Sweet as Birch Xylitol

Sugar reached England as late as 1319 AD, but it was very expensive and used as a medicine in the beginning. It took a while until the inhabitants of Northern Europe, around the seventeenth century, could start enjoying this novelty from less expensive imports arriving from the Caribbean. 

The role of carbohydrates in our life is also very complex. They supply us with energy day by day and play an important role in the cell to cell communication (the 

Brown sugar varieties are beeoming more popular but most of these varieties nowadays are made of refined sugar eolored by molasses (— 2.20). Marty people who praise honey over table su simply forget the fact that honey is also a con-eentrated solution of glueose and fractose (70%). Honey also eontains the disac-eharides sucrose and maltose (10%), whereas the rest is water (— 3.8). The characteristic aroma and flavor of honey is due to some small amounts of other substances, but in any case, the calorific value of honey is not less than the equivalent amount of table sugar. 

The advent of cheap sugar (compared to the earher times) also ehanged the European gastronomy the salty and sweet tastes have been separated and the dessert has appeared as a separate dish. The world production of raw sugar now amounts to over 160 million t every year. Current sugar consumption varies between 3 kg/per-son/year in Ethiopia to around 40 kg/person/year in Belgium (oh, those fine Belgian chocolates, Monsieur Poirot ). 

Sweeteners can be classified into bulk and intense sweeteners (— 2.16). Bulk sweeteners need to be used in relatively large amounts to achieve the desired sweetness in contrast to intense sweeteners that are much sweeter and needed only in tiny amounts. The sweetness of individual bulk sweeteners is compared in Table 2.5. Sweetness is subjective. It is usually measured by preparing a 10% solution of the compound in water followed by a request to a panel of people to taste it. It is then diluted and tasted again, diluted and tasted again, and so on until the panel declares that the solution is no longer sweet. The perception of the sweet taste in food also depends on concentration, acidity, temperature, and the presence or absence of additives. But just as sweetness is affected by other factors, so it is that sweetness influences the perception of fruit flavors, sourness and bitterness as well. 

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