Definition: In non-scientific use, the term sugar refers to sucrose (also called "table sugar" or "saccharose") — a white crystalline solid disaccharide. Humans most commonly use sucrose as their sugar of choice for altering the flavor and properties (such as mouthfeel, preservation, and texture) of beverages and food. Commercially produced table sugar comes either from sugar cane or from sugar beet. Manufacturing and preparing food may involve other sugars, including palm sugar and fructose, generally obtained from corn (maize) or fruit.

In this informal sense, the word "sugar" principally refers to crystalline sugars; but a great many foods exist which principally contain sugar: these generally appear as syrups, or have specific names such as "honey" or "molasses." Many of these comprise mostly sugar; and sugar may dissolve in water to form a syrup.

Scientifically, sugar refers to any monosaccharide or disaccharide. Monosaccharides (also called "simple sugars"), such as glucose, store chemical energy which biological cells convert to other types of energy.

In a list of ingredients, any word that ends with "ose" will likely denote a sugar. Sometimes such words may also refer to any types of carbohydrates soluble in water.

In culinary terms, the foodstuff known as sugar delivers a primary taste sensation of sweetness. Apart from the many forms of sugar and of sugar-containing foodstuffs, alternative non-sugar-based sweeteners exist, and particularly interest people who have problems with their blood sugar level (such as diabetics) and people who wish to limit their calorie-intake, but while enjoying sweet foods to a greater degree. Both natural and synthetic examples exist with no significant carbohydrate (calorie) content, for instance stevia (a herb) and saccharin (produced from naturally occurring but not necessarily naturally edible substances by inducing appropriate chemical reactions).

Originally a luxury, sugar eventually became sufficiently cheap and common to influence standard cuisine. Britain and the Caribbean islands have cuisines where the use of sugar become particularly prominent.

Sugar forms a major element in confectionery and in desserts. Cooks use it as a food preservative as well as for sweetening.


Concerns of vegetarians and vegans
The sugar-refining industry often uses bone char (calcinated animal bones) for decolorizing. This concerns vegans and vegetarians; about a quarter of the sugar in the U.S. gets processed using bone char as a filter and the rest gets processed with activated carbon. As bone char does not get into the sugar, the relevant authorities consider sugar processed this way as parve/kosher.

Vegetarians and vegans may also object to the impact that the burning of the cane fields (a common part of the harvesting practice) has on insects, rats, snakes, and other life residing in the fields.[2] The killing of such species parallels the killing of bees in the course of the production of honey, another sweetener that vegans usually avoid.

Debate on extrinsic sugar
Argument continues as to the value of extrinsic sugar (sugar added to food) compared to that of intrinsic sugar (sugars - seldom sucrose - naturally present in food). Adding sugar to food particularly enhances taste, but has drawbacks of boosting calories, among other negative effects on health and physiology.

In the United States of America, sugar has become increasingly evident in food products, as more food-manufacturers add sugar or high-fructose corn-syrup to a wide variety of consumables. Candy-bars, soft drinks, chips, snacks, fruit-juice, peanut-butter, soups, ice-cream, jams, jellies, yogurt, and many breads have added sugars. Five Alive, for example, portrayed by its suppliers as "all natural" and featuring pictures of five different types of fruit on its label, comprises only 41% fruit juice, having high-fructose corn-syrup as its prime ingredient.

Many doctors argue that health authorities should classify sugar and high-fructose corn-syrup as food additives.[5] Some go so far as to call refined sugar a poison.[6]

The anthropologist and dentist Weston A. Price, writing in 1939,[7] correlated the use of refined sugar (and refined grains) with malnutrition in pregnant women, malformation of the palate and jaw in their children, followed by cramping of teeth in adolescence (leading to crooked teeth and the removal of wisdom teeth molars).[citation needed] Price correlated other ailments and the impaired function of the pituitary or master gland with consumption of refined sugar, as well as rates of infant mortality, subnormal intelligence, delinquency, and incarceration. He also correlated the underdevelopment of the pelvis, which in women would lead to complications (pain, death, etc.) in childbirth.

Virtually all of these symptoms became the norm in modern populations consuming typical amounts of refined sugar and other "modern foods of commerce".[citation needed] Besides the rotting of teeth, interruptible or resumable merely by removing or re-introducing white sugar into a diet,[citation needed] the correlations with consumption of refined sugar may relate less to the consumption of refined sugar itself than to the absence of the consumption of "nourishment",[original research?] a category in which Price did not include refined sugar.