By Dcart
First used by man in Polynesia from where it spread to India — the so called “the reed which gives honey without bees” were found in India in 510 BC when the Emperor Darius of Persia invaded India.
Sugar cane and sugar beets are the most common sources of natural sugar. Sugar is one of the commodities that we have consumed from day to day, it has a sweet characteristic that add flavours to our foods and drinks. This plentiful sweetener although not necessary is very desirable because it adds palatability to the day’s meals — those sweet luscious deserts such as cakes, chocolates, cookies and so much more makes your meals complete.
Sugar cane grown primarily in the tropical and sub-tropical zones in the southern hemisphere, while sugar beet is grown mainly in the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere. More than one hundred countries produce sugar, 80 percent of which is made from sugar cane. The costs of producing sugar from the sugar cane are generally lower than in respect of processing sugar beets, and currently, 70 percent of the world’s sugar is consumed in the countries of origin, whilst the balance is traded on the world markets.
Top five producers and exporters in 2008/09:
First used by man in Polynesia from where it spread to India — the so called “the reed which gives honey without bees” were found in India in 510 BC when the Emperor Darius of Persia invaded India. It was then that the discovery of cane sugar was closely guarded secret whilst the Persian Emperor exported the finished product to any countries for a big profit. In 642 AD that guarded secret was broken when Arab people invaded Persia – they found sugar cane being grown and learnt show sugar was made.
In England, the first sugar was recorded in 1099 — as the western European countries expanded their trade with the east, and so the importation of sugar. Sugar production was a very lucrative business to the extent that sugar was so called ‘white gold’ and government enjoyed the vast taxed collected out of sugar industry. It was then on the 14th century that Cyprus became the major producer of sugar by using the slave labour on their sugar cane plantations – Syrian and Arab slaves the main sources of labour. Eventually, sugar made its way to Sicily where a familiar pattern of enslaved or coerced labour, relatively large land units, and well-developed long-range commerce was established—it was then became the model for Spain and Portuguese as they colonized the Mediterranean, Caribbean and the Asian continent.
When Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world ‘Americas’ 1492, he took sugar cane plants to grow in the Caribbean. However, the growth of the sugar industry in the Caribbean was stalled by the lack of human resources to toil the farmland, as most people were lured by gold and silver mining on the mainland.
Sugar beet is another source of sugar and was first identified in 1747 AD. German chemist, Andreas Marggraf, discovered that the crystals formed after a crude extraction from pulverized beetroots were identical in all properties with sugarcane crystals, and attempts to derive sugar from beets originate from his work. Karl Achard, a student of Marggraf developed processing methods for sugar extraction from the beet, and made the first selections of higher sugar type beets. However, due to cane sugar plantations stake, cane prevails over beets as the source of sugar not until the Napoleonic wars at the start of the 19th century as the British blockade shipment of canes to continental Europe. It was then more intensive search for sweeter beets, a plant breeding program and the construction of many crude factories in France and elsewhere to produce sugar from the sugar beet. The lifting the British blockade for the importation of canes to European countries, caused France sugar beet industry to constantly decline and never recover.
As there are bewildering number of sugars available in the supermarket, white sugar is the most widely popular and common. White sugar is essentially pure sucrose — there is no difference between that derived from cane and from beet.
There are several specialty white sugars:
· caster sugar is just a very small crystal size white sugar
· icing sugar is ground up white sugar, essentially sugar dust
· sugar cubes are lumps of sugar crystals “glued” together with a sugar syrup
· preserving sugar is a special large crystal
Brown sugar is a raw sugar produced from the first crystallization of the sugar cane, it is considered as pure and free from additional dyes and chemicals and this raw sugar is ideal for baking. It is often said that brown sugar is healthier option than white sugar. Brown sugar is essentially one of two types: sticky browns and free-flowing browns.
Natural brown sugar
·Turbinado sugar also known as turbinated sugar, it is made from sugar cane extract, which juice obtained is evaporated by heath before it was crystallized. Turbinado is large, light brown crystals that spun in a centrifuge to remove excess moisture and molasses.
·Muscovado sugar is much smaller crystals than turbinado sugar and is unrefined, dark brown sugar that is produced without centrifuging — ‘poor peoples sugar’ as it is called.
·Demerara sugar is a sugar that comes from the sugar cane and often used in home and sweetening coffee and tea. It comes from the extracted sugar cane juice, which is then steamed to form thick cane syrup, and dehydrated to form large golden brown crystals.
Sugar industry is so closely associated with hard labour. In the past, slave labourers had to sweat drop of bloods in order for sugar industries to flourish and prosper. In the present, hacienda’s for sugar cane plantations have relied vigorously with farm-less people who have toiled under the heat of the sun with a meager incomer.
To those all of us who can’t barely live without the palatability and sweetness of our foods and drinks are debtness with so much gratitude by the bitterness of those people who are tirelessly working in farmland to produce this so called white gold of the land.
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