A sweet is a part of the snacks served to guests and visitors in most of the places.Distribution of sweets is done during festivals, functions and on all good occasions. The love for eating sweets and sweetener based snacks started several centuries before.It gets into practice in every human life from the childhood.

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THE WORLD OF SWEETS
By
Prof. A. Balasubramanian
Director-Educational Multimedia Research
Centre(EMRC)
University of Mysore, Mysore

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Introduction:
A sweet is a part of the snacks served to guests
and visitors in most of the places.
Distribution of sweets is done during festivals,
functions and on all good occasions.
The love for eating sweets and sweetener based
snacks started several centuries before.
It gets into practice in every human life from
the childhood.

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Sweets are items liked by people of all ages.
Most of the shops, selling bakeries and
groceries, invariably sell sweets like Toffees,
candies and chocolates.
Ice creams, fruit juice, soft drinks, corn flour
syrup, milk, honey and cane juice are the items
preferred by the people which are sold on
different places and cafeteria.
Bakeries sell breads, plain cakes, fruit cakes,
jelly, jam, creams and varieties of biscuits
which are sweetish and tasty.

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Sugar is one of the additives and diluents in
many tablet compositions.
Sugar constitute a very important class of
diluents for compressed tablets. Many syrups
have the sugar as its base.
Sugar is used directly or indirectly, in many of
these sweets and food items.
Sugar is a part of the food to all. The per capita
consumption of sugar in the world is 20 kg per
year.

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The amount of sugar used as against Maida in
making the bakery products are as follows:
Item Maida (gm) Sugar(gm)
Cakes 120 120
Peanut biscuits 250 100
Fruit cakes 140 100
Masala biscuits 150 10
Milk bread 1000 200
Ordinary bread 1000 40
The intake of sugar to humans is mainly through
processed foods.
Human nutritional requirements need
proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, vitamins
and water.

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Sugar belongs to the carbohydrate family of food
items.
Carbohydrates are composed of carbon, hydrogen
and oxygen in variable proportions. With fat,
carbohydrates provides the energy for our life and
activities. The sources of carbohydrates are
cereals, pulses, root vegetables, cane sugar,
honey, fruits and milk.

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Carbohydrates are needed for the following
purposes:
1. to produce heat and energy
2. to participate in the intracellular metabolism of
fats
3. to form adipose tissues which protects organs
and insulate the body from cold.
4. to act as a protein sparer
5. to provide roughage.

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The average daily requirement of carbohydrates is
about 55 % of the total energy intake, usually, 400
to 500 gm.
The level of carbodydrate is like this:
One rounded spoonful of white sugar contains 8
gm of carbohydrate
One average slice of fruit cake contains 20 gm
A slice of bread contains 10 gm.

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One gram of carbohydrate releases 4.1 calories of
energy.
Carbohydrates not only include sugars but also the
starches. These are called as sugar and non-sugar
organic substances.
Sugars are white crystalline substances which are
sweet and water soluble. Non-sugars are tasteless,
insoluble in water and amorphous.

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Sugar is widely used as a sweetener and to
improve the taste of some food and snacks.
It is a common ingredient of coffee, tea, and other
beverages.
Ice cream and soft drinks contain much amount of
sugars.
Based on their molecular structures, carbohyrates
are classified into:
a) Mono-saccharides
b) Disaccharides and
c) Polysaccharides.

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Monosaccharides are the simplest form of sugars.
These are absorbed into the bloodstream through
the gut wall. They can not be hydrolysed into
further simpler compounds.
Common monosaccharides include
Glucose , Fructose and Galactose.
The word “glucose “ is derived from the Greek
meaning grape sugar or blood sugar. Glucose is an
essential carbohydrate. It is found in the blood of
animal, in fruits and honey. It is the grape sugar
known as Amylose.

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Fructose which is also called as levulose, is found
in fruits and vegetables.
These once arrived in the stomach will be
absorbed though the stomach wall and thus
provide an instant source of energy.
Disaccharides are made up of two
monosaccharides. They are more complex
requiring one-stage breakdown process before
absorption can occur.

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It includes Maltose, Sucrose and Lactose.
Maltose is the malt sugar. It is formed from the
starch which is used in the production of bread
and baby food.
Sucrose is found in beet or cane sugar. Sucrose
can be broken down by enzymes into glucose and
fructose.
Lactose is found in the milk.

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A relative sweetness scale shows that fructose
contains more sweetness than others.
Sucrose 100
Fructose 140
Glucose 70-80
Galactose 35
Maltose 30-50
Lactose 20
The third major class of carbohydrates are the
polysaccharides.

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These are polymeric substances and can be
hydrolysed to give a large number of
monosaccharide units.
This includes
Starch,
Cellulose and
Glycogen.
Starches are found enclosed in the cellulose wall
of the grains and vegetables. Starch is obtained

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from cereals, corns, wheat, potatoes, Rice, barley,
Tapioca and beans.
To make the starches digestible they are broken
down by grinding or cooking.
Cellulose is a major structural polysaccharide in
higher plants where it constitutes the bulk of cell
wall. Cellulose forms the fibrous component of
the cell walls.

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Cellulose is indigestible and passes through the
alimentary tract unchanged. It is insoluble in
water.
Over 50% of the total organic matter in the living
world is cellulose.
Dry leaves contain 10-20% cellulose
Woods contain about 50% of cellulose
Cotton contains almost 90% cellulose only.
Glycogen is a converted product of glucose kept
in reserve for prolonged used within the body.

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These are stored in livers and muscles and are
used as a source of energy in an emergency.
Undesirable eating habits, frequent hungriness
and eagerness to eat and sedentary habit will lead
to the formation of fat and obesity.
The sources of sugar include:
Sugar beet ,Honey, Sweet Sorghum
Cornflour, Milk, Maple Syrup and
Sugar Cane.

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Sugar beet
is a plant grown for sugar contained in its large,
fleshy root. Sugar-beet roots weigh from 0.7 to
1.4 kilograms. About 15 to 20 per cent of this
weight is a sugar called sucrose. Sugar beet
supplies about 40 per cent of the world's
commercial sugar. France is the world's largest
producer of sugar beet.
Honey is the sweet, thick fluid made by bees from
flower nectar. Bees collect sucrose from the
nectar and convert it into invert sugar, an equal
mixture of fructose and glucose.

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Honey is an excellent energy food containing
simple sugars that can be used quickly by the
body. It is the only form of sugar food that does
not need to be refined. There are different kinds
of Honey based on its color and flavor. Most pure
honeys granulate and develop sugary crystals.
Invert sugar is the chief ingredient of honey,
which also contains small amounts of vitamins
and other nutrients.

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Sweet Sorghums
called Sorgos is a source of sugar.
These have sweet and juicy stems.
They are grown especially for the production of
sorghum syrup.
This syrup is made by pressing the juice out of the
stems with rollers and boiling it down to the
proper thickness.
Animal feed and silage can also be made from
sweet sorghums.

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Cornflour
is a starch made up of various sugars. Starches
can be broken down to form individual sugars by
mixing them with acid or enzymes and heating
them. The incomplete breakdown of cornflour
produces corn syrup, a syrup produced from
maize which consists chiefly of glucose and
maltose. Corn syrup is used for flavouring such
foods as sweets and salad dressing. Solid corn
sugar, which is also formed from cornflour, is
made up chiefly of glucose.

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High-fructose corn syrup is used in place of
sucrose in many baked goods and several soft
drinks.
Maple syrup
is the concentrated sap of certain maple trees. It
consists chiefly of sucrose. But it gets its maple
taste from nonsucrose compounds that form
during processing. People pour the syrup on
pancakes and other foods to flavour certain
sweets.

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Milk
is an essential food for all. Lactose , the milk
sugar, is found in the milk of all mammals (milk-
producing animals). The commercially sold
skimmed milk is the liquid by-product of the
cheese-making process.
Sugar cane
is the primary and major source of sugar. This is
one of the oldest known source for sugars in the
history of man kind.

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Sugar cane stalks grow 2 to 5 metres high. Sugar
cane is harvested by hand or by machine.
The process of making sugar in sugar mills
involve the following steps:
1. Cutting, washing and of sugar cane stalks
2. Crushing and squeezing out the sugary liquid
from the stalks
3. Spraying of water to dissolve more sugar from
the shredded stalks
4. The mixture of sugar and water, called cane
juice, is then taken away for purification.

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5. Cane juice is further diluted and added with
lime to settle out the impurities.
6. Heating and evaporation of the clarified juice
to get sugar crystals.
7. Separating sugar crystals through centrifuge
spinners.
The sugar made in this process contains 97 to 99
per cent sucrose. This is yellowish-brown in
color. This should be further refined to obtain the
pure white sugars.

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The sugar crystals may be
a) Granulated
b) Sanding
c) Invert types.
Granulated sugars are fine to very fine varieties
used in cookies and cakes. Sanding sugars are
coarser types used to make syrups, creams and
coating. Invert types are obtained from honey
used for coating and mixing.

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Molasses
is a by-product of sugar-beet and sugar-cane
refining processes. It contains 40 to 50 per cent
sugar. It is mainly used for making alcoholic
beverages, sweets, and livestock feed.
In addition to these, artificial sweeteners are also
synthesized and used.
Artificial sweetener is a synthetic substance used
in food and beverages in place of sugar. Artificial
sweeteners include
Sucralose, saccharin, acesulfame-K, aspartame
and cyclamate.

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These are sweeter than natural sugars and have
fewer calories than sucrose (table sugar).
They are widely used by people dieting to lose
weight and by people with diabetes.
Aspartame is the most widely used artificial
sweetener. It is derived from aspartic acid and
phenylalanine, two chemicals that occur in certain
foods.

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Saccharin is made from toluene and from
petroleum.
Acesulfame-K, also called acesulphame-
potassium, is derived from acetoacetic acid.
The sweetener is now used in many other
products, including yoghurt, baked goods, and
soft drinks, and as a sugar substitute.
Sucralose is made from modified sugar molecules.
The body does not recognize it as a sugar and so

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does not absorb it. Thus, sucralose supplies no
calories.
The sweetness of artificial sweeteners are
compared with the table sugar sucrose.
If the sucrose sweetness is considered as one unit
of x
Then
Sucralose has 600x
Saccharin has 300 x
Acesulfame has 200x

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Aspartame has 180x
Cyclamate has 30x.
Protein Monallelin is 2000 times sweeter than
sucrose.
The status of per capita consumption of sugar and
sweeteners per year
in the world shows the following figures:
County Per capita consumption (kg)
World 20.4
Malaysia 39.8
Phillipines 28.7
Thailand 24.9
Sri Lanka 24.1
India 24.0

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Pakistan 23.0
Asia as a whole 12.8
China 6.5
About 110 million metric tons of sugar are
produced throughout the world every year. India
leads the world in sugar production.
The by-products of sugar mills are also useful in
making papers, boards, plastics and wrapping
films.
Many people eat too much sweets and consume
sugar. Eating large amounts of sugar may

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increase the risk of tooth decay and cause a
person to become overweight.
To avoid these problems, artificial sweeteners are
used, such as aspartame and saccharin, instead of
sugar.
It is cautioned that people consuming large
quantities of artificial sweeteners may also be
putting them at risk.
A few of the artificial sweeteners are banned in
some countries.

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The major reason for sugar based health issues are
the changing food habits.
The traditional snacks used by our ancestors had a
mixed composition of proteins, fats,
carbohydrates and fibre.
Changing the constituents favoring more
sweetness and its excessive consumption is a
major health risk factor of life.

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It is necessary to understand the use of sugars in
our health systems and have a sweet and happy
life.