Dorothy at HeathGlen

At the markets and events where I sample jams, I find myself  responding to questions about sugar more than any other issue.  Five to ten years ago the questions focused on whether the product was organic, whether it had artificial preservatives in it, whether it was made in the US, and if all the alcohol was burned off.  Today it is:  “What kind of sugar do you use?  What is the carb count, and Can diabetics eat this?”

Because of the high number of diabetics in the states now and the obesity rate, many people have been bombarded with information about sugar.  Much of this information is questionable, and in my mind, some of the labeling implications can actually be harmful to diabetics.  The “no-sugar added” tag on the label for instance.  Very often that means the manufacturer is substituting white grape juice for pure cane sugar.  Not only does white grape juice mute the flavor of the fresh fruit and allow for less of the volume of the product to be fresh fruit and more to be inexpensive grape juice, but the travesty is that white grape juice is no better for the diabetic than pure cane sugar.  In essence, “less” sugar is not really used, but rather “different” sugar.

My jams are low sugar jams for one reason only…..taste.  I do not promote them as a health alternative, although I do believe that there is nothing unhealthy about using a spoonful of low-sugar jam in your morning yogurt, oatmeal or toast.  I believe it’s all about the fruit.  Take a jam with more fruit than sugar, using organic fresh fruit, and one that hasn’t had the nutrients boiled into oblivion and you don’t need very much of it to satisfy yourself for the day.  (Another post will cover the “boiled into oblivion” idea where you are afraid to use a natural pectin product because your grandmother didn’t.  It’s all about which fruit you use)

So sugar.  This is what I have learned about sugar in working with it in the jams for the past 14 years:

Refined Sugar (Beet sugar vs. Cane Sugar)

When  talking about refined sugar, “nutrition” is not what we’re talking about.  The nutritional aspect of the food you’re eating that contains sugar is better looked at by how much of  the sugar you’re eating.  The amount of sugar we consume should be in such small amounts that the nutrition of the ingredient itself doesn’t matter.

Beet sugar and Cane sugar are both refined and processed products.  Chefs tend to like cane sugar more because it caramelizes better and in some things like brulees you can tell the difference in these two sugars.  Professional bakers also seem to prefer cane sugar due to the behavior of beet sugar in baking (apparently it gives a coarser texture in some things).  For most cooking purposes you can’t tell the difference in texture or taste, and for the home cook it is very difficult to know which one you are getting from the store, as the label doesn’t distinguish which one in most cases.  You pretty much have to know which brand is beet or cane and then buy by the brand name.  I use beet sugar because the Crystal brand is a beet sugar that is grown in Minnesota and I try to stay as local as possible.  Labeling law doesn’t require a cane or beet designation. C & H is the only mass-market producer to do so; other refiners decline.

The biggest difference between cane and beet sugar is in the brown sugar product and how it is processed.   Brown cane sugar is a combination of sugar and molasses, both of which exist in the sugarcane plant .  It is produced in one step, as part of the natural refining process (crystallization).  Beet sugar is processed differently.  The molasses is stripped off of the sugar granules because beet molasses is not fit for human consumption.  Cane molasses is then added back in to the beet sugar by coating (or painting, as it is called) the beet granules with the molasses.  Because the molasses is not an inherent part of the sugar, it can sometimes by rubbed right off.  Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1999/03/31/FD91867.DTL&ao=all#ixzz1oRTBTwiZ

It is true that 99.95 percent of both beet sugar and cane sugar is sucrose.  The remaining .05 percent is made up of trace minerals and proteins, which can have an effect.  Remember that beets are a root, growing below ground and cane is a grass that grows above ground.  This variation might mean something in the mineral make up of the soil in which they grow.  I do not have any researched information on the difference that this makes, but being an organic farmer I know that trace minerals in the soil can be pretty important in some cases.  Some people have also told me they will not use beet sugar due to the way it is grown, and some people don’t want to use cane sugar due to the way it is harvested.  This is all anecdotal information however, and if you know of any specific studies relating to this please leave a comment.

Refined sugar by other Names:

A lot of manufacturers are using the word “crystals” in describing the sugar in their products.  Some of these names include: cane juice crystals, dehydrated cane juice crystals, unrefined cane juice crystals, raw cane crystals, washed cane juice crystals, Florida crystals (a trademarked name), unbleached evaporated sugar cane juice crystals, crystallized cane juice, and unbleached crystallized evaporated cane juice.

Organicanews.com had a fairly comprehensive article on sugar called “On the Sweet-Tooth of a Dilemma “, and they include several interviews on the subject.  The following quote is from Vimlan VanDien, a nutritionist at the respected Bastyr University, in Seattle, Washington:   “One hundred grams of dried cane juice is pretty much the same thing as 100 grams of other sweeteners, no matter what you call it.  When people call these sugars something other than sugar, it’s deceptive in a way—if the market is uninformed. Because dehydrated cane juice is sugar. It simply sounds like a whole food.  But it’s not whole food. If you wanted the whole food, you’d go out in the field and eat the sugar cane, and get all the fiber and nutrients it has.”

The nutritionist’s advice for consumers is, ” …look at the package to see if it tells how many grams of sugar are in the product.” That is one sure guide to controlling your sugar intake.

What about fruit juice and artificially sweetened products?

VanDien isn’t much more fond of concentrated fruit juice sweeteners. “Some of them are nothing more than refined white grape juice, with no fiber, and no complex carbohydrates. You might as well be eating sugar,” VanDien says. “Generally, when you see fruit juice sweetened, it’s not necessarily better than sugar.”

The question for me is how much fruit is in your jam or preserve relative to how much sweetener it contains. In a jam sweetened with fruit juice concentrate, you won’t have refined sugar, but you’ll have plenty of other sugar.  If you’re going to buy a blueberry jam, I would rather it taste like fresh blueberries, not white grape juice or pear or apple  juice.  While too much refined sugar will mask the flavor of fresh blueberries, too much grape or apple or pear concentrate will mute the flavor of the fresh fruit you are working with and give you an entirely different product.

VanDien provided the following list of alternative sweeteners and comments on each one for Organica News.

LIST OF ALTERNATIVE SWEETENERS

Here are some of the sweeteners you may encounter in products:

Amasake: One of the least refined of the “natural” sugars, fermented and filtered, made from brown rice.

Barley malt: Mostly maltose. A dark, sweet, thick liquid. Sometimes used in malted milks.

Brown rice syrup: Cultured (usually naturally fermented) rice, broken down by enzymes, strained and cooked to a syrup-like consistency. Is also available in powder form.

Corn syrup: Cheap to produce, it’s basically glucose with water. Dark corn syrup has food coloring in it.

Date sugar: Made from pulverized (generally not refined) dates, it contains sucrose, glucose and fructose. It’s low in grams of sugar per teaspoon, low in calories.

Florida Crystals: A trademarked brand, slightly less refined than white refined sugar.

Fruit juice concentrate: “Reduced” (broken down) peaches, pears, pineapple, white grapes and other fruits are used. Concentrates can be highly refined. If a product has slightly refined or unrefined fruit juice, it will obviously be more nutrient dense.

Honey: A mix of sugars. Usually about 30-40% glucose, 40-60% fructose. Honey does contain some nutrients, but not many. It’s very high in calories. Honey may sometimes be “stretched” with additives, and some imported honeys are reportedly “contaminated.” It’s best to buy local honey.

Molasses: The dark brown syrup left after sugar processing has milled out and crystallized the sugar for refining. After filtering, molasses may have sulfur added to kill bacteria, and stabilize it. Blackstrap molasses contains iron and traces of vitamins and minerals.

Stevia: Made from the leaves of a Paraguayan herb, and usually found in powder form, it is 300 times sweeter than sugar. A little goes a very long way (obviously). It’s non-caloric, which is generally considered a plus. (See Stevia sidebar.)

Sucanat: A trademarked brand of “organic,” dehydrated sugarcane juice. Turbinado: Reportedly about 98% sugar (sucrose), only slightly less refined than white sugar, it’s generally tan in color. The British have a form of this sugar, called Demerara, which is a little darker.

Artificial Sweeteners:  The Atkins Diet Center has done research that indicates sweeteners that contain aspartame (such as NutraSweet and Equal) stimulate insulin production (leading to unstable blood sugar, irritability and carbohydrate cravings). Sweeteners that use sucralose (marketed as Splenda) and saccharin (such as Sweet’nLow) have not been shown to stimulate insulin production.

So, as with many debatable issues, the sugar debate is complex.   Sugar is a factor in dietary concerns, health issues, environmental concerns, and individual or cultural palates.  I try to develop my own products at HeathGlen’s Kitchen  with the freshest organic fruit available, the lowest sugar content I can attain, and the quickest cooking time to retain as many nutrients as possible.

Primarily however, I am looking to develop a lot of flavor and bring out the flavor of the particular fruit I am working with, unmasked by high levels of grape juice or sugar.  With high flavor, it does not take a lot of jam to satisfy, so you do not really need to use a lot to get the taste treat desired.

I leave it to the consumer to understand moderation, but I do believe that the labeling laws should force manufacturers to be more transparent.  Deceptive labeling can be harmful to the consumer with health issues.  The average consumer cannot realistically be expected to research out all of the literature on sugar and sugar alternatives.

Please comment with any knowledge or research you may have on the above issues.  I am a preserve-maker, not a scientist, nutritionist or health practitioner.  I do not profess to have the answers, just my beliefs….eat well, eat in moderation, enjoy and move your body.

Thanks……….Dorothy