Sugar looks like salt but tastes sweet. It can take different forms: as a brown, thick liquid it is called treacle or molasses. As a fermented drink it is called rum. Powdered sugar can be white or brown.
Sugar is added to food and drink to make it taste better – and to sell more of it.
The demand for sugar in Europe led to the growing of sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum) in Brazil and on the islands of the Caribbean. At first poor Europeans worked the land, but they died off too quickly from disease. Growers then used slaves from the Guinea coast of Africa instead. This is how black people first came across the sea from Africa.
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and others in the early 1800s stopped using sugar till the British stopped using slaves to produce it.
In the 1600s Britain and France fought one another for control of the sugar islands of the Caribbean sea. They made more money out of these islands than from the rest of North America.
Sugar can also be made from sugar beets (Beta vulgaris). The French found this out in the time of Napoleon when the British cut them off from the sea.
Three common kinds of sugar:
- sucrose – ordinary table sugar
- fructose – the kind found in fruit
- glucose – the kind the body uses
Fructose is two times sweeter than sucrose, but is harder for the body to take in.
Sucrose is made out of fructose and glucose put together. High fructose corn syrup is mostly fructose with some glucose. It is made from maize. In America it is cheaper than ordinary sugar and takes its place in Coke and many other processed foods.
Your body breaks down food into sugar, fat and some other things. The sugar is put into your blood and this in turn feeds the rest of your body.
When you eat and drink too much, a lot of it passes through your body, but almost all of the sugar remains. What sugar you cannot burn in the next few hours gets stored as fat. It turns the fat back into sugar when needed. The body is built this way to get through times of little food.
This is why the only way to lose weight, short of medical treatment, is to eat less and exercise more. This uses up the fat the body has stored.
The part of your body that controls the level of sugar in your blood is called the pancreas. It does this with a substance it makes called insulin. Insulin carries glucose through the blood.
If your pancreas goes bad then you will get a disease called diabetes. Some just have to watch what they eat, but most have to take insulin. Unchecked, diabetes in time will make you go blind and even kill you by the damage done to your heart, nerves and kidneys by high levels of blood sugar.
See also:
That’s why Coke tastes better outside of the US – the cane sugar. It gives the Coke a cleaner and thinner taste than the syrupy stuff you get in the States.
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Yes! I had a bottle of coke from Mexico and it was awesome. I went back and grabbed a case before it was gone. I didn’t think it would make such a difference but it does!
Coca Cola is now bringing the suagr version back to the states from what I see. Look for the green bottles.
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I love Mexican Coke too.
When I go out to eat I have fake Mexican Coke:
1. Order American Coke.
2. Pour about five packets of pure cane sugar into it (the white packets).
3. Stir.
I know that makes me sound like I am nuts. Everyone who watches me do it thinks so too, but it tastes great! Surprisingly so.
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Looking through old posts…
“If you are born with a bad pancreas or if you pancreas starts to fail when you get old, then you will get a disease called diabetes. If you are born with it, you will need to take insulin your whole life. If you get diabetes when you are old, then most likely you will just have to watch what you eat.”
Not exactly true.
One can get Type 1 (“juvenile”) diabetes when they are relatively older, although it’s less common. And most Type 2 diabetics (adult-onset) eventually require insulin to keep their blood sugar levels under control. Diet and exercise seems to control it for some time, and it works for a small number of people, but most people’s pancreatic beta cells just begin to give up under the pressure and supplemental insulin is needed.
“Either way over time you could go blind.”
…and develop kidney, nerve, and heart damage which could (and usually does) kill you. If you don’t keep your glucose levels in check.
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Did you know that your old posts are being sent out to your subscribers as new feeds? I don’t mind really – you’ve got a mountain of good old material. I just wonder if you’re selecting which posts get re-upped or if it is random.
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Sometimes I reread my old posts. If I see a mistake, I correct it. In this case it was Natasha’s correction about diabetes. The side effect of that, I have discovered, is to send it back out to subscribers.
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This is why the only way to lose weight, short of medical treatment, is to eat less and exercise more. This uses up the fat the body has stored.
Er no, the reason why this is the only thing on offer is because western medicine has not uncovered anything else and to be honest, I’m not sure it wants to. I’ll leave you to guess why.
And weight loss should not be conflated with weight loss dieting as you said;
What sugar you cannot burn in the next few hours gets stored as fat. It turns the fat back into sugar when needed.
This is a cycle of gain and loss, dieting doesn’t create weight loss it attempts to hijack the process you described.
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Growers then used slaves from the Guinea coast of Africa instead. This is how black people first came across the sea from Africa.
What? This is NOT the first time black folks came across the sea from Africa.
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