Compare Beet and Cane Sugar

Sug­ar, when con­sumed in mod­er­a­tion, helps the body main­tain an opti­mal ener­gy bal­ance, as it is actu­al­ly made up of glu­cose, which our body needs to con­trol cel­lu­lar func­tions in the brain. Most glu­cose is found in two types of sug­ar: cane and beet. Is there a dif­fer­ence between them and which one is more use­ful? Our experts were look­ing for answers to these ques­tions.

Product Features

For the man­u­fac­ture of beet sug­ar, sug­ar beet is used — a plant grown exclu­sive­ly in tem­per­ate cli­mates. This is due to the cul­ture’s need for a sig­nif­i­cant amount of mois­ture. Beet­root is a one-year-old plant, there­fore it requires an annu­al plant­i­ng. Ripe fruits are usu­al­ly har­vest­ed at the end of autumn or with the advent of win­ter.

The prod­uct is cleaned from the rem­nants of the earth, the tops are removed, then they are thor­ough­ly cleaned, and, final­ly, the raw sug­ar is extract­ed by press­ing. As a result of this sim­ple process, juice is obtained, which is fil­tered, then dried — sweet crys­tals are obtained, which are com­plete­ly ready to be eat­en. This is beet sug­ar.

Sug­ar­cane is a clas­sic “inhab­i­tant” of most trop­i­cal coun­tries. The process of plant­i­ng and har­vest­ing is much sim­pler than in the case of sug­ar beets. This plant can pro­duce a crop for more than one year in a row, with­out requir­ing addi­tion­al plant­i­ngs. The col­lec­tion of raw mate­ri­als is car­ried out by cut­ting the cane stems, which are then crushed in the fac­to­ry in order to sep­a­rate the juice from the cane pulp. It is fil­tered, heat­ed and formed into crys­tals.

ON A NOTE. If we are talk­ing about refined sug­ar, no mat­ter which beet or cane sug­ar, such a prod­uct is cleaned of impu­ri­ties to the max­i­mum and has a snow-white col­or. The taste qual­i­ties of refined beet and cane sug­ar are iden­ti­cal. In this case, it is pos­si­ble to deter­mine the ini­tial raw mate­ri­als only in lab­o­ra­to­ry con­di­tions. There­fore, when talk­ing about the com­par­i­son of beet and cane, it is appro­pri­ate to take into account only the unre­fined prod­uct.

Comparative characteristics

Com­par­ing two seem­ing­ly iden­ti­cal prod­ucts, our experts found a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences and put them in the table.

How to choose the right sugar?

To enjoy the taste of qual­i­ty sug­ar, you must first choose the right one. The selec­tion process is espe­cial­ly impor­tant in the case of cane, since quite often under the guise of this prod­uct they sell col­ored beet. So, when decid­ing to pur­chase an unre­fined prod­uct, con­sid­er a few sim­ple points:

1. Pay atten­tion to the name of the prod­uct indi­cat­ed on the pack­age: “brown, gold” and oth­ers are not suit­able — it should be “unre­fined”;

2. The pack­age should also indi­cate the type of cane sug­ar — demer­era (large crys­tals of a gold­en hue), turbina­do (sug­ar par­tial­ly refined in the tur­bine, con­sists of a yel­low­ish tint of crys­tals), mus­co­v­a­do (large dark brown crys­tals) “black bar­ba­dos” (almost black, sticky tex­ture);

3. The pres­ence of an unusu­al aro­ma — exot­ic cane juice;

4. Crys­tals are het­ero­ge­neous in their struc­ture — crys­tals of the same size mean the pres­ence of pro­cess­ing;

5. The prod­uct should not be free-flow­ing — the pres­ence of molasses excludes this option — a high-qual­i­ty unre­fined prod­uct is slight­ly moist, sticky.

It is worth not­ing that cane sug­ar is much more expen­sive than beet sug­ar, which (odd­ly enough), is not due to a more com­pli­cat­ed method of obtain­ing. Appar­ent­ly, the pro­mo­tion of a healthy lifestyle plays a role, in which cane sug­ar often appears as a valu­able nutri­tious prod­uct. This is true, but to obtain a sig­nif­i­cant amount of use­ful ele­ments, you will have to eat it in con­sid­er­able quan­ti­ties.

When choos­ing a refined prod­uct, it is bet­ter to choose an indus­tri­al­ly pack­aged option: this gives at least some guar­an­tee that the tech­nol­o­gy for clean­ing pri­ma­ry raw mate­ri­als has been observed.

ON A NOTE. If you want to buy crushed beet sug­ar, that is, pow­dered sug­ar, it is bet­ter to aban­don this ven­ture and make it your­self. The thing is that indus­tri­al pow­der always con­tains anti-cak­ing com­po­nents in its com­po­si­tion, with­out which it will sim­ply clump togeth­er: mag­ne­sium car­bon­ate, cal­ci­um sil­i­cate, starch, sil­i­con diox­ide, etc.