Natural brown sugar, raw sugar or whole cane sugar is a brown sugar produced from the first crystallization of the sugar cane. Based upon weight, unrefined brown cane sugar, when fully refined, yields about 70% white sugar. There is more molasses in natural brown sugar, giving it a higher mineral content. Some natural brown sugars have particular names and characteristics, and are sold as turbinado, muscovado, or demerara sugar. Although brown sugar has been touted as having health benefits ranging from soothing menstrual cramps to serving as an anti-aging skin treatment, there is no nutritional basis to support brown sugar as a healthier alternative to refined sugars despite the negligible amounts of minerals in brown sugar not found in white sugar.
Turbinado and demerara sugars are made by crystallizing raw sugar cane juice, then spinning it in a centrifuge to remove water and some impurities. Demerara sugar has less molasses than light brown sugar.
Muscovado (also moscovado), an unrefined, dark brown sugar, is produced without centrifuging and has much smaller crystals than turbinado sugar. The sugar cane extract is heated to thicken it and then pan-evaporated in the sun and pounded to yield an unprocessed, damp sugar that retains all of the natural minerals.
Read more about Natural Brown Sugar: Culinary Considerations, Nutritional Value, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words brown sugar, natural, brown and/or sugar:
“Brown sugar lassie,
Caramel treat,
Honey-gold baby
Sweet enough to eat.
Peach-skinned girlie,”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
“Many people operate under the assumption that since parenting is a natural adult function, we should instinctively know how to do it—and do it well. The truth is, effective parenting requires study and practice like any other skilled profession. Who would even consider turning an untrained surgeon loose in an operating room? Yet we “operate” on our children every day.”
—Louise Hart (20th century)
“Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence.”
—Norman O. Brown (b. 1913)
“The sugar maple is remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet from the ground, like eaves, as if they had been trimmed by art, so that you could look under and through the whole grove with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)