A word about "refined" sugar

[Jedi Sena]

I wanted to share something with the group about "refined" sugar. I stayed with a friend in Nebraska one summer and toured a beet sugar factory. It was a small town and the factory was the main industry there. One day of my visit the entire town smelled strongly of skunk. My friends father--who worked at the sugar factory--explained to me that a skunk had gotten into the sugar beets and been processed along with the beets. It happens frequently and smells up the town. I said, well, what do they do with all the sugar they have to throw out. He explained that it is so refined that by the end of the process there would be nothing left to taint the sugar. The only part of the skunk that would survive the process was sugar, just like there aren't any beet remnants in your sugar. No wonder refined sugar has NO nutrition.

[pandaincognito]

That's insane....

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[Kermie16]

Wow! Scary thought.

[hprmom]

UGH!! By the way, @Jedi Sena, I recently read your hermit crab food shopping guide, very well written, detailed info and a great read!

[soilentgringa]

Refined sugar isn't really supposed to have any nutritive value, though. It's sucrose, which is a combination of glucose and fructose. The human body breaks it down rapidly, and it's digested quickly, as opposed to natural sugars (fructose and lactose).

So it's not supposed to be anything other than sucrose. The body breaks it down in the intestines the same way it does naturally occurring sugars. The only difference in downing a spoon full of corn syrup and eating a couple of apples is that the apples have fiber and other nutrients, but once the sugars hit your small intestine the body doesn't differentiate between refined or not.