Brown sugar is widely promoted as a useful substitute for conventional sugar. However, the use of cane sugar is in doubt in some people, because its caloric value differs little from the energy value of cheaper beet sugar.
What is useful for cane sugar?
Caloric content of cane crude sugar is 377 kcal per 100 g. This is not much less than the calorie content of the usual sugar from beet, in which 398 kcal. Therefore, it is worth grieving those who dream of losing weight by eating brown sugar - it is also deposited in the form of fat on the abdomen and hips. And this, perhaps, is the only harm that cane sugar can cause, but its benefits are beyond doubt.
Since brown sugar is subjected to less processing than white sugar, it retains much more valuable substances - vitamins and trace elements. The dark color of cane sugar is given by the treacle, which covers the crystals of sugar. And it is in molasses that they contain useful substances.
Unrefined cane sugar contains potassium (100 mg per 100 g, while in refined sugar it is 5 mg), magnesium (in white sugar it is not at all) and iron (10 times more than in refined sugar). Reed sugar is also rich in calcium, phosphorus, zinc, sodium, copper and group B vitamins.
Undoubtedly the benefit of cane sugar will bring people suffering from disruption of the liver and spleen, which doctors often recommend a "sweet" diet. It helps brown sugar and in regulation of pressure, normalization of fat and protein metabolism, improvement of excretion of slag from the body. Due to the high content of copper, cane sugar is useful for the nervous system. And if you still doubt whether cane sugar is useful, consider the fact that, unlike the refined sugar, it does not distort the taste of dishes, but shades and improves it.
How to distinguish real cane sugar from a fake?
Dishonest manufacturers learned to fake brown sugar, giving out for it a caramel covered with ordinary refined sugar. The use of such cane sugar is highly questionable.
In order not to pay for a fake, remember the ways to recognize it:
- dissolve a cube of sugar in water, if the liquid has turned brown - you have acquired a fake, because quality cane sugar does not paint water;
- Prepare syrup from sugar and drip into it a little iodine, if the syrup gets a blue tint - cane sugar is real, because. a blue tint attached to the starch contained therein.