Is brown sugar made
from white sugar, or is white sugar purified brown sugar? Which is more
fattening?
Brownsugarexporter.com - To understand this, it’s a good
idea to start with the origins of sugar, which comes in many different forms.
Common
white table sugar, called sucrose, is made of two simpler sugars, fructose and
glucose, joined together. Sucrose, which is naturally white, is usually derived
from sugar cane or sugar beets.
The
process of extracting the sugar is the same for both: The juice is filtered to
remove plant matter and boiled down. What’s left is a thick syrup from which
sucrose starts to crystallize. The syrup is spun in a centrifuge to separate
out the crystals, which then make up what is called raw sugar. The rest is
molasses.
The
separation of sugar from juice is never perfect. A first pass yields impure
sucrose (natural brown sugar, or raw sugar) and molasses, which is still quite
sweet and is called “first molasses.’’
Boiling
molasses and crystallizing sucrose out of it again leaves “second molasses’’
and if it is done again, it is called “third molasses,’’ or “blackstrap
molasses.’’
If the
sugar is not refined further, it will be brown sugar; if it is refined further,
the result is a pure form of sucrose, or white sugar.
Also,
molasses is sometimes added to refined white sugar to make a brown sugar.
However it
is made, brown sugar is essentially incompletely purified sugar colored and
flavored by other plant matter, which answers the first question.
As for
which is more fattening, it depends to some extent on how its calories are
measured.
Brown
sugar has a slightly lower calorie content by weight, with typically 373
calories in 100 grams versus 396, since it has more water, which has zero
calories, and other nonsugar plant matter in it.
But there
are many grades of brown sugar with differing caloric counts and since brown
sugar packs more compactly than refined white sugar, it can have more calories
by volume. (BD)