The Root of All Evil - Sugar Beets
Can someone please explain this to me?
Click on photos for larger images at the flick'r site.
The brown sugar looks delicious there.
Click on photos for larger images at the flick'r site.
The brown sugar looks delicious there.
posted by KarbonKountyMoos | 7:18 AM
17 Comments:
I know some people claim that sugar beet sugar doesn't cook things as well as cane sugar. I personally have a harder time cooking with the cane sugar.
Sam's Darling Wife
Hmm...maybe to justify jacking the price up a few cents? I remember those old C & H commercials with that song:
...from Hawaii...growin' in the sun.."
And that man and little girl would walk through the cane, and he would cut off a piece for her to gnaw on.
Maybe sugar beets need their own touchy-feely commercial with a little girl walking through the field sucking on a sugar beet.
Maybe not.
Maybe not is right! Look, beet and cane are both FOUR LETTER WORDS. And sugar is sugar. Same chemical formula. But, my guess is that most or all of the new sugar that will be imported with this new trade agreement will be cane. Hence, the push away from those "dirty" beets. Again, once run through the mill, sugar is sugar. bonnie
As a sugarbeet producer - I find the little badge annoying. It's already packaged as cane sugar.
Here's C&H's explanation.
"Maybe sugar beets need their own touchy-feely commercial with a little girl walking through the field sucking on a sugar beet."
Thanks for the laugh, thats great!
Best research I could find on this controversy was by Dave the Cook. where most tasters preferred the beet brownies.
Wow - thanks Richard! Interesting article. I for one don't think there's a lick of difference. I was raised in NYC - Domino territory - cane sugar.
I've worked with food and baked all my life. To me, it's like when a TV chef will claim that NZ lamb is the most tender. Give me a break.
This is my favorite blurb on the C&H site:
"Pure Cane Sugar, the kind C&H uses exclusively, is refined from sugarcane plants. The first cultivated sugar crop, sugarcane is grown above ground, nurtured in fresh tropical breezes under warm sunshine. Beet sugar, found in some store brands and in other makers that often don’t specify the source, is extracted from beets grown underground as a root crop."
Ooooh - root crops are dirty. Look at all those nasty carrots and potatoes. Why don't they tell us about the burns after harvesting in those fresh tropical breezes? Let's face it - farming is dirty business.
In taste tests, most tasters would probably prefer the hash brownies. And then giggle & ask for more. . .
OK...which brands are pro-beet sugar?
Instead of trying to decide which is better to cook with, I have decided to just give up baking altogether. :-)
BTW, raw sugar beets are tasty. Even if they are an icky, dirty root crop.
When my grandmother used to visit us in the spring of the year, she would pick some of the tender small beet leaves and cook them into a "green" and she loved them. They weren't bad. Of course, she fed us dandelions and lambs quarter, too. In the fall, she would collect and peel the little beets left from the harvester and serve them like carrot sticks. We ate them, too.
We also had an airedale dog who would run in the rows behind the defoliator before the digger got to the beets and chomp bite after bite from the crowns of the beets. Only one chomp per beet but he would do that for hours. It was funny to watch.
I know this is all a long ways from the real subject. bonnie
???? I didn't realize there was a predjudice...
I read somewhere that manufacturers figured out that products that say they are free of something, or pure something on the packaging fly off the shelves. Fat-free, carb-free, no preservatives added, etc. Sounds like the latest is pure cane sugar, probably along with a C & H sweet-heart deal with cane sugar producers. Guess it is time to buy another brand... Linn
This is a simple question to answer. Its common scripture knowledge, "Cane" wasn't "Able" to "Beet" his brother when it came to taste. Thus, the family feud continues today. Or at least this is what I tell myself so I can sleep at night.
Interesting topic. I always look for local GW sugar, in honor of my grandparents who endured the heat to hoe beets west of Billings.
Montannie
GW Sugar?
The Western Sugar Growers Co-Op packages over 32 different brands not just GW.
Good things may be coming to sugar beets yet. Got a copy of the Deaconess Billings Clinic Healthy Community newsletter today, and it mentions ongoing research on sugar beets and their ability to reduce cholestorol. Take that, sugar cane! Linn
I grew up in Houston - near Sugarland, Texas. It wasn't until adulthood that I even knew sugar could come from beets. I always thought that non-cane sugar was from corn...
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