sugar

sugar

Sugar is a compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen belonging to a class of substances called carbohydrates. Sugar falls into three groups: the monosaccharides, disaccharides, and trisaccharides. The monosaccharide sugar is the simple sugar; this sugar includes fructose and glucose. The disaccharide sugar is formed by the union of two monosaccharides with the loss of one molecule of water. Disaccharide sugar includes lactose, maltose, and sucrose. Less well known is the trisaccharide sugar; raffinose is a trisaccharide present in cottonseed and in sugar beets.

Sugar (sucrose) is a carbohydrate that occurs naturally in every fruit and vegetable. It is the major product of photosynthesis, the process by which plants transform the sun's energy into food. Sugar occurs in greatest quantities in sugar cane and sugar beets from which it is separated for commercial use.

Sugar in natura is stored in the cane stalk or beet root. Sugar is separated from the rest of the plant material. For sugar cane, this is accomplished by a) pressing the cane to extract the juice; b) boiling the juice until it begins to thicken and sugar begins to crystallize; c) spinning the crystals in a centrifuge to remove the syrup, producing raw sugar; d) shipping the raw sugar to a refinery where it is washed and filtered to remove remaining non-sugar ingredients and color; and e) crystallizing, drying and packaging the refined sugar. Beet sugar processing is similar, but it is done in one continuous process without the raw sugar stage. The sugar beets are washed, sliced and soaked in hot water to separate the sugar-containing juice from the beet fiber. The sugar-laden juice is purified, filtered, concentrated and dried in a series of steps similar to cane sugar processing.