03.01.2012

Interesting unknown facts about sugar:

1. The average American eats 61 pounds Sahara per year, of which 25 pounds in sweets. On Halloween, 2 pounds are eaten.

2. Because of Sahara wrinkles can form during glycation when elevated levels Sahara in the blood, it binds to collagen in the skin, making it less elastic.

3. Reduce consumption Sahara can help the skin regain elasticity.

4. Made in India sugar from reed for 2000 years. Alexander the Great and his army marveled at the production of honey without Sahara.

5. In 1747, the German chemist Andreas Markgraf discovered that sugar in sugar beet is identical sugar in sugar cane. In 1802, the first factory for the production of Sahara from beets, which made it possible to supply cheap sugar to the northern regions.

6. Over 8.4 million metric tons Sahara, produced annually in the United States, is obtained from sugar beets.

7. You can eat 16 cubes Sahara at once? You must have done it. That's a little less than a 20-ounce bottle of cola.

8. Drinks with artificial sweeteners help you gain weight. The study determined that rats that consumed liquid with artificial sweeteners received more calories than rats that consumed liquid with no sweeteners. Sahara.

9. Saccharin and aspartame were created by accident when scientists were doing research unrelated to sweeteners, tasting a test sample and they liked the taste.

10. Which scientist puts test samples in his mouth? They had an excuse. The scientists who discovered sucralose were trying to create an insect repellent. The assistant thought he was being asked to sample the sample, not to test it.

11. The substance lugdunam is the sweetest, 200,000 times sweeter than table Sahara.

12. Sugar are molecules of carbohydrates, hydrogen and oxygen. The simplest include glucose, fructose and galactose. Canteen sugar is a crystallized sucrose, a mixture of fructose and glucose molecules.

13. Sugars are the building blocks of carbohydrates, the largest type of organic molecules in living things.

14. Glycolaldehyde - an eight-atom sugar, was discovered in a cloud of interstellar gas near the center of the Milky Way. Glycolaldehyde can react with tricarboxylic sugar and form ribose, the backbone of RNA and DNA, so that it could be the chemical precursor of life on Earth.

This cloud also contains ethylene glycol, the sweet relative of glycolaldehyde and the main ingredient in antifreeze. Either complex sugars can be produced in interstellar space, or there is some point in the universe for their production. Sugar can help determine this. Burn sucrose with corn syrup and saltpeter and you've got "sugar fuel," amateur rocket fuel.

Gulnara based on Discovermagazine materials

There are probably no people who do not like sugar. It is interesting to know what sugar is, how it is useful, and maybe dangerous for our body. We have selected for you interesting facts about sugar.

A monument to sugar has been erected in the Czech Republic, or more precisely, sugar - refined sugar, it was the Czechs who were the first to come up with the idea of ​​​​compressing sugar into cubes.

The second known monument to refined sugar was opened in 2010 in the city of Sumy in Ukraine on the 355th anniversary of the city.

• All confectionery products (sweets, cookies, pies, ice cream and much more), as well as drinks (Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and others) contain a huge amount of sugar, up to 90%.
• Sugar is produced from both cane and sugar beets. But the interesting thing is that cane sugar is yellowish in color, and it is slightly healthier than beet sugar, as the body absorbs it faster and easier.
• Curiously, scientists are ambivalent about the benefits of sugar. Some insist that when sugar is consumed, a person produces the hormone of happiness, and such people are cheerful, smiling, and friendly in life. Another point of view is based on the fact that sugar in large quantities adversely affects the human pancreas and liver.
• It is also helpful to know that sugar is addictive. There is even an opinion that sugar is to some extent a “drug”, in the good sense of the word.
• They learned how to make fuel for cars from sugar, and what is most interesting, the release of batteries is expected soon, in which sugar will play the role of an electrolyte.
• As you know, doctors recommend giving babies water in which sugar is slightly diluted, this is done so that sucrose enters the baby's brain, thereby stimulating the mental development of the child.
• According to astronomers, particles similar in properties to sugar have been found in space.
• Sugar is an ingredient in many medicines.
• There is no fat in sugar, therefore, it does not affect the fullness of a person.

The vast Sahara desert has become synonymous with a hot, barren place where there is no life. In fact, this is not so - an interesting local ecosystem has long been able to adapt to existence in such extreme conditions, although, of course, it is not easy for a person to survive here. However, people also live in the Sahara, but an unprepared person in these inhospitable lands will definitely not last long.

Facts about the Sahara Desert

• In terms of the area it occupies, it is approximately equal to half the area of ​​Russia or the entire area of ​​Brazil.
• The Sahara desert accounts for about 30% of the area of ​​all of Africa.
• Contrary to popular belief, the Sahara Desert is not the largest on Earth - the palm belongs to the Antarctic Desert. But among the usual deserts with sand, heat and dunes, the Sahara takes exactly the first place ().
• Every year, the Sahara conquers more and more space for itself. It expands to the south, advancing 5-10 km annually.
• People live around oases in the Sahara.
• Rocky areas here are no less than those covered with sand.
• The name "Sahara" comes from a consonant Arabic word, which in translation simply means "desert".
• Rich deposits of gas and oil have been discovered on its territory.
• Among the hot deserts, the Sahara is not the driest. It rains here, albeit vanishingly rarely, but in the Chilean Atacama Desert they have not been for about 400 years ().
• The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, rising 3.4 km above sea level.
• Partially on its territory there are 9 states plus one unrecognized, called Western Sahara.
• The height of the sand dunes in the Sahara desert can reach 160-180 meters. It's taller than a 70-story building.
• It snowed in the Sahara in 1879 and 2012. True, he immediately melted.
• Disappearingly rare here are powerful rains that last for several days.
• About 500 different plant species grow in the seemingly so lifeless territory of the Sahara.
• The only river that constantly flows through the borders of the Sahara is the mighty Nile ().
• In total, about 2 million people live in the Sahara, mostly Berbers and Tuareg.

• Most of the oases here arise in those places where water from underwater rivers makes its way to the surface.
• Scientists have established that these regions turned into a desert about 5 million years ago, but the Sahara finally took its modern look about 10,000 years ago.
• About 6,000 years ago, rivers flowed through it, but now all of them, except for the Nile, have dried up.
• Every year, powerful winds bring down clouds full of sand raised in the Sahara on the African island country of Cape Verde, creating many inconveniences for local residents ().
• In the very center of the Sahara, archaeologists have discovered ancient rock paintings, indicating that primitive people once lived in these parts.
• There are permanent lakes in the Sahara, such as Unianga and Ubari.
• The highest temperature ever recorded in the Sahara was +57.8 degrees. At the same time, the surface here sometimes heats up to +80 degrees.
• In total, about 4,000 species of living creatures live here.
• In the central part of the Sahara, it rains every few years.
• On average, about 75 mm of precipitation falls here per year.
• In the Sahara, under the influence of southern winds, monstrous sandstorms are born, which then fall on the surrounding countries and sometimes rage for several days ().
• Much of the Sahara gets heavy dew in the morning.
• In the local mountain ranges, frosts occur at night, and the air temperature drops to -18 degrees.
• In some parts of the Sahara, the average daily temperature exceeds +40 degrees. However, it is usually quite cold here at night.
• On the northern mountain plateaus of the Sahara, snow falls almost every year.
• In medieval times, trading caravans passed through it, the largest of which, according to Arab historians, consisted of almost 12,000 camels.

Mankind consumes sugar in all its manifestations, without even thinking about what kind of "sugar" his body needs. We eat cereals, pasta, flour and chocolate, fruits, both ours and exotic, without realizing how much we need this very "fuel".

What is sugar, do we need it or not, and what

We present all the most interesting facts about sugar about this wonderful "gasoline" for a person.

A bit of history

Sugar in the common people, and sucrose - in a scientific way, came from India thanks to the Egyptians. They were such "intermediaries" between India and Europe. In Russia, he appeared in the XI-XII centuries. Then only the prince and nobles could "taste" it. Domestic production began to improve in 1809 thanks to our own raw materials - beets.

Varieties

Popular beet sugar or refined white is present in the life of each of us thanks to Napoleon, who since 1806 was able to create a "fruitful" and solid ground for its production.

Cane sugar until the 19th century was an item of luxury and wealth. And the development as such, he received thanks to Columbus, who carefully transferred this plant of "chicness" to Haiti from the Canary Islands. This culture had enormous opportunities even then to satisfy the population of Europe.

Brown sugar, which is gaining more and more popularity every day, is actually more high-calorie and has a lot of impurities. This is the same cane sugar, only unrefined.

Here are some more interesting facts about sugar

• thanks to the cultivation of cane in Suriname, New York came into the possession of Britain in 1674.
• about 1 million slaves from the African continent were brought by Europeans to the plantations of Jamaica and Barbados to harvest cane from 1701 to 1810.
• Tsar Peter I issued a decree to produce sugar in 1718.
• In the 18th century, the German chemist Markgraf brought sugar to the state of "solid".
• in the 19th century, Russians paid 3 rubles for a pound of sugar, despite the fact that a piece of beef was 2 kopecks, and a chicken cost 5 kopecks.

And finally

Of course, everything has changed since the 19th century, not to mention what happened before. Sugar has become extremely popular, businessmen make huge money on this production, and the consumer always has something to choose from on store shelves.

Be careful when buying this or that type of sugar, and then everything "eaten" will only benefit you. It was written about the beneficial properties of sugar.

For facts about the harmful effects of sugar on the human body, see this video. Or in the player below.

It's no secret that the abuse of sweet foods carries a lot of dangers: from excess weight to the development of serious diseases of the heart, liver and endocrine system of the body. Nevertheless, even the most vigilant adherents of a healthy lifestyle continue to exceed the daily intake of glucose every day. The reason for this is sweeteners and sweeteners, which are found in most familiar products. Vinegret - about which names on the labels should be a stop signal when buying and why.

1. Hidden threat.

According to statistics, sugar is added to 74% of all finished products that end up on store shelves. If, when accounting for the sugar eaten per day, you counted only those few spoons that were added to food and drinks during the day, then this is self-deception. The norm of sugar consumption per day is 30 grams (6 teaspoons). But when you factor in snacks at work, desserts at lunch, and sweet yogurt for breakfast, the real figure is truly daunting: on average, each person eats a total of 100 to 140 grams of sugar a day. Monitor your own diet throughout the day, carefully recording all the sugar in your food. Most likely, the result will unpleasantly surprise you.

2. How would it be in Russian?

To confuse vigilant buyers, manufacturers use at least 61 synonyms for the word "sugar" on product labels. Some of the most popular sweeteners include glucose, dextrose, maltose, molasses, sorbitol, fructose, barley malt, and many varieties of syrups, from corn to cane.

3. Deceptive maneuver.

One of the main sweeteners that inspires confidence in almost everyone is fructose. Despite the harmless name, which evokes associations with healthy fruits, fructose has almost the same effect on the liver as alcohol does: it destroys it and causes pathologies.

4. Big races.

The claim that sugar helps to cope with a bad mood is not true. The quick effect of a chocolate bar or cookie, whether it is an energy boost or an attack of euphoria, is associated with an increase in insulin levels in the blood, which is invariably followed by a sharp decline: after all, as a result, sugar drops below the norm, which leads to dizziness, apathy, fatigue, nausea, severe irritability and entails other symptoms of hypoglycemia.

5. Mathematical analysis.

Just one can of soda per day increases the likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease by about a third. The reason is obvious: the very high sugar content. For example, half a liter of cola contains the equivalent of about 16 teaspoons of sugar.

One of these points may be the cause of poor health or problems with getting rid of extra pounds. No one talks about the complete exclusion of sugar and its derivatives from the daily diet. And yet, it is worth starting to closely monitor the amount of sweets eaten and competently limit the number of desserts and sugar-containing foods - then the result in the form of improved health, skin, hair, and therefore mood will not be long in coming.