Classical Values :: My sweetest post yet

July 22, 2005

My sweetest post yet

The other day, I was offered some of the best tasting lemon/limeade I can ever remember drinking, although it seemed to me that it was loaded with sugar. While I consume quite a bit of sugar and have no particular prejudice against it, I recognize that it has unnecessary calories so I'll do things like opt for a Diet Coke instead of the Real Thing.

Anyway, this addictively delicious drink was called Odwalla Summertime Lime®. While it would normally be beneath my "dignity" (if such words can be applied to blogging) to write a blog post about such a silly thing, I was quite taken to learn that this substance -- one of the sweetest things I can ever remember consuming, had absolutely no sugar!

Instead, as was pointed out to me, the label reads,

Organic Evaporated Cane Juice

Given my fascination with euphemistic language, can I really be expected to ignore a thing like that?

Or is Organic Evaporated Cane Juice really something other than sugar? Here's one manufacturer's scientific-sounding description:

Evaporated Cane Juice
ECJ is a fine granulated, easy soluble, free flowing general purpose sugar. It retains a slight golden tan color and subtle taste profile from the original cane juice that will enhance any application. The single crystallization process gives ECJ its attractive flavor, color and nutritional profile. It is the ideal alternative to refined white sugar. Substitute one for one in any application.

And they were nice enough to provide a picture, which looks for the world like a small pile of, well, sugar.

So excuse me, but how come it isn't called "sugar cane juice"?

The difference between "cane juice" and the dread "S" word seems to be in the degree of processing:

Evaporated cane juice is a healthy alternative to refined sugar. While both sweeteners are made from sugar cane, evaporated cane juice does not undergo the same degree of processing that refined sugar does. Therefore, unlike refined sugar, it retains more of the nutrients found in sugar cane. Cane juice is available throughout the year. (Emphasis added.)

This only aroused my curiosity further. What are the "degrees" in the processing of regular sugar which are harmful to human health? And what "nutrients" does the evaporated cane juice have that regular sugar lacks?

The last site also ticks off some health related claims:

Studies have shown that the use of this over-processed food product is associated with such debilitating conditions as adult-onset diabetes and colon cancer. Avoiding foods with white sugar is probably a good idea. So what are the options – artificial sweeteners? Well, the problem there is that certain artificial sweeteners may be even worse for your health than white sugar. Some people attribute negative side effects such as headaches, poor concentration, and even conditions like Attention Deficit Disorder and auto-immune diseases to some of these products. Others have been shown in some animal studies to increase risk of illnesses like cancer.

So it seems like you have to deny your need for sweets or choose between the frying pan and the fire, right? Well, fortunately, there is another option. Certain sweeteners are more natural and less refined than the standard white table sugar crystals. One of those sweeteners is natural dried cane juice. The use of this substance (in moderation of course) has not been associated with any negative side effects or dangerous medical conditions.

That "Attention Deficit Disorder" got my attention, as I'm not convinced that there is such a "disease" -- much less that it would be caused by steps in the sugar refining process, and which (unless I am reading this wrong) are now omitted in the name of mental health.

Before I go any further, let me back up and acknowledge that sugar has been blamed for a whole host of health problems, and it is not my purpose to debunk any of those claims in a blog post. I am not an expert on sugar-related diseases, and as I said, I try not to over-consume the product. What I want to know is, what health-related dangers are created by the processing which can be eliminated by reverting to a more primitive style of sugar refining? Reading along with the same site ("The World's Healthiest Foods"), I am treated to some sugar history:

History

The history of evaporated cane juice runs mostly parallel to the history of sugar since it only recently that refinement technology was developed that created methods of processing sugarcane so as to create white, refined sugar. For much of history, what we call evaporated cane juice was the sweetener of choice by all of the different cultures that used sugarcanes.

The domestication of sugarcane is ancient, originating in New Guinea about 10,000 years ago. This plant spread westward throughout the globe, being widely grown in India. Yet, it was not until the Moors (who had learnt from the Indians the secrets of how to process sugarcane into sugar) began traversing other countries during the Crusades of the 7th century that sugar began its expansion, starting in North Africa and Spain. The type of sugar produced varied in color, size, form and molasses content depending upon the exact processing techniques used and the preference of the region in which it was produced. Christopher Columbus is credited with introducing sugar into the New World and the European countries quickly introduced sugarcane cultivation into their colonies in South America and the Caribbean Islands.

In the last few centuries, sugar refineries were built and there was a move towards the creation of refined sugar, often referred to as “white gold”. It has only been recently, in the United States, that there has been a renewed interest in these more natural and less processed form of sugar cane, owing to an increased focus on whole foods and nutrition.

Interesting history, and while I'm as fascinated by the Crusades as I am by colonialism, I'd still like to know at what point the evil bastards contaminated the refining process to transform a previously natural product into the toxin known as "processed sugar."

Sigh. That website would not tell me, so I had to look elsewhere.

Why do simple questions have to get so damned complicated, anyway? (You'd almost think this was politics or something. . . If I didn't know that food is apolitical I'd almost be getting upset. . .)

Anyway, while I don't want to go overboard, here's a fairly simple explanation in lay terms:

[A]ll sugar is refined. It's just a matter of how much refining has been done that determines the color of the end product. All sugar begins as the liquid juices of some plant, usually sugarcane or sugar beets as we have already seen, complete with a small but nonetheless disgusting amount of dirt, insect parts, plant matter, and a veritable plethora of bacteria and yeasts. This mixture is then clarified by the addition of lime, boiled, and reduced until the sugar becomes so concentrated that it forms solid crystals. This sludge is then spun in a centrifuge to remove the liquid (think of your washing machine during the spin cycle) and the result is known as raw sugar. Remember, it still has all the nasty stuff in it at this point, and the US FDA classifies raw sugar as unfit for human consumption, so the next time someone recommends eating raw sugar, be sure to add them to your "People Who Don't Know What They're Talking About" list.

The sugar is further refined and purified with two more cycles of washing, boiling, reducing, and spinning, until the final result is almost 100 percent pure sucrose crystals - sugar. By the way, the liquid that is removed is molasses, and we'll talk more about that later.

So (obviously) the refining process does in fact remove vitamins, plant particles, bacteria, insect fragments, and results in a nearly pure product -- granular sucrose -- that white powder commonly known as table sugar. Probably, it would be better not to remove all the vitamins and plant particles. But whether their absence makes the preexisting sucrose more dangerous than it would have been in their presence is certainly debatable. Whatever the dangers posed by sucrose, I don't see why leaving the vitamins in would make it any safer than taking them out (assuming one gets the necessary vitamins from somewhere).

I suspect that this is little more than a feel-good gimmick hoping to capitalize on the health-food faddism. Interestingly, the Big Guys like Domino (and their competition) are delighted to get in on what's doubtless a sweet deal for them.

After all, they already own the same cane fields and the refineries; if they can make more money by omitting steps in the refining process -- and make more money for doing less -- that's what anyone would call a win-win.

As for those who think evaporated cane juice is not sugar (or that it won't cause or aggravate diabetes), it's probably better to keep them away from sausage and politics.

posted by Eric on 07.22.05 at 10:33 AM

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Comments

Hmmm.... Funny about sweets. Mrs. Bricker's cookies. Peppermint or licorice tea (uh-oh -- Dawn says: "NO TEA!!!!"*) and mint cocoa (uh-oh -- Chesterton says: "NO COCOA!!!!**") in my mocha. Norma's Sacra-Mints and licorice. Dawn and Norma licking chocolate ice cream and whipped cream off each other's tounges. Orange sherbet. Spumoni (the Pizza Girl?).

(*a Communist plot, ties in with the Yellow Peril and Perfidious Albion)

(**he wrote a harsh and nasty poem against it)

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · July 22, 2005 02:06 PM

3 things are "dulce et decorum" unto me:

1) a pulchritunous woman

2) a color wheel

3) an ideological spectrum

I wrote this spectrumology in the Queen's realm and decided that you must get to see it too, as you also are so worthy:

Yes, I've really got to think up a name for the 2-dimensional spectrum I described here:

"I have come to see it more and more as a 2-dimensional spectrum. On the left are those (materialists) who believe that what is most important is the economic. On the right are those of us (spiritualists) who believe that what is most important is the moral or spiritual. On the bottom are those (collectivists) who believe that what is most important should be controlled by the government or the collective. On the top are those of us (individualists) who believe that what is most important should be controlled by the individual.

In the bottom left corner are the pure Marxists who want total government control of economics (socialism). In the bottom right corner are those like Santorum, Bork, or Scalia who want total government control of morals. Between these are those who want total government control of everything (totalitarians, e.g., Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, today's Politically Correct movement). In the top left corner are those libertarians such as von Mises who value economic freedom (capitalism) the most. On the left between the Marxists and the economic libertarians are the various New Deal-mixed economy pragmatists. These are the ones who the media call "the moderates". In the top right corner are those Nietzschean individualists such as Camille Paglia and myself who value spiritual freedom the most. Between the economic libertarians and the spiritual individualists are Ayn Rand and the Objectivists who defend capitalism as the supreme embodiment of man's free mind. On the right between Santorum and Paglia are those conservatives such as President Bush and Justice Thomas who are conflicted between valuing freedom and seeing some government control as necessary to protect morality.

That's how I increasingly see it. Spectrums, spectrums, spectrums, spectrums...."

For now, I guess I'll just have to call it the SMA or SMA4 spectrum.

As to the comment or addendum I wrote after that here:

"I must add that, on the 2-dimension spectrum I just outlined here, Ayn Rand was closer to the Nietzschean pole at the time she wrote The Fountainhead and earlier, but moved leftward on this spectrum, toward a more rationalistic position, as she wrote Atlas Shrugged and after."

I have often thought about those two novels of Rand. I have often thought that we admirers of Rand (not necessarily Objectivists) tend to divide between those of us who prefer The Fountainhead and those who prefer Atlas Shrugged. Perhaps those of us who prefer The Fountainhead like the deeper characterizations, while those who prefer Atlas Shrugged like the more complex plot structure. Rand was superb at plot structure, while my characters (holy Dawn vs. wicked Wanda, etc....) write their own story.... Ties in with the right (or "myth") hemisphere vs. the left (or "math") hemisphere?....

Another thing that my friend Jeanine Ring (another Nietzsche admirer) and I discussed was this reversal: In The Fountainhead, Roark wants to keep on keeping on building skyscrapers in defiance of all the Tooheys, while Dominique urges him to quit. Ultimately, Roark wins over New York City and wins over Dominique. In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny wants to keep on keeping on running her railroad in defiance of all the Mouches, while Galt urges her to quit. Ultimately, Galt wins over Dagny and the lights of New York City go out. We noted that The Fountainhead takes place entirely in the spiritual-artistic realm while Atlas Shrugged takes place largely in the economic-political realm. Was Rand saying that values can triumph in the spiritual but not in the material realm? That would be contrary to all of her explicit philosophy, but it may have been implicit in her underlying "sense of life". (My "sense of life" also it seems....) Most interesting about it all....

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · July 22, 2005 02:15 PM

Ah, but Steve, Galt didn't convince Dagney, only allowed she, herself, to come to the inevitable conclusion she wasn't running TT in defiance of the Mouches, but for their benefit.

BTW, for sheer, raw emotion, I enjoy We the Living where all the characters are flawed to one degree or another. Even Kira.

Darleen · July 22, 2005 04:10 PM

Oh, and Eric, (hee hee, Steve distracted me) ... Great post on the continuing "sugar" controversy. I'll take common sense about all forms of sugar over whatever food fad or "experts" are saying about it. Any parent can regale you with tales of what too much sugar can do to small children (trying to peel them from the walls and ceilings before bedtime).

:-)

My only quibble... I don't think ADA or ADHD is a "disease", but it is real. It is just different "hardwiring" for some people, like I'm nearsighted and no amount of someone telling me it's all in "my head" can get me to see a blackboard across a room without my glasses/contacts.

Not to say it isn't way over-diagnosed..as it has been the "in" medical condition (and has the advantage of giving less-then competent public schools something to blame for their own failures with children).

Darleen · July 22, 2005 04:16 PM

Darleen:

Excellent. You are right about Dagny. I'll just say that Atlas Shrugged was a different story, a different kind of story than The Fountainhead. We the Living was quite different from both. Rand's portrayal of Andrei Taganov was the most sympathetic portrayal of a Communist I've ever seen. Her earlier characters were more varied and interesting, as in her play Ideal.

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · July 22, 2005 04:59 PM

I should add that, similarly, Roark didn't convince Dominique, but allowed she, herself, to come to the inevitable conclusion that Toohey (so long as he wasn't armed with the political power of a Mouch) was nothing more than a gnat unworthy of anything but her contempt.

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · July 22, 2005 05:07 PM

Back to sugar ... I often wonder why High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is in 99% of everything in the market, from sodas to barbecue sause to potato salad...

Someone proposed that sugar is grown elsewhere in the world, and is expensive comapred to corn, which we grow here in abundance.

But that only explains half of it. OK, replace sugar with HFCS, but why put it in everything else? Could there be a strong HFCS lobby in Washington?

Now consider bread, especially the "enriched" (sometimes called "squishy white bread"). That's the bread where, after they take all the nutrients known to man out of the flour (you don't have to keep it sealed - the bugs won't eat it), they make bread out of it and put back vitamins and minerals and God knows what all and call it "enriched".

Mike · July 22, 2005 06:17 PM

Thanks for the comments! They're even sweeter than my post!

Steven, I'm often tempted put a collection of your comments in a book. ("Quotations from a Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist" or something....)

Eric Scheie · July 22, 2005 07:04 PM

Actually, a small change in preparation can lead to a large change in how your body reacts to different chemicals, vitamins, and minerals in different foods. A perfect example is biotin (http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/biotin/). Eating raw egg whites leads to a biotin deficiency (rash on the face and genitals), because another chemical (avidin) bonds to the biotin, blocking absorbtion. However, cooked egg whites don't have this problem, as your body digests the altered chemical avidin and it doesn't block absorbtion.

Not to say this is true for sugar, mind. But it might be.

I found that webpage after being dragged to a health food store and forced to buy two bags full of vitamin supplements. It is truly remarkable how many of those same vitamins and minerals have never actually had deficiencies reported in the general population.

At least, according to those greedy doctors.

Jon Thompson · July 22, 2005 10:21 PM

Dear Eric:

THANK YOU!!!! I'm tempted to say, and I guess I'll say it anyway: How sweet of you, ha! ha! Darleen's comments need a book, too. And, if anybody's comments need a book, it's certainly "The Wisdom of Arnold Harris of Mount Horeb, WI." Both he and you are, as he puts it so well, "man and a half"*. The style of that!

(*a phrase Arnold Harris learned from his Serbo-Croation wife)

I must add that, of all of Rand's characters that we have been discussing, I most identify with Dominique. As does Jeanine Ring. And as does Dawn.

And i've often thought about this: Norma = Roark? Dawn = Dominique? Wanda = Wynand?

Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · July 23, 2005 12:36 AM

Eric, the sheer volume of your output is enough to make other bloggers despair.

Who else could take a soft drink ingredient and turn it into a 1,500-word post? And an insightful one at that?

Scott · July 24, 2005 10:15 PM

Scott, thank you for the kind words. Success in blogging often strikes me as a seemingly impossible task, and my output seems insignificant in comparison to others. Being appreciated means a lot!

Eric Scheie · July 25, 2005 08:04 AM

Insignificant? Holy smokes, Eric, you (and the CV team as a whole) are one of the few really prolific "thinkers" (as opposed to "linkers") out there right now. Keep it up.

Scott · July 28, 2005 04:45 AM