The Ordway new era., 1917-03-30
Beet and Cane
Sugar Identical
Say Scientists
BY Truman G. Palmer


1t is not uncommon to hear
housewife declare it to be impossible
to preserve fruit or to make confec-
tionery with beet sugar. Others claim
that beet sugar is not as sweet as
cane sugar and hence more OF 1t is
required to render given degree OF
sweetness. Some claim to be able to
distinguish beet sugar from cane SUI
gar by the size of the crystals, some
by the color, others by the length OF
time it takes lump of sugar to dis
solve in cup of coffee or other
liquid.
All of these conclusions are fallae-
ious, for even a chemist, surrounded
with all his scientific laboratory
equipment, can not distinguish one
from the other. Altho derived from
different species of plants, the refined
product from the juice of the cane
and beet is the same composition. In
sweetening power, in dietetic effect,
in chemical reaction, in all other re-
spects. Furthermore, II maple sugar
were reboiled and passed thru the
process of refining. 1t would lose its
aroma and flavor, which are wholly
in the impurities, and the white crys-
tails would be identical with those de-
rived from sugar cane and sugar
beets.
Pure sugar, whether derived from
beet or cane, is as identical as is pure
gold. whether mined in the Rocky
Mountains or in the Transvaal. 1t
IL h. 10 f1v
wife to attribute the failure of her
omelette to the fact that the hens
which laid the eggs were Rhode Is
land Reds instead of Wyandottes, az
to attribute the failure of her pre-
serves to the use of beet instead OF
cane sugar.
Inasmuch as one-half of the 20,-
O0n,O80 tons normal annual sugar
production of the world is derived
from European sugar beets, to as
sumo that this sugar can not be used
for preserving fruit or making con-
fectionery is to assume that where
beet sugar is produced, the people
either go without confectionery and
preserves or that they import cane
sugar with which to prepare them.
For fifty years Or more the conti-
I nent of Europe had depended almost
exclusively on beet sugar. Aside from
! S1ndll amount OIL fTeHCH colonial
sugar and some 10000 tons of cane
sugar produced in Spain, the $780,
600 tons of sugar annually consumed
on the continent of Europe is beet
sugar and no more attractive confec-
tions or delicious fruit preparations
are produced elsewhere. OF the L.
100000 tons annual sugar consump-
tion of Great Britain, 100000 tons
is derived from Continental sugar
beets. A few years ago 40 per cent
of the United States importations OF
sugar were beet sugar and now from
time to time, when shortage of su-
gar occurs in the West Indies, raw
European beet sugar is imported into
the United States, and it all energies
from our seaboard ref1ineries as pure
cane sugar" This IS not q misbrand-
ing, inasmuch as Worcester's defini-
tion of cane sugar" is Sugar OBJ
tanned chiefly from sugar-cane, the
sugar maple, and beet-root, and con-
tanned in great many other veg
etables."
DR.. Wiley, while chief of the Bu-
reau of Chemistry of the Department
of Agriculture of the United States,
said:
Refined sugar, whether it is made
from cane, beets, corn, maple sap or
any other product, is the same, chem
ically and physically. 1t is impossi-
BILE to distinguish between refined
beet and refined cane sugar. Chem
lists cannot do it. Housewives in this
country often attribute their failures
in putting up preserves to the use Of
beet sugar. The same failures occur
when cane sugar is used. In Europe
nothing but beet sugar is used, still
they have all kinds of preserves; in
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