Sugar

The main function of sugar is to sweeten. We innately find a sweet taste pleasant and we appreciate it depending on how sweet a tooth we have. In very different cultures, a sweet taste is associated with trust and pleasure (and a bitter taste with rejection and punishment). The fact is that sugar affects the mood: for example, it is involved in the secretion of serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to pleasure and biorhythms. It is therefore not surprising if we want sweet foods when we feel sad. There are, however, other sources of sweetness, some of them not recommended. We should discover the different sources of sweetness.

How we can do it

Honey is the sweetener most used in North Africa and Europe, until it was deposed by sugar. The calorie content is similar to that of sugar, and that of other nutrients is low. It is considered to be a 1.5 times stronger sweetener than sugar.
Stevia is a plant originally from Paraguay, where it is used medicinally. It can be grown on any balcony and sweetness can be obtained from the leaves, which are 20-30 times sweeter than sugar. They can either be eaten or infusions can be made. Companies like Coca-Cola or Pepsico already use the sweetening component, which is 300 times sweeter than sugar. In some countries, there is an active movement to promote its medicinal properties and extend the domestic growing of the plant. For example, in Spain it can be found here.
Industrial sweeteners are substances that can be put into industrially made foods to give them sweetness without using sugar. Some have health drawbacks LINK inconv-edulcorants.htm, and they are best avoided.

Nutritionally, sugar largely has calories, that is, energy. The sugar molecules are formed by only two saccharides (simple sugars), which is why they are digested more quickly than other carbohydrates, like cereals, which contain longer saccharide chains. That is why their energy takes less time to reach the cells, which is why, when we make a brief, intense physical effort we recover quicker with sugar (or fruit, juices, chocolate, etc.) than by eating a sandwich or a dish of pasta. Brown sugar has a few other nutrients. We should find out the nutritional differences between white and brown sugar.

How we can do it

White or refined sugar is made almost exclusively (99.85%) of sucrose.
Brown sugar can also have different quantities of molasses (other components of sugar cane) and the darker it is the more it will have. The darkest sugars have between 7% and 15% molasses. This molasses above all contains vitamins and trace elements.
The calorie content and sweetening power are slightly lower in brown sugar. Slightly more brown sugar than white is needed to achieve the same level of sweetness; the quantity of calories will be similar in both cases.
Some people say that white sugar is damaging because when the molasses is taken out, vitamin B is taken away, therefore vitamin B has to be “stolen” from the body to digest it. But, with a varied diet, we can obtain vitamin B from many sources.

Sugar is also used as a preservative, for example to make jams or syrups, because many microbes cannot survive in a sweet environment. The food industry also uses it for various purposes.

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Data d'actualització: 04/01/2012 - 16:53