Sugar: Brown vs White

blah

I'm sure the answer will probably be neither, but anyway, I'm putting brown sugar on my porridge in the morning, am I much better off. What's the difference between brown and white?
thanks.

tunney

neither - put seeds and nuts on it instead.

Stark

Brown sugar is slightly more nutritious than white sugar (which is refined). Although it depends what brown sugar you get. Some brown sugar is just dyed white sugar.

Personally I prefer sliced banana in my porridge, adding sugar just makes it too sticky for me whereas the banana breaks it up nicely.

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Brown sugar for coffee, white for tea.

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rubadub

Most sugar in supermarkets is from 2 sources, sugar cane, and sugar beet.

Sugar beet is grown here, during processing they will produce molasses, this molasses is not nice, and is used as animal feed.

Sugar cane is grown in warmer climates, also molasses is made during processing, this is the stuff you buy in health stores, or is treacle.

AFAIK beet molasses is not really palatable. Maybe they do process it and then add to the white sugar too though.

So the producers here will get white beet sugar, and add a little cane treacle to it to produce "brown sugar". It is still highly processed crap. You want unrefined cane sugar, tesco do a decent one. This has not been turned/bleached into white sugar and then redone.

The processing is crazy, it is like distilling wine, making brandy, then adding the brandy pack into the boiled wine again!

If you want sweet stuff in porridge then honey is better. It has more flavour, more nutrients, and is sweeter. Foods have sweetness levels, honey is sweeter than sugar, and sugar is sweeter than glucose. So to get the same level of sweetness you ingest less caloires using honey. So in lucozade where they want calories they use glucose, it is high in carbs but not sickly sweet.

I also use maple syrup.

samsamson

Blah,

Try using some honey or maple syrup (organic if possible) mixed in with the porridge to sweeten it. A much healthier alternative to using sugar, plus I find that it adds a nicer taste than just pure sweetness.

You can always try throwing some sultanas in there either!

CareBear99

Honey is actually just simple sugar aswell really, it acts exactly the same as sugar in the body! And has more calories than simple white sugar, honey has about 65 cals in a tbsp while white sugar has 45! :eek:

The best thing to put on porridge i think is blueberries which are naturally sweet (and really healthy too :cool:). But if you really need your sugar, brown sugar has slightly less calories than white and contains very small amounts of some minerals like calcium and potassium! But only tiny amounts! But still better than white sugar which really has no nutritional value at all!!

samsamson

CareBear99 wrote: »

But still better than white sugar which really has no nutritional value at all!!

That's exactly why I would always choose honey over white sugar, and over brown if at all possible. In my opinion honey is obviously the healthiest option, despite the fact that it apparently has more calories. If someone is trying to choose the healthiest option, I don't think they should worry too much about calories.

http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=96

There's some info on honey anyway if the OP is interested!

Mellor

Honey has more calories for the same amount, but I find the flavour stronger so use less. Resulting in les calories.