinado sugar- partially refined raw sugar, from the surface of which a significant part of the molasses has been removed by steam or water. The color of its dry and free-flowing large crystals ranges from light golden to brown. In principle, this is the same as washed raw sugar, and the word turbinado itself means “processed by a turbine,” that is, in a centrifuge. One of the world's famous turbinado brands, Sugar In The Raw, is produced in Hawaii.
Black Barbados sugar- soft, thin, moist raw cane sugar. Very dark color and bright taste and aroma, thanks to the high molasses content.
It is believed that good, that is, real brown cane sugar is produced in Brazil, Guatemala, the USA, Costa Rica, Cuba, and also on the island of Mauritius.
“The darker the cane sugar, the more natural it is.” “The fake is always lighter.” Is it really? How can you tell the difference between real and fake brown sugar? And what does "real" and "fake" mean? Let's figure it out together with Novaprodukt technologist Alexander Ivanov.
Fake brown sugar is white, refined sugar colored with molasses, the molasses that remains when sugar cane juice is boiled down. Molasses itself is not harmful or dangerous; it contains a number of useful trace elements, such as calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium. All this is also found in unrefined brown cane sugar. During the refining process, raw sugar is cleared of impurities, but along with them, useful substances also leave the raw material. When we buy brown sugar at the store, we hope to get all the benefits of the nutrients it contains. What's wrong with molasses? IN in this case- by deception. The buyer pays much more for the same inexpensive and devoid of useful components refined sugar.
It is difficult even for a professional to distinguish real brown sugar from a fake; only the smell of caramel helps. We ourselves go to the production facilities with which we want to establish cooperation, and personally see how, from what and under what conditions sugar is packaged or produced. The buyer in the store should pay attention to the packaging: it should say “unrefined cane sugar” - without any additions; Respectable manufacturers also indicate the country of origin of sugar on the packaging. Sugar can be either dark brown or light brown, so color, unfortunately, is not an indicator of the authenticity of cane sugar. The color depends on the molasses content in the sugar: the more molasses, the darker the sugar. In addition, the color of sugar depends on the region where the sugar cane is grown - this is about the same as with oranges.
There are four main types of cane sugar: demerara - has a golden-brown color, which is what can most often be found in Russian stores; muscovado, also known as Barbados, has a very dark color and a strong caramel aroma; soft molasses sugar - has a slightly moist appearance and a very dark color; Turbinado, also known as raw sugar, is lighter in color because it is partially separated from the molasses using water and steam, but is not refined.
In Russia, sugar is produced from sugar beets; after refining the raw sugar, we get the white sugar we are used to. Unrefined beet sugar has an unpleasant taste and smell. Brown sugar (we are not talking about fake sugar here) is made from sugar cane and is not refined, as it initially has a very pleasant vanilla-caramel taste and smell. In our country, it is more profitable and cost-effective to produce beet sugar, since sugar cane does not grow on our territory, hence the higher price of cane sugar on the shelf.
illustration: Olya Volk