When life gives you lemons make a lemonade! And oh, do not forget to add some sugar in it but just do not make it too sugary. Sugar is as important in our food as salt and yes definitely they hold the capability to be equally compared. How is sugar made? How many types of sugars can be used in our daily lives and what benefits do they hold? All these questions will be answered in a while, just do not stop reading.
How Do You Get Sugar?
First of all, all sugar is basically made through an extraction process where one obtains sugar juice from sugar cane plants or even sugar beet. Like all other processes where we get a definite form of an object after the extraction process, we need to purify it and make it useable. Sugar juice goes through the process of cleaning first, followed by crystallizing and later drying it to get sugar particles in hand. Through this process, we get different variations in sugar.
An amazing fact about this extraction process is that it provides the user with various sizes of sugar crystals and each sugar has a unique characteristic that helps in using sugar for multiple purposes or as needed. During the cleaning or filtering process, the level of molasses varies and this gives us different varieties. Each variety has its own functional characteristic.
Now we are having different pictures of sugar in our mind and by different pictures, we mean the changed sugar color. The sugar color is obtained on the basis of the ratio of molasses. One may increase or decrease this ratio and hence enjoy the different flavors, a perfect treat for taste buds. To add further, there are some kinds of sugar that may not be available at homes due to their unavailability in the supermarket but are restricted to be used only by the working food industries. The change in color and flavor can be brought by heating the sugar.
Let’s discuss 5 different types of sugars now and see which one is best to use.
1. White Sugar:
White sugar is the most common form of sugar that is available in almost every home. This is the kind of a sugar that you find in your juices or in your box of cornflakes. White sugar is also known as regular sugar and the reason behind is that they are so finely made that it becomes easy to handle them when in bulk and are perfect when one is interested in baking.
2. Stevia Sugar:
People having diabetes must not be heart-broken. They too can use sugar in their baked products but have to be careful as for them we have Stevia. Stevia is the kind of variety that is non-caloric and hence making it a safe ingredient for people who are diet conscious or have diabetes. The best thing about stevia is that it does not allow the blood sugar of its user to increase at a risky rate and hence saves from various diseases or health issues.
3. Demerara Sugar:
This is another form of sugar. Demerara sugar is a large-grained brown color form of sugar and the particles are said to be somewhat sticky. Demerara falls under the category of brown sugar and is very famous in European states. People enjoy it in their coffee, tea, and even in baking items. Talking about the flavor then Demerara tastes like caramel, making the items that have it even more mouth watery. Another interesting fact about Demerara is that it also has a second name Turbinado.
4. Coconut Sugar:
Coconut sugar is another interesting form of sugar and it has numerous benefits hence making it better to use in homes etc. Coconut sugar has multiple purposes and none contradicts human health so it makes this form of sugar better. Coconut sugar has more pros. Now wondering how it is made? Well, coconut sugar is obtained through the sap of the bud stem of a coconut palm flower. After getting the extract from sap it is dried which gives the sugar a more natural brown color. The most amazing part of coconut sugar is that it contains minerals like insulin, potassium, magnesium. Coconut sugar, also palm sugar, can be obtained from the date palm, the sugar date palm, sago palm etc.
5. Fruit Sugar:
Who does not like fruits? We are always hearing about the benefits the nutrients that they have but here we are talking about fruit sugar. Fruit sugar is seen smaller in size when compared with regular sugar and is most commonly used for baking purposes. The specialty of this sugar is that it easily gets dissolved in drinks and particularly for dry mix purposes due to the bonding of the crystals making items more tasty to its users.
Have you tried all these different types of sugar?