A Little Homework On Sugar

I posted something on facebook today about corn sugar. The respondent, who is anti-corn sweetner,  told me to do my homework. So, here it is.

 A Little homework on sugar.


High fructose corn syrup is simply a kind of corn sugar that is handled by your body like sugar or honey.

Whether it’s corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can’t tell the difference. Sugar is sugar.

HFCS is a kind of corn sugarHigh fructose corn syrup is composed of either 42 percent or 55 percent fructose, with the remaining sugars being primarily glucose and higher sugars. In terms of composition, high fructose corn syrup is nearly identical to table sugar (sucrose), which is composed of 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose. Glucose is one of the simplest forms of sugar that serves as a building block for most carbohydrates. Fructose is a simple sugar commonly found in fruits and honey.

For the most part, you'll find high fructose corn syrup, a sugar from corn, in the same kinds of products in which you would find sugar or other sweeteners. Many healthy foods are made with caloric sweeteners, which often play a key role in the integrity of these products that has little to do with sweetening. At the same time, corn sugars offer some unique functional benefits that help companies offer more choices in food products. High fructose corn syrup enhances fruit and spice flavors in foods such as yogurt and spaghetti sauces, gives chewy breakfast bars their soft texture and also protects freshness. High fructose corn syrup keeps products fresh by maintaining consistent moisture.

Chemical formula for sugar

Sugar is white cystalline solid group of soluble carbohydrates that are sweet tasting in nature. These sugar molecules include glucose, sucrose, lactose, fructose, maltose, lactose and galactose. Sugar molecules are classified as monosaccharides or disaccharides.The following table lists the common sugar molecules are their chemical formula.

 Name
   

 Type of sugar (mono =1 or di =2 sugar units)
   

 Chemical formula of sugar

 Glucose
   

 Monosaccharide
   

 C6H12O6

 Fructose
   

 Monosaccharide
   

 C6H12O6

 Galactose
   

 Monosaccharide
   

 C6H12O6

 Lactose
   

 Disaccharide (glucose + galactose)
   

 C12H22O11

 Sucrose
   

 Disaccharide (glucose + fructose)
   

 C12H22O11

 Maltose
   

 Disaccharide (glucose + glucose)
   

 C12H22O11

The monosaccharides glucose, galactose and fructose all have the same molecular formula but they vary in their molecular structure.

The three common disaccharides lactose, sucrose and maltose also have the same molecular formula but differ in their structural formula

Lactose is also known as ‘milk sugar’ because it is primarily found in dairy products. Lactose intolerance is a genetic disorder which affects many people who lack the enzyme necessary to break down lactose into glucose and galactose. This prevents lactose being absorbed by the body.

Sucrose is obtained from sugar cane and sugar beet and is commonly called table sugar.


Chemical formula for sucrose

Sucrose or common table sugar is a sweet white cystalline solid often used as a food additive.

The chemical formula for sucrose is C12H22O11 and its molar mass is 342.30 g/mol. The solublity of sucorse in water at 20 ̊C is 211.5 grams /100 mls.

The structural formula for sucrose is reprented by the following diagram

Sucrose is a made up of the two simple sugars glucose and fructose which are joined togther by a chemical bond known as a glycosidic bond.

Sucrose is a disaccharide sugar. During the digestive process the sucrose molecule is broken down into the two monosaccharides glucose and fructose which can be easily absorbed through the villi of the intenstine.

Sucrose      + water =hydrolysis=> Glucose + Fructose

C12H22O11 +  H2O =hydrolysis=>  C6H12O6 + C6H12O6




Simple Facts

        

Learn the facts about high fructose corn syrup

High fructose corn syrup is simply a kind of corn sugar that is handled by your body the same as sugar or honey.

    “All sugar you eat is the same. That’s what we know now that we didn’t know in 2004.”

    Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Market Report on TBD.com, May 5, 2011

    “When high-fructose corn syrup and sugar are absorbed into our bloodstream, the two are indistinguishable by the body.”

    Joan Salge Blake, M.S., R.D., L.D.N., Clinical Associate Professor at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, Redbook, June 2010

Many people do not realize that high fructose corn syrup is composed of the same simple sugars found in table sugar and honey — glucose and fructose — in virtually the same ratios.

    “White sugar, brown sugar, sucrose, honey, maple syrup, even high-fructose corn syrup are all roughly the same mix of the simple sugars called glucose and fructose.”
    Joy Bauer, M.S., R.D., C.D.N., Nutrition and Health Expert for The TODAY Show, Woman’s Day, May 1, 2010

For the most part, you’ll find high fructose corn syrup in the same kinds of products in which you would find sugar or other sweeteners. 

    “HFCS is a useful ingredient because of its sweetness and ability to blend with other food and beverage ingredients. When methods for producing HFCS improved, food and beverage companies replaced other sweeteners with HFCS.”
    International Food Information Council, Questions and Answers About Fructose, September 29, 2009

High fructose corn syrup — corn sugar — has been used in the food supply for more than forty years to make high fiber foods palatable, maintain freshness and enhance flavors in foods and beverages. Additionally, high fructose corn syrup keeps our foods affordable.

    “HFCS was developed in the 1970s when the food industry began looking for alternatives to traditional cane sugar that could provide similar sweetness, taste and quality for a fraction of the price. All forms of HFCS come from corn starch, and are mixtures of the natural glucose and fructose that exist in the starch itself. No artificial ingredients are used in the manufacturing process. The resulting HFCS product is extremely similar to table sugar (sucrose) and has a similar taste.”
    Phil Lempert, The Supermarket Guru ®, Food, Nutrition, & Science from The Lempert Report, April 30, 2010

A sugar is a sugar whether it comes from corn sugar or cane sugar. All are safe and natural. Your body can’t tell the difference.

    “Regardless if it’s honey, cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup or just plain sugar, we metabolize it the same.” Carrie Taylor, R.D., L.D.N., Registered Dietitian for Big Y Foods, ABC 40 News At 12, April 8, 2009

Like all foods, sweeteners should be consumed in moderation as part of a balanced diet.

    “… consumers can safely enjoy a range of nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners when consumed in a diet that is guided by current federal nutrition recommendations … as well as individual health goals.”
    American Dietetic Association, Use of Nutritive and Nonnutritive Sweeteners, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, February 2004



High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) — also called glucose-fructose syrup in the UK, glucose/fructose in Canada, and high-fructose maize syrup in other countries — comprises any of a group of corn syrups that has undergone enzymatic processing to convert some of its glucose into fructose to produce a desired sweetness. In the United States, consumer foods and products typically use high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener. It has become very common in processed foods and beverages in the U.S., including breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments.

The most widely used varieties of high-fructose corn syrup are: HFCS 55 (mostly used in soft drinks), approximately 55% fructose and 42% glucose; and HFCS 42 (used in many foods and baked goods), approximately 42% fructose and 53% glucose. HFCS-90, approximately 90% fructose and 10% glucose, is used in small quantities for specialty applications, but primarily is used to blend with HFCS 42 to make HFCS 55.

Honey

Honey is a mixture of different types of sugars, water, and small amounts of other compounds. Honey typically has a fructose/glucose ratio similar to HFCS 55, as well as containing some sucrose and other sugars. Like HFCS, honey contains water and has approximately 3 kcal per gram. Because of its similar sugar profile and lower price, HFCS has been used illegally to "stretch" honey. As a result, checks for adulteration of honey no longer test for higher-than-normal levels of sucrose, which HFCS does not contain, but instead test for minute quantities of proteins that can be used to differentiate between HFCS and honey


Processing Cane sugar


Traditionally, sugarcane processing requires two stages. Mills extract raw sugar from freshly harvested cane, and sometimes bleach it to make "mill white" sugar for local consumption. Refineries, often located nearer to consumers in North America, Europe, and Japan, then produce refined white sugar, which is 99 percent sucrose. These two stages are slowly merging. Increasing affluence in the sugar-producing tropics increased demand for refined sugar products, driving a trend toward combined milling and refining.

Refining

Sugar refining further purifies the raw sugar. It is first mixed with heavy syrup and then centrifuged in a process called 'affination'. Its purpose is to wash away the sugar crystals' outer coating, which is less pure than the crystal interior. The remaining sugar is then dissolved to make a syrup, about 60 percent solids by weight.

The sugar solution is clarified by the addition of phosphoric acid and calcium hydroxide, which combine to precipitate calcium phosphate. The calcium phosphate particles entrap some impurities and absorb others, and then float to the top of the tank, where they can be skimmed off. An alternative to this "phosphatation" technique is 'carbonatation,' which is similar, but uses carbon dioxide and calcium hydroxide to produce a calcium carbonate precipitate.

After filtering any remaining solids, the clarified syrup is decolorized by filtration through activated carbon. Bone char is traditionally used in this role.[9] Some remaining color-forming impurities adsorb to the carbon. The purified syrup is then concentrated to supersaturation and repeatedly crystallized in a vacuum, to produce white refined sugar. As in a sugar mill, the sugar crystals are separated from the molasses by centrifuging. Additional sugar is recovered by blending the remaining syrup with the washings from affination and again crystallizing to produce brown sugar. When no more sugar can be economically recovered, the final molasses still contains 20–30 percent sucrose and 15–25 percent glucose and fructose.

To produce granulated sugar, in which individual grains do not clump, sugar must be dried, first by heating in a rotary dryer, and then by blowing cool air through it for several days.

Processing Beet Sugar

After they are harvested, beets are hauled to a factory.

After reception at the processing plant, the beet roots are washed, mechanically sliced into thin strips called cossettes, and passed to a machine called a diffuser to extract the sugar content into a water solution.

Diffusers are long vessels of many metres in which the beet slices go in one direction while hot water goes in the opposite direction. The movement may either be caused by a rotating screw or the whole rotating unit, and the water and cossettes move through internal chambers. There are three common designs of diffuser: the horizontal rotating 'RT' (Raffinerie Tirlemontoise, manufacturer), inclined screw 'DDS' (De Danske Sukkerfabrikker), or vertical screw "Tower". Modern tower extraction plants have a processing capacity of up to 17,000 metric tons per day. A less common design uses a moving belt of cossettes, with water pumped onto the top of the belt and poured through. In all cases the flow rates of cossettes and water are in the ratio one to two. Typically cossettes take about 90 minutes to pass through the diffuser, the water only 45 minutes. These are all countercurrent exchange methods that extract more sugar from the cossettes using less water than if they merely sat in a hot water tank. The liquid exiting the diffuser is called raw juice. The colour of raw juice varies from black to a dark red depending on the amount of oxidation, which is itself dependent on diffuser design.

The used cossettes, or pulp, exit the diffuser at about 95% moisture but low sucrose content. Using screw presses, the wet pulp is then pressed down to 75% moisture. This recovers additional sucrose in the liquid pressed out of the pulp, and reduces the energy needed to dry the pulp. The pressed pulp is dried and sold as animal feed, while the liquid pressed out of the pulp is combined with the raw juice, or more often introduced into the diffuser at the appropriate point in the countercurrent process. The final byproduct, Vinasse, is used as fertilizer or growth substrate for yeast cultures.

During diffusion, there is a degree of breakdown of the sucrose into invert sugars. These can undergo further breakdown into acids. These breakdown products are not only losses of sucrose but also have knock-on effects reducing the final output of processed sugar from the factory. To limit (thermophilic) bacterial action, the feed water may be dosed with formaldehyde and control of the feed water pH is also practiced. There have been attempts at operating diffusion under alkaline conditions, but the process has proven problematic. The improved sucrose extraction in the diffuser is offset by processing problems in the next stages.

 Carbonatation

Carbonatation is a procedure which removes impurities from raw juice before it undergoes crystallization. First, the juice is mixed with hot milk of lime (a suspension of calcium hydroxide in water). This treatment precipitates a number of impurities, including multivalent anions such as sulfate, phosphate, citrate and oxalate, which precipitate as their calcium salts and large organic molecules such as proteins, saponins and pectins, which aggregate in the presence of multivalent cations. In addition, the alkaline conditions convert the simple sugars, glucose and fructose, along with the amino acid glutamine, to chemically stable carboxylic acids. Left untreated, these sugars and amines would eventually frustrate crystallization of the sucrose.

Next, carbon dioxide is bubbled through the alkaline sugar solution, precipitating the lime as calcium carbonate (chalk). The chalk particles entrap some impurities and absorb others. A recycling process builds up the size of chalk particles and a natural flocculation occurs where the heavy particles settle out in tanks (clarifiers). A final addition of more carbon dioxide precipitates more calcium from solution; this is filtered off, leaving a cleaner, golden light-brown sugar solution called thin juice.

Before entering the next stage, the thin juice may receive soda ash to modify the pH and sulphitation with a sulfur-based compound to reduce colour formation due to decomposition of monosaccharides under heat.
Evaporation

The thin juice is concentrated via multiple-effect evaporation to make a thick juice, roughly 60% sucrose by weight and similar in appearance to pancake syrup. Thick juice can be stored in tanks for later processing, reducing load on the crystallization plant.
Crystallization

Thick juice is fed to the crystallizers. Recycled sugar is dissolved into it, and the resulting syrup is called mother liquor. The liquor is concentrated further by boiling under a vacuum in large vessels (the so-called vacuum pans) and seeded with fine sugar crystals. These crystals grow as sugar from the mother liquor forms around them. The resulting sugar crystal and syrup mix is called a massecuite, from "cooked mass" in French. The massecuite is passed to a centrifuge where the liquid is removed from the sugar crystals. The remaining syrup is rinsed off with water and the crystals are dried in a granulator using warm air.

The remaining syrup is fed to another crystallizer from which a second batch of sugar is produced. This sugar ("raw") is of lower quality with a lot of color and impurities and is the main source of the sugar that is dissolved again into the mother liquor. The syrup from the raw is also sent to a crystalliser. From this, a very low-quality sugar crystal is produced (known in some systems as "AP sugar") that is also redissolved. The syrup separated is molasses, which still contains sugar but contains too much impurity to undergo further processing economically.

Actual procedure may vary from the above description, with different recycling and crystallization processes.


Corn Sugar Processing

Corn refiners make high fructose corn syrup from corn starch, which must be separated from other components of the kernel. Cleaned, shelled corn is soaked in warm water containing 0.1% to 0.2% sulfur dioxide, which softens the kernels and facilitates separation of the various components: starch, hull, protein and oil.

The soaked corn is milled to release the oil-containing germ, which is separated from the components by hydrocyclones.

The resulting starch, hull and protein components are then finely ground and screened to remove the hull. The resulting slurry is passed to a continuous centrifuge to separate the starch and protein components.

The starch is washed and concentrated in a series of hydrocyclones.

The enzyme alpha-amylase is added to a slurry of starch and water to liquefy or reduce the particle size of the starch to produce glucose polymers. Enzymes are nature's catalysts to get things done. This step is followed by saccharification with the enzyme glucoamylase, which breaks the glucose polymers down to their basic building blocks. The resulting glucose mixture is filtered and clarified by centrifugation, carbon filtration and ion exchange.

A small amount of magnesium is added to the purified glucose solution. Glucose isomerase, an enzyme, is used to convert a portion of the glucose to fructose. The resulting mixture is 42% fructose, 53% glucose and 5% higher sugars. The mixture is refined with carbon filters and ion exchange. The fructose content of the resulting syrup is enriched by chromotographic separation, accomplished by passing the syrup through a column of adsorbent containing calcium or other cation that attracts the fructose portion of the syrup. This step produces a syrup that is about 90% fructose, which is then blended with the 42% fructose syrup to produce one that is 55% fructose, 42% glucose and 3% higher sugars.

The final syrup is refined by carbon filtration and ion exchange and then evaporated to 77% solids for shipping.


Sweeteners Facts

Sweeteners that contribute calories to the diet are called caloric or nutritive sweeteners. All common caloric sweeteners have the same composition: they contain fructose and glucose in essentially equal proportions. All caloric sweeteners require processing to produce a food-grade product.

Fructose    a simple sugar commonly found in fruits and honey 

Glucose    a simple sugar that serves as a building block for most carbohydrates

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)    free (unbonded) fructose and glucose in liquid (syrup) form; produced from corn

Sucrose    crystalline white table sugar; produced from sugar cane or sugar beets; fructose and glucose bonded together

Invert sugar    free fructose and glucose in liquid (syrup) form; produced from the breakdown of sugar

Hydrolyzed cane juice    free fructose and glucose in liquid (syrup) form; produced from the breakdown of cane juice

Honey    liquid (syrup) product; principally free fructose and glucose with minor levels of other sugars and some trace minerals

Fruit juice concentrate    concentrated, filtered, clarified fruit juice; fructose-to-glucose ratio varies by fruit source, but generally equivalent to other nutritive sweeteners (orange juice and grape juice have a fructose to glucose ratio of 1 to 1, while apple juice has a ratio of 2 to 1)

Nutritional Characteristics

Common caloric sweeteners share the same general nutritional characteristics:

    each has roughly the same composition—equal proportions of the simple sugars fructose and glucose;
    each offers approximately the same sweetness on a per-gram basis; one gram (dry basis) of each adds 4 calories to foods and beverages;
    each is absorbed from the gut at about the same rate;
    similar ratios of fructose and glucose arrive in the bloodstream after a meal, which are indistinguishable in the body.

Since caloric sweeteners are nutritionally equivalent, they are interchangeable in foods and beverages with no measurable change in metabolism.
What if caloric sweeteners are removed from foods?

To replace one caloric sweetener with another provides no change in nutritional value. To remove sweeteners entirely from their commonly used applications and replace them with high intensity sweeteners would drastically alter product flavor and sweetness, require the use of chemical preservatives to ensure product quality and freshness, result in a reduction in perceived food quality (bran cereal with the caloric sweeteners removed would have the consistency of sawdust), and would likely require the addition of bulking agents to provide the expected texture, mouth feel or volume for most baked goods.

Sources

Hanover LM, White JS. 1993. Manufacturing, composition, and applications of fructose. Am J Clin Nutr 58(suppl 5):724S-732S.

White JS. 1992. Fructose syrup: production, properties and applications, in FW Schenck & RE Hebeda, eds, Starch Hydrolysis Products – Worldwide Technology, Production, and Applications. VCH Publishers, Inc. pp. 177-200.

White JS. 2008. Straight talk about high-fructose corn syrup: what it is and what it ain't. Am J Clin Nutr 88(6):1716S-1721S.

Widdowson EM and McCance RA. 1935. The available carbohydrate of fruits: Determination of glucose, fructose, sucrose and starch. Biochem. J. 29(1):151-156.



American Medical Association



"After studying current research, the American Medical
Association (AMA) today concluded that high fructose syrup does not appear to contribute more to obesity than other caloric sweeteners..."

American Medical Association press release, June 17, 2008

"Because the composition of HFCS and sucrose are so similar, particularly on absorption by the body, it appears unlikely that HFCS contributes more to obesity or other conditions than sucrose."

American Medical Association Report 3 of the Council on Science and Public Health (A-08), June 2008




American Dietetic Association

"No persuasive evidence supports the claim that high fructose corn syrup is a unique contributor to obesity."

Hot Topics paper on High Fructose Corn Syrup, December 2008



"High fructose corn syrup ... is nutritionally equivalent to sucrose. Both sweeteners contain the same number of calories (4 per gram) and consist of about equal parts of fructose and glucose. Once absorbed into the blood stream, the two sweeteners are indistinguishable."

Hot Topics paper on High Fructose Corn Syrup, December 2008



"Most scientific experts now agree that high fructose corn syrup and sucrose produce similar effects on human metabolic responses. Studies comparing high fructose corn syrup and sucrose have found no significant differences in fasting blood glucose, insulin, leptin and ghrelin. Satiety studies of the two sweeteners have found no differences in appetite, feelings of fullness or short-term energy intakes."

Hot Topics paper on High Fructose Corn Syrup, December 2008


"The source of the added sugar – whether sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, honey or fruit juice concentrate – should not be of concern; rather it is the amount of total calories that is important."

Hot Topics paper on High Fructose Corn Syrup, December 2008


"Thus, it is the position of The American Dietetic Association that consumers can safely enjoy a range of nutritive and nonnutritive sweeteners when consumed in a diet that is guided by current federal nutrition recommendations … as well as individual health goals."

Use of Nutritive and Nonnutritive Sweeteners, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, February 2004


“Excess body fat [obesity] arises from the energy imbalance caused by taking in too much energy and expending too little energy. ... Obesity is a complex problem and its cause cannot be simply attributed to any one component of the food supply such as sweeteners.”

Use of Nutritive and Nonnutritive Sweeteners, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, February 2004

Conclusion:

The major problem between sweeteners seems to be who gets the biggest slice of the financial pie. Whether it is the producers of Cane or Beet Sugars, or the producers of Corn sugar.

The bottom line is: “Whether it’s corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can’t tell the difference. Sugar is sugar.”