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Title Sucrose or Sugar
Most of the information in the article SUGAR relates to sucrose, while the aticle SUCROSE is barely more than a stub. I think it would be better if SUGAR discussed and defined sugars in general, with mention or links to blood sugar, diabetes, glucose, corn syrup, candy, and quite a bit else. Much of the current article could be moved to SUCROSE, or the two articles could be combined. The maing sources of sugar are fairly straight forward yet complicated. Read through the article and carefully try memorizing substances in sugar. --Anon
- I see no harm in moving some of the sucrose specific stuff to its own article. IMO the chemistry section is more important than the sucrose section for this page, and the common applications of sugar could be moved to sucrose and glucose. Someone (me if nobody else goes ahead with it) could add more on bonding between the monomers, structure (linear and ring structures), cis-trans isomers and the shapes of polymers, etc... or perhaps someone's already done that on saccaride... --Steinsky 03:32, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- This chemistry graduate disagrees with moving non-chemistry sugar to sucrose. We need to try to keep the common meanings on the initial page and use different pages for in depth specialization. High fructose corn syrup is "sugar" in common usage, so the items can't be moved to sucrose and glucose without confusing people who aren't aware of the chemistry. Those who understand chemistry can better handle the transition to an in depth discussion of the chemistry in another article. I'd hate to have a six year old looking up sugar and finding chemistry rather than food! See also my added note that sugar=diabetes in parts of the southern US. This is to some extent a disambiguation page.
- It still seems odd to me to have sucrose be a different article from sugar, especially when table sugar points to sucrose, rather than sugar. It would make more sense to me to merge sucrose into this article, and discuss more general "sugars" elsewhere, like at carbohydrate. Shimmin 03:28, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
open chain or closed
- Glucose exists in an equilibrium of 10% chain, 90% ring, meaning it can exist safely in organisms.
What does this mean (the part about safety)? What would make it unsafe? Safe for the glucose, or safe for the organism? Josh Cherry 22:57, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- the chain form of glucose is the reactive form, the ring form isn't. The amount of chain form glucose is one of the limiting factors in the rate of respiration - if it was all chain form the reactions could occur too quickly, releasing too much energy. Or something like that. I can find some references if neccesary. -- Steinsky 11:35, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I changed the relevant section. Here's why.
First of all, apparently the open-chain form of glucose is much less common than the quoted 10% (about a thousand times less). Naturally I changed this.
As for the notion that the open-chain form is the substrate for energy metabolism, I can find no suggestion of this anywhere. In fact hexokinase and glucokinase, which catalyze the first step of glycolysis, seem to act on the closed-chain forms. This makes sense, as acting on such a rare form sounds like a bad strategy in terms of efficiency. Sure, you may not want to limit the rate of reaction, but just make less enzyme.
Which leads into the next point. If there were some danger of too-fast respiration, cells would just make less enzyme or something. Open-chain sugars wouldn't be a threat to life as we know it. And plenty of organisms would be happy to get faster metabolism for free.
I would add that open-chain tetrose and triose derivatives, and other molecules with free carbonyl groups, are common biochemical intermediates. Josh Cherry 02:46, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)
History question
The third crusade did not capture Jerusalem so how could one third of it have gone to the Venetians who established a sugar cane plantation. Something must be wrong here. Rmhermen 18:21, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)
- I have removed this section from the article for further work:
In 1190 AD, the 3rd Crusade was carried to the Holy Land in Venetian ships. The Crusaders agreed that Venice would be paid with one-third of the land conquered. In this way one-third of Tyre, Sidon and Jerusalem came under Venetian control. The single sugar plantation established in Jerusalem went to Corneiro, brother of the Doge of Venice. The sugarcane had been carried there from India by the Muslims and had originated in the Indonesian Archipelago.
Sugar was then made by the Muscavado method which took skill (and would subsist until modern refineries were built). First, the art of casting ceramic containers capable of withstanding 1100 degrees Celsius (2000 degrees Fahrenheit) had to be mastered. Then the cane juice had to be boiled to an exact temperature and consistency; left to cool for the right time; then turned over to dry in the famous “sugarloaf” form. This cone would have precious white sugar on top, then light brown, then dark brown and finally a soggy molasses slog.
From Jerusalem, generation-by-generation, descendants of Corneiro took sugar out into the Mediterranean; first to Cyprus, Chios, Crete and other Greek Islands.
Google finds no occurrence of "Corneiro" with "sugar". Is there an off-line source that can verify this? Other problems are that Jerusalem was not in Crusaders' hands after the third crusade, most online sources say that sugar was introduced to Europe after the Second Crusade, not the Third. The text seems to imply that sugar is cooked at 2000 °F when that is the firing temp of the ceramics and it is not clear why ceramics would be necessary as you can cook sugar cane in iron pots quite well. Rmhermen 19:05, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)
I need to review my sources on the Crusades at the time of the spread of sugar by the Corneiros from Jerusalem to the Greek Islands. The Venetians transported Crusaders in a crusade of that time. It might have been the second. The granting of land may not have coincided precisely with the capture of Jerusalem. My interest is more on the acquisition and diffusion of sugar production skills and the Spanish tradition of the Greater Antilles and the Portuguese (via the Dutch) of the Lesser Antilles. It is not clear how sugar plantations and production were managed between 1190 AD and the advent of printed books (after 1450 AD). Was labor free or enslaved? The introduction of sugar, island by island, is well recorded. Cyprus, Chios, Crete. Columbus specifically mentions his visits to Chios and the similarity of its flora to the Caribbean Islands potential. Ceramics were fired at 2000 °F to contain boiling sugar. Iron containers were not available until rather late. Copper boiling pots are still found in the Caribbean Islands from before 1750. In 1200 to 1400 ceramics alone were generally available. Corneiro documents are found in the Vatican, St. Georgio Library in Genoa and in the Venetian archives. I have examined settler lists up to 1700 in most sugar colonies. One of my books, CONQUEST OF EDEN 1493-1515 is available for free download at <www.mapesmonde.com>. Little acurate information is available, other than the hand written documents in the archives or libraries mentioned above, on sugar in the Mediterranean between 1200 and 1450. I have worked on this for 20 years and read most romance languages both modern and from that period. I believe one of the few reliable sources in print is Verlinger, former head of the Belgian College in Rome. His work is published (not translated) in Italian, Spanish, Flemish and English. I am contributing only work not yet on google -or why bother [user Michael Paiewonsky]].
- We do not promote original research on Wikipedia. We just compile facts - that's why we are an encyclopedia, not a research journal. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. That's not to say that much of this information isn't correct or able to be added to this article, we just need to be better about adding sources. Rmhermen 05:37, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)
Cleanup
This article needs some cleanup work, especially the long History of Sugar in the West section. Numerous ideas occur more than once in that section and parts of the timeline are out of order (Cuba). Rmhermen 13:58, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
Production and processing and chemistry
The refining process as described refers to Cane extraction only and not to Beet extraction which takes its own distinct form. I may supply a text myself - having spent about 13 years in the industry.
The text is more knowledgable on cane than beet, presumably the author is better versed in the one than the other. For example the cane sugar countries are identified but not the beet sugar ones.
On the subject of the chemistry
Sugars are taken to go up to about 4 units, certainly the trisaccharides dersever to be included as sugars.
Sucrose bias
Why is all non-sucrose chemistry being deleted from this article? It seems to be swinging towards a culinary bias now. Joe D (t) 14:10, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- The disambiguation states that it is about sugar as in sucrose the commodity. Put the chemistry into carbohydrate chemistry or disaccharides and monsaccharides, and refer to it from the chemistry section. PS This is far from a culinary article while it has my industrial production bias GraemeLeggett 15:12, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- If you say 'sugar' to the ordinary person, then they understand that to mean the gritty white stuff. 'Sugars' (plural) is something else.GraemeLeggett 09:30, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sweet Salt?
Does anyone have a citation for Eleassar777's addition today about sugar being called "sweet salt"? If not, it should get reverted.
Paulus Aegineta calls sugar the Indian salt, "in colour and form like common salt, but in taste and sweetness like honey." Shimmin 11:46, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
- Sugar causes diabetes
- Sugar causes obesity
- Diabetics must avoid sugar at all cost
Sugar and Health
I don't know how many times I've heard the phrase "sugar is bad for you". Well, I'd sure like to know why! What evidence do they have that supports this theory?
- Generally it seems to be that excessive consumption can be bad for you, more so if it causes you to omit other nutrients in your diet. This is a case of blaming the product rather than the consumer (IMHO) GraemeLeggett 13:32, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
- So what's the difference between excessive consumption of vegetables and excessive consumption of sugar? Scorpionman 19:47, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
- Energy levels & propaganda. The high energy value of sugar as compared to veggies is a major factor in making sugar the 'bad' also sugar by itself isn't a good nutrient (energy value aside). The other reason is the money earned from the sales of "light" (sugar-free) products - On that note, why aren't 'sugarfree' sweeteners mentioned in the article?
Facts have shown that sugar is very addictive and that on average Americans eat or drink 5 pounds of sugar a month, drastically higher than 10 years ago due to the fact that sugar is hidden in many foods under many different names, even in ketchup.
Yes we all know how much Americans like their Ketchup. Is it really so surprising that ketchup has sugar in it? It is sweet after all. Perhaps we could do away with the stereotyping and replace ketchup with something that's actually surprising to find has sugar in it.
- Ketchup is actually good for you, when consumed in reasonable quantities. Shinobu 08:54, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Sugar-high
However, recent studies that have been done show that there is no link between comsumption of sugar and hyperactivity levels, even when the researchers focused on children with a presumed "sugar-sensitivity". - What studies? Where can the results be seen? Bit more background info would be appreciated.
Agreed. The ccmr link provided is not informative, it is the opinion of one doctor citing unnamed studies, when in fact there is a wealth of debate in this field, and a lot of information to consider. The unequivocal "no" is rediculous. consider this document http://www.garynull.com/Issues/Sugar/SugarResponse.pdf in the bookmarks is the section on SUGAR AND CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOR. it is complete with references to journals with the results of the studies it cites. The sugar industry financed studies to disprove claims of increased hyperactivity, but the studies were not very convincing. Groups of only 30 children, the amount of sugar used in some studies only that of 1 can of soda/day, when the average child consumes more than three times that amount, &c. Considerably more impressive are Schoenthaler's long term studies (seven years, 800 new york schools, 1 million children) and smaller scale but no less impressive studies with incarcerated delinquents. There's a lot of information out there. I'm not qualified to edit this page, but I suggest refining section 4.1 (pun intended). OkashinaSakana 09:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
All sugars sweet?
"A sugar is a carbohydrate which is sweet to taste."
i hear that not all sugars are sweet (sugar referring to molecules of the formula (CH2O)n). anybody else with more experience that has the guts to go change the article? --Karch 05:47, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
- can't think of a non-sweet one off hand - they are not all as intense as sucrose, but if you get the conentration up...Some of the trisaccharides might be. GraemeLeggett 13:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
sugar
'why is sugar sweet?
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Why is sugar sweet?
Sugar sweet is that the taste buds of the toughe
Cuboid Sugar
I added a cuboid sugar picture in Wikimedia Commons. See this link. Regards, Carioca 01:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Little difference between beet and cane?
When making confectionary, I noticed that using beet or cane sugar strongly affects the taste of the end-product. However, I had refined beet sugar on the one hand, and brown cane sugar on the other, so I do not know whether the difference comes from the source plant or the refining process. Any other opinions on that?
- The difference between white and brown is strong - entriely due to the presence of the molasses, the differences between refined white from either source is less though I know of people who say they can tell the difference. This may be due to a a residual odour around white sugar - in Britain white from beet is stored in large silos before packing near the factories which do smell rather, and this could leave a slight vegetable quality to a freshly opened pack. Once it is actually used in something the difference would be undetectable. In practice apart from the subjective qulaities of taste and smell the only way to tellwhite sugar from cane and beet apart is by various chemical tests - the key one is the presence of raffinose - a trisaccharide. Any help to answer the question?GraemeLeggett 08:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Sugar rush
Currently, if you enter "sugar rush" to the search box on the left, you will arrive at the Sugar Rush article, which has a disambig link to the subheading in the sugar article. Perhaps it would be better to make a redirect from sugar rush, and add a notice in this article like "sugar rush redirects here, for the novel, see Sugar Rush", since probably most people would be looking for the effect and not the novel (which itself is named after the effect). PeepP 15:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Raw vs. Refined
I've frequently been told that raw sugar is better for you than refined. It would be nice is this article discussed this. Anthopos 04:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
sugar has also been attributed as a leading cause of diabetes
That's a news for most people. Please if it is true include citations in the Health Concerns section.
- Is that "attributed" as in proven - I doubt it personally. GraemeLeggett 16:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
- I think "diabetes and" should be removed from the sentence "In the United States sugar has also been attributed as a leading cause of diabetes and obesity." --68.96.241.18 01:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
- I deleted "diabetes and" from the first sentece and the second sentence in: "In the United States sugar has also been attributed as a leading cause of diabetes and obesity. As stated in the Diabetes in America, 2nd Edition [3] more and more children at younger ages are becoming victims of this deadly disease."
- I think "diabetes and" should be removed from the sentence "In the United States sugar has also been attributed as a leading cause of diabetes and obesity." --68.96.241.18 01:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to point you to this discussion, because it appears the article contains a few incorrect facts about edibility of sugar beet molasses. Shinobu 08:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)