Nutrition Info: Calories in different types of sugar

Posted on | October 2, 2013 | No Comments

Do you know what’s what about Sugar?

Refined white sugar is pure crystallized sucrose. It can be produced from either sugar cane or sugar beets, but by the time it has been refined to a white crystal, the two are chemically identical.

Brown sugar is simply refined white sugar with a bit of molasses added back into it.

Molasses is what’s left over from the sugar refining process. It’s everything that gets taken out when you refine sugar cane into white sugar. The word comes from the Portuguese melaço, ultimately derived from mel, the Latin word for “honey”

Raw Sugar is cane sugar that has been minimally processed and retains more of the natural “impurities”. As a result it’s a little darker and the molasses aroma and flavor is more pronounced.

Honey is a sweet, sticky, yellowish-brown fluid made by bees using nectar from flowers. Honey bees transform nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and evaporation. They store it as a primary food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive.

Maple Syrup is a syrup usually made from the xylem sap of sugar maple, red maple or black maple trees.  In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in the spring. Maple trees can be tapped by boring holes into their trunks and collecting the exuded sap. The sap is processed by heating to evaporate much of the water, leaving the concentrated syrup. It consists primarily of sucrose and water, with small amounts of other sugars. Organic acids, the most notable one being malic acid make the syrup slightly acidic.

Stevia is derived from a plant that is part of the Asteraceae family (related to the daisy). The prized species, Stevia rebaudiana (Bertoni), grows in Paraguay and Brazil, where people have used leaves from the stevia bush to sweeten food for hundreds of years.  Stevia has virtually no calories and is 200 times sweeter than sugar in the same concentration.

Xylitol is a naturally occurring alcohol found in most plant material, including many fruits and vegetables.  It tastes sweet and is widely used as a sugar substitute and also in “sugar-free” chewing gums, mints, and other candies. However, sorbitol is the most commonly used sweetener in sugarless gums because it is less expensive than xylitol and easier to make into commercial products.

Note: Dog owners should know that xylitol can be toxic to dogs, even when the relatively small amounts from candies are eaten.

Calories in 1 teaspoon of various types of Sugar:

	White   Sugar	Brown   Sugar	Molasses	Raw   Sugar	Honey	Maple   Syrup	Stevia	Xylitol
Energy	16     calories	17    calories	19    calories	15    calories	21    calories	18     calories	1.4   calories	9.6   calories
Protein	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g
Carbs	4.2 g	4.48 g	5 g	4 g	5.7 g	5 g	0.3 g	0 g
Fat	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g	0 g

 

How Much Sugar Can You Have?

The World Health Organization recommends that you limit your intake of added sugars to no more than 10% of your calories. If you’re an average-sized adult, ten percent of your calories is around 50 grams of sugar, or the equivalent of 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar.   The American Heart Association would like to lower the bar to just 5%.

So… do you comply with this limit and use less than 3 tablespoons of added sugar each day?

For more health and nutrition tips visit: www.healthguru.sg

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