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SUGAR CHEMISTRY
& METABOLISM
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What is sweetness?
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Sweet means, "agreeable" to the taste. And
sweetness is the pleasure or enjoyment that comes from food that
tastes sweet. The desire for the pleasure of sweetness has a
strong influence on what people choose to eat and drink. Since
early times, people have sought out foods with sweet taste.
Today, sucrose, or table sugar, is the taste standard by which
all other sweeteners are measured. An "ideal"
sweetener tastes like sucrose, is colorless, odorless, readily
soluble, stable and economical.
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How is cane sugar different from beet
sugar?
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Cane sugar contains trace minerals that are
different from those in beet sugar, and it’s these minerals
that make cane sugar preferable to use. As professional bakers
have long noticed, cane sugar has a low melting point, absorbs
fewer extraneous and undesirable odors, blends easily, and is
less likely to foam up. And that can be very important when
you’re caramelizing syrup, making a delicate glaze, or just
baking a flan.
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After you eat how long does it take for the sugar in your
food to metabolize and affect the blood sugar?
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Stomach emptying from a bowl of
cereal would depend on cereal type, fiber content, and total
volume of milk combined with the cereal. In general, though,
within an hour or two the stomach would be emptied of the
average bowl of corn flakes. Full-fat milk would also be slower
than skim milk. Readings of blood sugar would be up and down
within the 2-hour mark too.
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What happens if one has excessive fructose in the diet?
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Fructose,
which naturally occurs in fruit at low levels, is a wholesome
sugar. However, when it is used in large doses to act as a
sweetener it may be dangerous. Studies have shown that animals
given large amounts of fructose develop copper deficiency, which
in turn has an overwhelmingly lethal effect on the
cardiovascular system.
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Why are low-carbohydrate diets potentially
dangerous?
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Without
carbohydrates the body is forced to run on fats and proteins.
Now, fats burn inefficiently in the absence of carbohydrates,
thereby polluting the blood with a fat waste called ‘ketone
bodies’. These are toxic compounds that can damage the brain
and cause nausea, fatigue and apathy. This is why the ‘faddish’
low carbohydrate diets are potentially dangerous.
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-BACK-
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Know
more about
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Monosaccharides
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Disaccharides
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Starches
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Glycogen
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Cellulose
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