Sugar

Magnification of grains of sucrose, the most common sugar

Sugar^[1] is the common name for several chemical substances, some of which taste sweet. Mostly, it refers to sucrose, lactose, or fructose. Sugar is in certain kinds of food, or it is added to make it sweeter.

Regular or pure sugar, or sucrose, is extracted from sugarcane or sugar beet. Brazil produces the most sugar per person and India's total consumption of sugar is the highest for a country.^[2] Fructose is the sugar that is in fruits.

Sucrose and fructose are both made by two smaller sugars. Glucose is the more common of these smaller sugars. The human body changes regular sugar into the smaller sugars.

Chemical structure of sucrose – made of two smaller sugars

Sugar cane field in Cuba

Sugars are a kind of carbohydrate. That is, sugars are made from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.^[3] Carbohydrates can be simple carbohydrates or complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are made of only one or a few of the smallest sugars. Complex carbohydrates are made of many of the smallest sugars.

Sugar can be different colors. For example, brown sugar has molasses in it, and is often used in baking.

There are 387 calories in 100 g of sugar.^[4]

Production

Sugarcane

Sugarcane production – 2020
Country	Millions of tonnes
Brazil	757.1
India	370.5
China	108.1
Thailand	75.0
World	1,870
Source: FAOSTAT, United Nations^[5]

Global production of sugarcane in 2020 was 1.9 billion tonnes, with Brazil producing 40% of the world total and India 20% (table).

Sugar cane can be any of many species, or their hybrids, of giant grasses in the genus, or group Saccharum in the family Poaceae. They have been grown in tropical climates in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia over centuries for the sucrose found in their stems.^[6]

World production of raw sugar, main producers^[7]

Sugar cane needs a climate with no frost, with enough rain in the growing season so that the plant grows. It is harvested by a machine or by hand, and cut into pieces and is moved to the processing plant where it is milled. The juice is extracted with water or it is extracted by diffusion.^[8] The juice is clarified with lime and heated to destroy enzymes. The thin syrup result is concentrated in evaporators, after then water is removed. The supersaturated solution is added with sugar crystals, making crystals and drying easier.^[8] Molasses, fiber from the stems,^[8] is burned to give energy for the sugar extraction process. The raw sugar crystals have a sticky brown coating and may be bleached by sulfur dioxide, or may be treated in a carbonation process to make it whiter.^[8] About 2,500 litres (660 US gal) of water is needed for every one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of sugar to be produced.^[9]

Sugar beet

Sugar beet production – 2020
Country	Millions of tonnes
Russia	33.9
United States	30.5
Germany	28.6
France	26.2
World	253
Source: FAOSTAT, United Nations^[10]

In 2020, global production of sugar beets was 253 million tonnes, led by Russia with 13% of the world total (table).

Sugar beet is harvested during cool seasons,^[11] and then a rotor beater cuts off the head of the beet, which then is then left in the field. A beet loader pulls the beets out of the earth and into a truck, where the beet is driven to a processing plant.^[12] The processor slices the beets into thin chips called cossettes. The extraction takes place in a diffuser where the beet is kept in contact with hot water for about an hour.^[13]^[14] The diffuser is a large agitated tank in which the cossettes slowly move from one end to the other as the water is moved in the opposite direction. This is called counter-current flow and as the water goes it becomes a stronger and stronger sugar juice.

History

In around 8,000 BC, people in New Guinea and Polynesia had sugar cane where it had then came to Asia. With interest of the people who had discovered it, sugar cane and it's practices of planting sugar cane had gone to Southwest Asia, including China and India.^[15]^[16]

In 510 BC the Persia (Iran), Emperor Darius invaded India where he found cane sugar which was named "the reed which gives honey without bees". The growing was kept unknown and showing the sugar for a rich profit.^[16] The Arab invasion of Persia in 642 BC, sugar cane refining techniques had been added by Eastern Mediterranean people.^[17]

Records from the Ancient Greeks and Romans would suggest that sugar cane was used in medicine. In around 350 CE, Indian people discovered how to crystallize sugar.^[18] Around 650 CE, crystallized sugar became a culinary staple across India, China, and the Middle East.^[19]

Sugar Media

Sugars (clockwise from top-left): white refined, unrefined, unprocessed cane, brown
Sugar cane plantation ready for harvest, São Paulo State, Brazil
Two elaborate sugar triomfi of goddesses for a dinner given by the Earl of Castlemaine, British Ambassador in Rome, 1687
Sucrose: a disaccharide of glucose (left) and fructose (right), important molecules in the body.
World production of raw sugar, main producers
Sugar cubes
Brown sugar examples: Muscovado (top), dark brown (left), light brown (right).
A jar of honey with a dipper and a biscuit
Brown sugar crystals