Would you like some sugar with that?

[Mr_Dove]

About 3 months ago I realized that I had been living in ignorance my entire life. I had been blindly buying big bags that said "sugar" on the front assuming that they were actually "sugar" (from the sugarcane plant) that many of us think about when we hear the word sugar.

My epiphany came about 3 months back while purchasing a bag of brown sugar. The C&H brand had a little label that said, "Pure cane sugar, no beet sugar". I thought, "my that's silly, all sugar is made from sugar cane".

Well, I picked up the bag of generic brown sugar only to find that it was made from beet sugar and molassis. The generic bag of granulated sugar was also made from beet sugar. I was flabbergasted that i had be decieved for all these years. I bought bags of C&H sugar and have never looked back.

Now, I've never really done a side-by-side comparison of the two types of sugar but I buy the cane sugar on pure principal.

What do you all think of beet sugar? Do you use it? Avoid it? Not even know its out there?

Lets hear your ideas.

 

[IcyMist]

To be honest with you I didn't even know that they sold beet sugar. I have known that you can make sugar from beets, but I never thought about what they did with it.

If the taste, desired effect in cooking, etc. was the same as cane sugar I really don't care if it is beet sugar or not. But then again, I am not a gourmet cook or chef.

 

[Rob Babcock]

I don't have any sugar in my house. That stuff'll kill you. The only time I use any is at work, where of course I must. I've never really noticed an diff between beet and cane sugar.

 

[texasgirl]

I'm with Icy. As long as the sugar, beet or pure cane, does what it is suppose to do, then it doesn't bother me. I didn't know it was out there either. Now, when I go to the store Friday, I'll probably start looking just to see. )

 

[luvs]

doesn't matter a bit to me. if it looks like sugar and tastes like sugar, that's fine by me!

 

[RPCookin]

Living in Colorado this comes as no surprise, as sugar beets have long been a major crop here. The industry suffered from a significant decline during the early 80's, and I don't think it has ever come back to full production. There is still one sugar beet processing plant that I know of on I-76 in Fort Morgan, about 50 miles NE of Denver.

In normal use, I doubt that you can tell the difference.

 

[GB]

Just about all sugar sold in the US is beet sugar. There is actually no difference between beet or cane sugar. they are both the exact same product and completely indistinguishable from each other. They care the same chemically. If you brought both beet and cane sugar to a lab, they would not be able to tell you which is which.

Mr. Dove, you say you buy pure cane sugar on pure principal. What principal is that?

I for one, would rather buy the beet sugar as it is a US product and i would rather support the US (sorry to all my foreign friends out there).

 

[Andy M.]

GB is right. The end product for sugar cane and sugar beets (they're not purple) is the same thing - sucrose. You probably have been using beet sugar at different times during your life and never knew it. That's a testimonial to the fact that you can't tell them apart!

All brown sugar is made the same way as well. Molasses is added to granulated sucrose. Adding a little molasses makes light brown sugar and adding a lot makes dark brown sugar.

The pure cane sugar statement on the label is presented as identifying the product as superior to other kinds of sugar, but in reality, it's a marketing ploy. What it's really saying is, "This company owns millions of acres of sugar cane so that's what we use to make sugar."

 

[Paint]

Unrefined cane sugar (i.e. brown, not white) will have more flavour than beet sugar, but beware, because many 'brown' sugars are brown because they've added colouring - you need to look for the word 'unrefined'! The refined white versions of both types are just the same. It's the refining process that takes the flavour out.

I use both types - depends on what I'm making. Gingerbread just has to be made with unrefined cane sugar, but an ordinary sponge cake should be made with fine white sugar.

England has a lot of sugar beet production too, so I knew the difference.

Paint.

 

[Pam Leavy]

Living in Colorado this comes as no surprise, as sugar beets have long been a major crop here. The industry suffered from a significant decline during the early 80's, and I don't think it has ever come back to full production. There is still one sugar beet processing plant that I know of on I-76 in Fort Morgan, about 50 miles NE of Denver.

In normal use, I doubt that you can tell the difference.

I went to school in Greeley. I remember the smell of sugar beets and beef processing plant.

Where do you live?

Pam

 

[pdswife]

I knew you could get sugar from beets... but, I thought it was a special product of some kind.

I guess, I don't really care too much though... as long as it tastes and acts like sugar.

 

[mrsdove]

I can tell a difference. I noticed it the first time I put brown sugar in my oatmeal and noticed that I had to use about twice as much beet sugar as the sugar cane sugar to get the sweetness I desired.

I guess I'm a snob thus mr_dove has to buy the c&h sugar.

 

[mitch_the_chef]

Hmmm to me no big difference. As long as it tastes like it supposed to i'll eat it. I'm not really that healthy.

 

[BlueCat]

This, phrased one way or another, is essentially what I found on every website about sugar, except for the C&H site, which, of course, said there is a difference:

"Because the sweetener is processed down to pure sucrose, there is no essential difference in taste or usage between cane sugar and beet sugar, and they are generally used interchangeably, except by the rare person who might be allergic to one plant source, but not the other."

As a matter of fact, I read that many vegans prefer beet sugar because cane sugar is filtered through cow bone char to whiten it. Beet sugar doesn't need to be whitened, because it's already white. I've never held the assumption that sugar had to only come from a sugar cane plant to be sugar, because I've always known that sugar also came from beets. Because it's called sugar cane doesn't mean that is the only place sugar comes from. The beets in question are also called sugar beets. There are also sugar snap peas, and as far as I know, we don't get sugar from them.

BC

 

[Claire]

I, too, grew up out west where sugar beets were a local crop, so it was no surprise to me that sugar comes in many forms, most popularly cane, beet and corn. People who've mentioned it are right, almost no cane is grown in the US any more. Some in Louisiana, but I'm not sure there's even any grown in Hawaii any more (I used to live between a fields of cane and those of pineapple, but I think real estate has gotten too expensive for farming any more). I, personally, cannot taste the difference between a product sweetened with any of the three. I did hear an interesting story when I was on the road once, about Coca-cola needing to change from cane to corn syrup for $$ reasons. Because they thought some would be able to tell the difference, they marketed a new Coke they knew no one would like, then went back to "classic" coke; but with a difference, it was then made with corn syrup instead of the more expensive cane. Since no one could do a side-by-side taste test, everyone was just glad they went back to their "original" formula and didn't notice the difference. The fact is virtually the only pop I drink is diet .... but I doubt I'd notice the difference anyway.