Sugar, or sucrose, is a disaccharide that affects both the nervous system and metabolism and can generate a real addiction . Let's find out better.

What is sugar

" Sugar " means sucrose, a disaccharide formed by a molecule of glucose and one of fructose.

It is made from sugar cane (a plant cultivated in Central and South America) and from sugar beet (a plant cultivated in Europe).

Sugar beet is a variety of Beta vulgaris, a herbaceous plant of the Chenopodiacee family. In the early days of cultivation, the chard contained only 5-6% of sugar but with a rational selection, lasting over a century, it reached an average of 15%.

The sugar cane ( Saccharum officinarum ) is instead a tropical plant of the Poaceae family, with very sweet and juicy marrow. Panela sugar (bread sugar) has been the main sweetener used by the local population since colonial times in Latin America.

Despite the great development achieved by the sugar industry, panela continues to occupy an important place, both in the most humble sectors of the population and in industry.

How does sugar extraction take place?

For these two plants the extraction processes are different, while purification, concentration, refining and crystallization follow the same path.

• Extraction : the sugar canes are cut and squeezed by passing them through rollers that extract the juice. In this way a syrup or molasses is obtained which is left to settle and then concentrated making almost all the water evaporate. What results is whole brown sugar (the best from a nutritional point of view!). To extract sugar from beets, however, these are boiled at about 80 ° C for very long times. The syrup thus obtained is always concentrated by evaporating the water. The industrial extraction of beet sugar posed some technical problems; unlike cane sugar, already present in solution, sugar is contained in the tuber cells and must be extracted with water by osmosis through the cell walls. The extraction was facilitated by cutting the beets into thin strips about one centimeter long and ten centimeters long.
• Purification and concentration : the integral sugar, whether it is from cane or beet, is now purified with high-temperature lime milk and quicklime. The alkaline reaction and cooking cause the destruction of vitamins, proteins, enzymes and the precipitation of calcium salts. To eliminate excess lime, the sugary juice is treated with carbon dioxide. Later it is bleached in a process of continuous cooking, cooling, crystallization and centrifugation. The product thus obtained is raw, brownish and coarsely crystallized sugar .
• Refining and crystallization : raw sugar is treated with animal charcoal and sulphurous acid to filter it and further decolourise it. Finally it is then colored with a dye extracted from tar (E130) to obtain the classic white sugar .

From 100 kg of beets you get about 15 kg of crystalline sucrose and about 5 kg of molasses that still contain about two and a half kilos of sugar.

You can learn more about white sugar damage on the body

Effects of sugar on the body

White sugar needs vitamins and minerals to be digested. Since these substances have been eliminated during the refining process, the only available source is those already found in our body (taken from tissues and bones).

The consequences of this digestive process are the loss of calcium in the teeth and bones, with weakening of the skeleton and of the teeth.

Sucrose, in addition to having this demineralising effect on the body, decreases the efficacy of white blood cells and causes imbalances in the immune system (when we eat 50g of white sugar, the phagocytic capacity of white blood cells is reduced by about 76% 7 hours).

White sugar has a great influence both on the nervous system and on the metabolism, creating first stimulation then depression with consequent states of irritability, false euphoria, the need to take other sugar, etc. This is caused by the rapid and violent absorption of blood sugar which causes the so-called blood sugar to rise.

Faced with this sudden ascent, the pancreas responds by injecting insulin into the blood and this causes a sharp drop in the glycemic rate called the "hypoglycemic crisis" characterized by a state of malaise, sweating, irritability, aggression, weakness, the need to eat to feel again on. The body, to counteract this stressful situation, therefore secretes other hormones to bring the blood sugar to optimal levels, including adrenaline, the hormone of fear and aggression.

This "sugar-mania" is a real psychological and physical addiction that generally develops during childhood and often results in the consumption of other substances (coffee, alcohol, tobacco, etc.) during adulthood.

Curiosity about sugar

Due to its properties, sugar is also used in the food industry for food preservation. The use of sugar, as well as that of salt (dry or in brine) or alcohol, determines an effect in food similar to the removal of water and results in a preservative action.

In fact, salt and sugar bind to the water present making it unusable for potentially harmful microorganisms. White sugar is, in fact, one of the very rare foods that does not have an expiration date and this means that no bacteria can use it or, at most, can absorb the humidity contained in it.

There are different types of sugar on the market:

• wholemeal cane sugar, with a pasty and dark appearance, which is 100% concentrated cane juice and which does not undergo chemical treatments, preserves most of the vitamins, minerals (even trace elements), etc;
• raw sugar, which can be misleading, has undergone chemical treatments in the purification phase by removing most of the nutrients (it must be known that often, to accentuate the brown color, the raw sugar is treated with ammoniac caramel E150);
• refined or white sugar which is pure sucrose therefore pure energy not accompanied by vitamins and minerals that remain intact in whole sugar.