How to Find Out What Sugar Is Made Of

Sugar is formed naturally in plants such as sugar cane and sugar beet.

Finding out what sugar is made of can help you understand how it is produced, and the science behind the composition of sugar. Sugar, otherwise known as sucrose, comes from plants, such as the sugar cane and the sugar beet. Over 120 million tons of sugar is made each year, across 121 different countries. Most sugar comes from sugar canes, which can only be grown in tropical regions of our planet, but a small amount comes from the sugar beet, which can be grown in more temperate regions.

Instructions

1. Understand that sugar is made from plants. Plants produce sugar for essentially the same reason as people and animals produce fat -- as a means of storing energy. The sugar cane plant produces 70 percent of the sugar that we consume, and the sugar beet produces the remaining 30 percent. Learn about the process of photosynthesis, which is how plants make their energy. Photosynthesis involves the plant taking in carbon dioxide and water, and transforming them into energy, and therefore sugar, with the aid of the sun's energy and chlorophyll.

2. Follow the process of sugar cane from growth to harvest. Sugar cane takes around a year to grow fully, at which point it is cut down, but the roots are left intact so that the plants will grow again the following year. Juice is squeezed from the plants using a mill, and then the slightly dirty resulting juice is cleaned using lime. The mixture is then boiled down into syrup, before being transported to a large vat for further boiling. Small amounts of sugar dust are added to stimulate sugar crystal growth, and then the entire mixture is spun in a centrifuge to separate the sugar from the liquid.

3. Compare this with the process for making sugar from sugar beets. The main differences relate to the process by which the juice is made. The beets are washed to remove all traces of dirt and grit, and then cut into small strips, which look a bit like French fries. These strips are then put through warm water to obtain the sugar juice. The remainder of the process is the same.

4. Learn about the chemical composition of sugar. Sucrose, the technical term for sugar, consists of 12 carbon atoms, 22 hydrogen atoms and 11 oxygen atoms. This chemical composition means that sugar is technically a carbohydrate, made up of the two simpler compounds, fructose and glucose. Carbohydrates contain carbon, along with hydrogen and oxygen, and a carbohydrate always has hydrogen and oxygen in the same ratio as in water.

References

• Exploratorium: Science of Candy: Science of Sugar
• Sucrose: How Sugar is Made
• Dan Sukker: How Sugar is Produced
• Sucrose: How Sugar Cane is Made