What Is Refined Sugar?
Refined sugar is the white granulated sugar used in food and beverages. It is produced from either plant sap or sucrose extracted from beets.
Sugar refinery started in India in the early 17th century when Jesuit priests set up a small refining operation near Cholamandalam, 60km south of modern Chennai. Nowadays, most countries have their sugar industry based on local climatic conditions.
How Is Sugar Made?
Manufacturing white refined sugar begins with the extraction of sugar cane juice or sugar beet juice from mature plants, followed by clarification to remove impurities such as molasses (a viscous by-product containing minerals).
The juice is then concentrated by boiling under a vacuum to produce syrup of 80% sucrose. By dissolving the syrup in water, unrefined sugar (also known as “raw” or “turbinado” sugar) is produced, which is about 99% pure sucrose.
Refining consists of purifying this syrup to produce refined white sugar with uniform size and shape crystalline particles. The final product’s color depends on how much contamination was in the original juice or syrup. As impurities are removed from the sucrose mixture, a straightforward solution emerges.
What Is Brown Sugar?
The sugars we eat come in many forms, including cane sugar (sucrose), beet sugar (another type of sucrose), fruit sugars such as fructose and glucose, honey, maple syrup, molasses, and high-fructose corn syrup. Of all these nutritive sweeteners, only raw cane sugar is unrefined.
Brown sugar gets its color from the presence of molasses. Molasses are thick liquids that are a by-product of the processing to remove pure sucrose crystals from the harvested sugar cane stalks. The longer it stays inside the canes during harvest time or inside equipment used for manufacturing, the darker brown the molasses will become because it has more time to ferment into sugars.
Refining white crystals from brown sugar leaves behind less desirable toasted sugar crystals with an even more robust flavor than regular brown sugar. However, toasting granulated sugars makes them tastier for baking.
Refined sugar is better than brown sugar in energy density because refined sugar contains less water and more pure sucrose, resulting in a higher glycemic index.
The glycemic index of brown sugar is 63, white granulated sugar is around 95-96. This higher GI value makes refined sugars more beneficial for weight control than brown or unrefined sugars.
Why is refined sugar terrible:
Refined sugar is very bad for health. Everyone knows that Refined sugar increases blood glucose levels too much, but most people don’t know the harmful effects of refined sugar in your body.
We are discussing these points:
1-refined sugar causes diabetes 2-refined sugar destroys the teeth 3-refined sugar makes you obese 4-refined sugar weakens your immune system 5-refined sugar lowers the iron in our body 6-refined sugars cause mood swings 7-refined sugars add to heart diseases 8 -and many other harmful effects of refined sugars on human beings.
Refined sugars examples:
refined sugar means white sugar. It is known as sucrose which contains many chemicals and bleaching agents to give it a sparkling look that we all love.
Refined sugars examples are:
Table sugar, high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar, beet sugar, brown sugar, etc.
1-refined sugar causes diabetes:
Diabetes is a prevalent disease these days due to overeating junk food, smoking, excessive drinking of alcohol, & other reasons. Still, there is something else responsible for increasing the cases of diabetics in our society today.
It’s refined sugars. Refined sugars raise blood glucose level too much, which cause diabetes type 2 quickly. And if you don’t remove these refined sugars from your diet and continue eating them, then diabetes will become more severe and be called type 1 diabetes.
2-refined sugar destroys the teeth:
Refined sugar destroys teeth. It contains a high amount of acids which cause tooth decay, cavities & gum problems very soon if refined sugar is consumed frequently. So you should avoid eating such foods that contain refined sugars in them.
3-refined sugar makes you obese:
Excess intake of refined sugars causes obesity very quickly because it enhances fat synthesis in our body too much. That’s why most people get fat when consuming many soft drinks, ice creams, etc. wh. Ich contains a lot of refined sugars in them. This obesity leads to many other health-related problems too.
4-refined sugar weakens your immune system:
It has been found that constant consumption of refined sugars hinders the activity of white blood cells, which are responsible for fighting infections in our bodies. So you should try to remove refined sugars from your diet if you want a robust immune power.
5-refined sugar lowers the iron in our body:
iron is essential because it carries oxygen throughout our body. It is also necessary for growing children to have sufficient iron.
But when there is excess intake of refined sugars or not enough intake of vitamin C, this causes low levels of hemoglobin & red blood cells in human beings, which leads to anemia due to lack of oxygen. This anemia is very harmful to unborn babies; hence they should be given supplements of vitamin C in their food which helps them have a sufficient amount of iron.
6-refined sugars cause mood swings:
When you have a lot of refined sugars in your body, it causes a decrease in the serotonin level of your brain,n too & this increased level will cause mood swings, depression, sleep problems, etc. So you should avoid eating such foods that contain refined sugars in them.
7-refined sugars add to heart diseases:
Heart diseases are also linked with consuming too much-refined sugars because it increases LDL cholesterol level too much & decreases our HDL cholesterol level lowest possible lowest limit, so get rid of such dangerous food items from your diet if you don’t want to harm your heart severely.
8 -and many other harmful effects of refined sugars on human beings.
Refined sugars are not suitable for our health so try to avoid them as much as you can & keep your family members & relatives away from these evils because no one has the right to destroy your healthy life.
Refined sugar vs. natural sugar:
Refined sugar from fruits:
It is vague to say that refined sugars are present in fruits. Still, before consuming any fruit or fruit juice, you should check the percentage of sugar content in it .and if it is high, then avoid buying such fruit juices because there will be no benefit of fasting on those days when this increased amount of sugar is present in your body.
So now you have known all about refined sugars & why they are bad for our health so do not consume them as much as you can and don’t even let your kids eat them because childhood years are significant for their overall growth & development.
And the last thing I want to say is that make sure to read food labels carefully before buying any food items, or else you will end up consuming harmful food items like refined sugars.