[Sca-cooks] sugar substitutes, may be off topic

[Sue Clemenger]

The info on sugar beets is really interesting.  Any idea of the relative
common-ness of beet sugar vs cane sugar?
--Maire, who actually works in a converted sugar beet factory (now, two
floors of grey-carpeted, grey-cubicled Dilbert H*ll <g>)

Terry Decker wrote:
>
> The sugar cane we use originates in Northern India and was found there by
> Alexander's troops around 325 BCE.  They may have introduced it into the
> Euphrates Valley or it may have been introduced their earlier.  Cane was not
> introduced into Europe until the Islamic expansion.  AFAIK, refining did not
> arrive in Europe until then.  There is some argument as to whether cane
> originated in Polynesia and moved to Asia or vice versa.
>
> The sugar beet is a 19th Century hybrid of the Silesian white beet.
> Margraaf described the chemical process for extracting sugar from beets and
> carrots in 1747.  The first beet sugar extraction mill was started by Achard
> in 1802 and the sugar beet was developed to improve the extraction.
>
> Bear
>
>