TWL+What+is+sugar?

//**__ What is sugar? __**//

Sugar is sucrose, a carbohydrate found in every fruit and vegetable. All green plants manufacture sugar through photosynthesis, the process by which plants transform sunlight into their food and energy supply. Once photosynthesis creates sugar, plants have the unique ability to change sugar to starch and starch to various sugars for storage. This diversity provides us with a wide variety of tasty fruits and vegetables, from the starchy potato to the sweet carrot.  Sugar cane and sugar beet plants contain sucrose in large quantities, and that’s why they are used as commercial sources of sugar. A stalk of the cane plant contains about 14% sugar. Sugar beets contain about 16% sugar. 1/6th of a watermelon has 17.4 grams of sucrose and a peach has 4.7grams of sucrose. If it were as efficient to extract sucrose/sugar from either the watermelon or the peach the product would be the same, pure natural sugar.   There is no difference in sugar produced from either cane or beet. The chemical makeup of sugar from a sugar beet and from sugar cane is identical. By the time sugar reaches the package or sugar bowl, it is 99.9% sucrose.  Cane sugar and beet sugar tastes, smells and behaves exactly the same. Sugar cane, a giant grass that thrives in a warm, moist climate, stores sugar in its stalk. The sugar beet grows best in a temperate climate and stores its sugar in its white root. Nature produces sugar from both sources in the same way all green plants produce sugar—as a means of converting the sun’s energy into food reserves. The photo on the left is beet while the photo on the right is sugarcane.