BEET SUGAR

BEET SUGAR

Beet Sugar is a white, parsnip-like taproot which makes sugar through the process of photosynthesis in its leaves, then stored in its root. It has a content of about 16% sugar, and goes through an extraction process that separates the sugar from the plant. Unlike sugar cane, sugar beet can grow in temperate climates, and is therefore a more popular alternative to cane in Europe and North America.

White table Beet sugar comes from either sugarcane or sugar beets and is usually sold without its plant source clearly identified. This is because—chemically speaking—the two products are identical. Refined table sugar is pure, crystallized sucrose, much in the same way that pure salt is simply sodium chloride. Sucrose is found naturally in honey, dates, and sugar maple sap, but it is most concentrated in sugarcane and sugar beets. The refining process renders the original plant irrelevant as the sucrose is completely extracted from the plant that produced it.