03.01.2012

Interesting unknown facts about sugar:

1. The average American eats 61 pounds Sahara per year, of which 25 pounds in sweets. On Halloween, 2 pounds are eaten.

2. Because of Sahara wrinkles can form during glycation when elevated level Sahara in the blood, it binds to collagen in the skin, making it less elastic.

3. Reduce consumption Sahara can help the skin regain elasticity.

4. Made in India sugar from reed for 2000 years. Alexander the Great and his army marveled at the production of honey without Sahara.

5. In 1747, the German chemist Andreas Markgraf discovered that sugar in sugar beet is identical sugar in sugar cane. In 1802, the first factory for the production of Sahara from beets, which made it possible to supply cheap sugar to the northern regions.

6. Over 8.4 million metric tons Sahara, produced annually in the United States, is obtained from sugar beets.

7. You can eat 16 cubes Sahara at once? You must have done it. That's a little less than a 20-ounce bottle of cola.

8. Drinks with artificial sweeteners help you gain weight. The study determined that rats that consumed liquid with artificial sweeteners received more calories than rats that consumed liquid with no sweeteners. Sahara.

9. Saccharin and aspartame were created by accident when scientists were doing research unrelated to sweeteners, tasting a test sample and they liked the taste.

10. Which scientist puts test samples in his mouth? They had an excuse. The scientists who discovered sucralose were trying to create an insect repellent. The assistant thought he was being asked to sample the sample, not to test it.

11. The substance lugdunam is the sweetest, 200,000 times sweeter than table Sahara.

12. Sugar are molecules of carbohydrates, hydrogen and oxygen. The simplest include glucose, fructose and galactose. Canteen sugar is a crystallized sucrose, a mixture of fructose and glucose molecules.

13. Sugars are the building blocks of carbohydrates, the largest type of organic molecules in living things.

14. Glycolaldehyde - eight-atomic sugar, was discovered in a cloud of interstellar gas near the center of the Milky Way. Glycolaldehyde can react with tricarboxylic sugar and form ribose, the backbone of RNA and DNA, so that it could be the chemical precursor of life on Earth.

This cloud also contains ethylene glycol, the sweet relative of glycolaldehyde and the main component of antifreeze. Either complex sugars can be produced in interstellar space, or there is some point of their production in the Universe. Sugar can help determine this. Burn sucrose with corn syrup and saltpeter and you have "sugar fuel", amateur rocket fuel.

Gulnara based on Discovermagazine materials

Mankind consumes sugar in all its manifestations, without even thinking about what kind of "sugar" his body needs. We eat cereals, pasta, flour and chocolate, fruits, both ours and exotic, without realizing how much we need this very "fuel".

What is sugar, do we need it or not, and what

We present all the most interesting facts about sugar about this wonderful "gasoline" for a person.

A bit of history

Sugar in the common people, and sucrose - in a scientific way, came from India thanks to the Egyptians. They were such "intermediaries" between India and Europe. In Russia, he appeared in the XI-XII centuries. Then only the prince and nobles could "taste" it. Domestic production began to improve in 1809 thanks to our own raw materials - beets.

Varieties

Popular beet sugar or refined white is present in the life of each of us thanks to Napoleon, who since 1806 was able to create a "fruitful" and solid ground for its production.

Cane sugar until the 19th century was an item of luxury and wealth. And the development as such, he received thanks to Columbus, who carefully transferred this plant of "chicness" to Haiti from the Canary Islands. This culture had enormous opportunities even then to satisfy the population of Europe.

Brown sugar, which is gaining more and more popularity every day, is actually more high-calorie and has a lot of impurities. This is the same cane sugar, only unrefined.

Here are some more interesting facts about sugar

• thanks to the cultivation of cane in Surinam, New York came into the possession of Britain in 1674.
• about 1 million slaves from the African continent were brought by Europeans to the plantations of Jamaica and Barbados to harvest cane from 1701 to 1810.
• Tsar Peter I issued a decree to produce sugar in 1718.
• In the 18th century, the German chemist Markgraf brought sugar to the state of "solid".
• in the 19th century, Russians paid 3 rubles for a pound of sugar, despite the fact that a piece of beef was 2 kopecks, and a chicken cost 5 kopecks.

And finally

Of course, everything has changed since the 19th century, not to mention what happened before. Sugar has become extremely popular, businessmen make huge money on this production, and the consumer always has something to choose from on store shelves.

Be careful when buying this or that type of sugar, and then everything "eaten" will only benefit you. O useful properties sugar was written.

For facts about the harmful effects of sugar on the human body, see this video. Or in the player below.

And much more than the WHO and the American Heart Association recommend: 6 teaspoons a day for women and 9 for men. On average, a person eats four times more, about 70 kilograms per year. Where do you think? The thing is that there is a so-called hidden sugar, and it is in almost all types of store products - sausages, bread, pasta, sauces. Such sugar has little nutritional value, but a lot of extra calories.

Fact two: sugar is not only sweet In science, sugar is any kind of carbohydrate. Whereas in the people this concept means, as a rule, only one of all varieties of carbohydrates - sweet. It's called sucrose.

Fact three: a gram of sugar is only a quarter of a teaspoon And not a spoon with a slide at all, as many people think (and are mistaken). So when you stir a spoonful of sugar in a cup of coffee, know that now you "take" half of your daily allowance!

Fact four: sugar ... useful Yes, yes. Useful. But in reasonable volumes (the same 6-9 teaspoons). Moreover, without sugar, a person will not last long. Sweet sugar, as mentioned above, is sucrose. And it, in turn, consists of fructose and glucose, one of the main sources of energy for humans. Therefore, giving up sugar is completely harmful to the body. When we consume glucose, it stimulates the release of serotonin, which affects a person's mood, sexual function, sleep, memory, learning, and also appetite. No wonder sweet things make us feel so good.

Fact five: many "harmless" drinks are actually full of sugar Fruit juices, sports drinks, energy drinks and so on, surprisingly, are at the top of the list of products in terms of sugar content. A recent study showed that drinking two of these drinks a day increased the risk of obesity and visceral fat by 26% compared to those who limit themselves to sugary liquids.

Fact six: Corn syrup is not the best sugar substitute Corn syrup is found in many foods. It is believed that this is a good sucrose changer. However, it is chemically and nutritionally identical to white sugar (that is, zero utility), but both have a high calorie content. Corn syrup is much sweeter than sugar, so it is added to all sorts of foods. Another reason why it is used in many foods and drinks is that it can be easily mixed as a syrup with different formulations.

Fact seven A: Not all sweeteners are vegetable Asparkame, sucralose, neotame, stevia. Many people think that all of these four most famous vegetable sweeteners. This is not true. Only stevia is vegetable. She is released in different types(granules, syrup, etc.), but in any case, it is a product from the leaves of a plant called stevia. This sweetener can be up to 300 times sweeter than regular sugar, yet has zero calories. True, sometimes stevia sweeteners can leave a bitter aftertaste.

Fact eight: "-oza" does not necessarily mean bad sugar The suffix "ose" at the end of a word (galactose, sucrose, sucralose) indicates some type of sugar. But not necessarily for table sugar, that is, harmful. Sucrose, for example, is the sugar found in highest concentration in sugar cane and sugar beets. Lactose is the natural sugar in milk. Sucralose is an artificial sweetener.

Fact nine: "Zero Calories" Doesn't Mean No Sugar Beverages labeled with this label actually contain fewer calories by reducing sugar. However, a substitute is used instead, that's the whole trick. Plus the rest, sometimes not harmless, components, as the World Health Organization constantly reminds. According to its experts, such drinks are one of the factors in the development of many global diseases.

Fact ten: Brazil is number one in the world in sugar production And not China or India at all. Brazil is the world's leading sugar producer, and the country's crop is exported to more than 100 other countries.

Fact eleven: diabetes does not cause diabetes There is no direct connection between the first and second. Diabetes is more often caused by a genetic predisposition, lifestyle, something else ... However, there is a connection not direct, but indirect - overweight and eating a high-calorie diet, which often includes a lot of added sugar, can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Bookmarked: 0

What diseases does sugar cause?

Why do we have so many obese people who suffer from serious illnesses, including diabetes?

According to statistics, 40℅ people on the globe have this disease, and the number of such patients is growing exponentially.

Russia is in 4th place in terms of the number of patients with diabetes and obesity. This is especially dangerous for children who have been accustomed to sweets since childhood and they completely lose everything. metabolic processes in the body.

A terrifying figure: 42 million preschoolers in Russia are already obese! And every Russian on average consumes 40 kg of sugar per year, that is, 1 kg per week (that's 15 teaspoons per day)!

In America, for example, sugar consumption has tripled and the American Heart Association has recommended strict consumption rates: for women - 6 teaspoons a day, for men - 9.

In the 20th century, Dr. William Martin generally called sugar "sweet poison", it is a dead product that leads to serious diseases and shortens human life.

And the British psychologist and nutritionist John Yutkin in 1970 published the book Pure, White, Deadly, in which he predicted an epidemic of obesity and coronary heart disease due to an increase in the amount of sugar in human food.

He emphasizes that sugar is processed in the liver in the same way as alcohol and causes 8 serious problems, such as high blood pressure, liver dysfunction, high cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, pancreatitis, diabetes and addiction as with alcohol and drug addiction. , which was called "sugarism".

How Sugar Addiction Becomes

And the scheme here is this: sugar is a fast carbohydrate, it is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream and the glucose level rises rapidly, BUT!

The trap is that after a certain period of time this level decreases and attacks of hunger attack the person again and again.

It's like a vicious circle: the body is addicted to sweets, it requires more and more portions of sugar. This is called "sugar swing".

Princeton University scientists have proven: our body considers sugary foods to be a drug, like cocaine, but sugar addiction grows 8 times faster than cocaine! And although official medicine does not recognize that sugar is a real drug, in reality it is.

Sugar ranks first in the ranking of popular products. Yes, it is necessary for our body as a source of energy - this is its main purpose. Its glycemic index is very high - 399 kcal per 100 g of product, which makes it unhealthy.

Composition of sugar:

• Proteins - 0 g;
• Fats - 0 g;
• Carbohydrates - 99.8 g;
• Water - 0.1 g.

Eight facts about the dangers of sugar

First:

Sugar tends to weaken the human skeletal system, easily washing out calcium from the body, which increases the risk of fractures (osteoporosis). The fact is that for the absorption of sugar, the human body spends a large amount of calcium from human bones. Tooth enamel also deteriorates and caries develops, and it is sugar that is to blame. Once in the mouth, a high level of acid is produced, which adversely affects the condition of the teeth.

Second:

Sugar leads to obesity, as already mentioned, it causes a false feeling of hunger, a person overeats and gains extra pounds. This is due to the fact that the cells are fully occupied with the processing of carbohydrates, and fats no longer have time to process, they remain, accumulating in the body.

Third:

Sugar leads to malfunctions in the cardiovascular system: muscular dystrophy of the heart occurs, the walls of blood vessels become inflamed, blood clots form, which at any time can block blood vessels, which is directly related to strokes and heart attacks.

Fourth:

Sugar is considered a “stress food”: after the production of serotonin, the hormone of joy, the mood and tone temporarily rise. nervous system, breathing quickens ( keyword temporarily) and, as a paradox, the reverse process starts: this is followed by depression, chronic fatigue, dizziness appears, vision and sleep deteriorate, a state of internal tension and devastation appears.

Fifth:

Sugar reduces immunity by 17 times. When sugar builds up in the body in large numbers, the immune system fails, metabolism is disturbed, internal organs work for wear and tear, a person often gets sick.

Sixth:

The skin of those with a sweet tooth ages catastrophically due to the fact that sugar is deposited in collagen fibers (this is the basis of skin tissue) in reserve and the skin quickly loses its elasticity and wrinkles ahead of time.

Seventh:

Recent studies have shown terrible thing: Cancer Cells Eat Sugar! And this was proved by the German scientist Otto Warburg, who was awarded Nobel Prize in the field of medicine in 1933. With the help of sugar, cells mutate and glucose is directly related to the development of cancerous tumors. Sugar and White bread is the fuel that spurs the growth of cancer cells. In addition: the more insulin in the blood, the weaker the effect of chemotherapy on the patient.

All this confirms once again how dangerous sugar is to health.

One of the articles publishes catastrophic data on sugar - these are 76 serious blows to human health. Our ancestors did not know sugar, and we began to consume sugar 40 times more than they do.

The well-known nutritionist Aleksey Kovalkov wrote: Until this millennium, people did not know what sugar was and he lived well, great thinkers, philosophers, commanders were born - all this was without sugar.

It was sugar that changed the course of history - sugar created America, where slaves were brought in droves to grow sugar cane. Remember Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Now the American sugar-hater R. Lastig proves that we all have an overdose of sugar: 80% of products in supermarkets contain sugar.

The food industry is thriving: it loves sugar, because it is the easiest and cheapest preservative - it increases the shelf life of products. In addition, it has a strong addictive effect (stronger than heroin), and in combination with fat (doughnuts, ice cream) it kills us.

Think about it and take care of your health.

There are probably no people who do not like sugar. It is interesting to know what sugar is, how it is useful, and maybe dangerous for our body. We have selected for you interesting facts about sugar.

A monument to sugar has been erected in the Czech Republic, or more precisely, sugar - refined sugar, it was the Czechs who were the first to come up with the idea of ​​​​compressing sugar into cubes.

The second known monument to refined sugar was opened in 2010 in the city of Sumy in Ukraine on the 355th anniversary of the city.

• All confectionery products (sweets, cookies, pies, ice cream and much more), as well as drinks (Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and others) contain great amount sugar, up to 90%.
• Sugar is produced from both cane and sugar beets. But the interesting thing is that cane sugar is yellowish in color, and it is slightly healthier than beet sugar, as the body absorbs it faster and easier.
• Curiously, scientists are ambivalent about the benefits of sugar. Some insist that when sugar is consumed, a person produces the hormone of happiness, and such people are cheerful, smiling, and friendly in life. Another point of view is based on the fact that sugar in large quantities adversely affects the human pancreas and liver.
• It is also helpful to know that sugar is addictive. There is even an opinion that sugar is to some extent a “drug”, in the good sense of the word.
• They learned how to make fuel for cars from sugar, and what is most interesting, the release of batteries is expected soon, in which sugar will play the role of an electrolyte.
• As you know, doctors recommend giving babies water in which sugar is slightly diluted, this is done so that sucrose enters the baby's brain, thereby stimulating the mental development of the child.
• According to astronomers, particles similar in properties to sugar have been found in space.
• Sugar is an ingredient in many medicines.
• There is no fat in sugar, therefore, it does not affect the fullness of a person.