dvk (10/20/82)
I have a friend of a friend who is a Californian. Now, people west of the Rockies, take note: I do NOT imply that all you folk are gullible. I DO state that he is. Anyhoo, he claims to have seen once on Carson a huckster who claimed that sugar (raw, white) reduced strength. To prove it, he took a muscle-bound jock type, and invited him to indian wrestle. The Jock won. He then put a few grains of sugar on the tongue of the Jock (after first delivering his spiel), and then besat the Jock in the same contest. The result was to have proven that bad-nasty-poison white sugar had so waekened the Jock, that the Wimp could win. I maintained it was hypnosis, and proved my point by tieing my friend in arm wrestling (at a wedding reception) before Sugar, and beating him after Sugar. The win was close enough to a tie, but nonetheless, Sugar did not conquer me. Now, as to the results of the experiment: It may be that the test subjects who held the sugar were photophobic. Seriously. Scientific American (last month, Amateur Scientist) talked about sugar crystals emitting light when subjected to stress. As an aside to you of the "white sugar is 'refined', hence bad" school of thinking: "Refined" means purified. White sugar is Brown sugar with some of the garbage taken out. The "chemical" used to do this extraction is water, so there is no nasty residue. Your body can handle the pure form just as easily as the dirty form, since the "dirt" and the sugar are all in solution by the time you get around to metabolizing it. Honey and sugar can be compared, since honey has sugars other than glucose in it. But "white sugar" is not, has never been, and never will be worse for you than "natural" brown sugar. (Brown sugar is generally white sugar with molasses added. The molasses is extracted from the cane or beets in making the white sugar. Sort of like adding vitamins to bleached flour with removed vitamins to make it "enriched" again.) -Dan Klein, Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh
bam (10/30/82)
What ever happened to left handed sugar?? For a while there was a big flap over all the advantages and wonders of a sugar that couldn't be digested. Since then nothing... Any further news?? Bret Marquis ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!bam
grunwald (11/12/82)
#R:mi-cec:-18300:uiucdcs:10600023:000:433 uiucdcs!grunwald Nov 11 18:17:00 1982 Some of the "natural" sugar available is undoubtalbly just white sugar with a little molasses tossed in, but there are available un-processed forms of sugar. They have a nice sorgum-like taste, and it's very good as yeast food for bread, or for making soda-pop (if you're into making things like that). However, I have to agree -- most of the people who yell about the use of white sugar over honey haven't had much chemistry.