Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 230, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1918 — What Is Sugar? [ARTICLE]

What Is Sugar?

By the U. S. Food Administration

Sugar is a food as well as a flavor. One of the simple food lessons the United States food administration has driven home is “Food Is Fuel for Fighters.” Sugar is one of the conspicuous fuel foods. Its great advantage is that it is quickly burning, and gives its energy to the body more rapidly than other kinds. The commercial granulated sugar we buy at the store is “not the only sugar on the shelf.’.’ Some of these other sugars have popular names which denote their origin, such as grape sugar, fruit sugar, milk sugar and malt sugar. Their technical names are,' in order, glucose or dextrose; fructose; lactose; maltose. The beet sugar or cane stager that we buy from the grocer is also an “ose.” It is called “sucrose.” , The department of agriculture tells us that while the canes and the sugar beet are the only commercially important sources of sucrose, this form of sugar is also found in the stems and roots of sorghum and cornstalks; in the carrot, turnip and sweet potato ; in .the sap of some trees, such as the date palm and sugar maple; in almost all sweet fruits, and in the nectar .of flowers. When a sucrose, or ordinary sugar, is taken into the body and goes through the process of digestion,' it is changed into glucose and fructose. Lactose goes through much the same process, forming glucose and galactose. Maltose, too, changes into glucose. Glucose is a simple sugar very easy to digest. As it is manufactured today, it contains absolutely no harmful substances. We need to remember that all the sweeteners the United States food administration asks us to use in place of “sugar” are sugars, too, and though not always in as convenient a form, they give approximately the same food value and flavor.