Do you know what sugar is made of?

In order to understand what sugar is made in our country, it is worth turning to those regulatory documents that regulate its production. First of all, this is GOST №52678-2006, approved in 2006 (December 27). According to its provisions, various types of sugar (including raw sugar, sugar powder and sugar-refined sugar) are released from sugar beet.

Sugar beet is a root crop that can be grown in climatic conditions of Russia, unlike palm trees, sugar cane, certain sorghum and millet varieties, from which sweet extracts are obtained in other regions of the planet (Southeast Asia, China, Cuba, Japan) .

To find out what sugar is made of, it is necessary to consider in general terms the technological chain of production of this product. In the first stages, the root crops of sugar beet (they, by the way, are light, not red) are washed, weighed and shredded to the state of chips. Then, in the diffuser, the juice is extracted from the raw material by means of hot water. It contains about 15% sucrose. The juice is separated from the so-called pulp, which is passed on to the livestock feed.

Many people, thinking about what sugar is made of, do not even realize how many additional components are involved in this process. For example, the obtained beet juice is mixed with lime milk, then, after precipitation of impurities, carbon dioxide is filtered through the solution for filtration (sometimes the mixture is filtered through ion exchange resins).

What sugar is made of, after cleaning, looks like sugar syrup. It is subsequently evaporated, treated with sulfur dioxide and filtered again. At this stage, the solution already contains about 60% of the sugar. After that, the raw material must be crystallized in vacuum apparatus at a temperature of about 75 degrees Celsius. The resulting mixtures are passed through centrifuges to separate sucrose from molasses, resulting in crystalline sugar.

How do sugar refined sugar? Here, the method of drying and pressing the sugar syrup is usually used, which is then cut into cubes. A more complex and costly method allows the initial spillage of the syrup according to the forms to which purified sugar is added. Raw material dries in forms, is extracted and separated.

Today on the shelves you can find quite expensive brown sugar. Its color is due to the fact that sugar raw materials are not completely separated from the components of reed molasses, which gives it an additional flavor and color. How do sugar from cane? The production cycle of this product is similar to the sugar cycle from beet. But there are certain features. For example, juice in the first stage is squeezed out with the help of rollers, and processing is characterized by the use of a small amount of lime (up to 3% of the weight of beets and up to 0.07% of the weight of the stems).

Which sugar is more useful, everyone decides for himself. Reed is exposed to less chemical attack, which, on the one hand, is good, but on the other hand it can give undesirable impurities. In addition, brown sugar is considered more caloric than white sugar.