While spooning white sugar into your coffee, your kids sprinkle brown sugar on their cereal. And you recognize that familiar pang of guilt. You have been trying to reach for fruits instead of chocolate and cookies. But this other important piece of eating healthy feels difficult.
Is it possible to find any unrefined sugar, you can actually feel good about it?
Or maybe a raw type of sugar?
Even as a sweetener enthusiast, my mind spins with the huge amount of raw and unrefined sugars. All from this one plant – sugarcane. So, instead of walking up and down grocery store aisles confused by shelves full of options, let me take the guesswork away. I've sorted cane sugars into three categories and I'm here to give you a digestible guide. One spoonful at a time.
You Should Know This
The term "cane sugar" means any sweetener derived, directly or indirectly, from sugarcane. It refers not only to dry sweeteners – granulated, cube, and tablet – but also liquids, such as syrups and molasses.
Because sugarcane turns into almost forty types of sugar, I created the chart below to make it easier to compare them.
Cane sweeteners come out of two facilities:
Sugar mills are close to cane plantations and produce the so-called "unrefined" and "raw" sugars, which come straight from the freshly harvested cane.
Sugar refineries produce the most widely available sweeteners in stores – such as granulated, brown, and confectioners sugar – which don't come directly from the sugarcane plant. Instead, refineries use what is called a "crude raw sugar" (more on that later) as starting material.
If you're thinking: Is unrefined sugar better than refined sugar? What are the benefits of unrefined sugars? What is the difference between turbinado, demerara, and muscovado sugars?
Hold that thought for a moment.
What is Unrefined Sugar?
All cane sugars go through steps to remove impurities (= refining process). The so-called unrefined sweeteners are the least refined, as they retain most of the original cane molasses.
It includes traditional brown sugars – muscovado, panela, jaggery, and piloncillo – and those produced by a more sophisticated drying method, such as Sucanat.
How is it made?
Unrefined sugars come straight from the freshly harvested cane and are then refined as follows:
Three steps: Put simply, the production process starts by collecting and clarifying the cane juice, which is then concentrated. As the juice's water boils off, a sticky dark syrup, called molasses, surrounds the pure sucrose crystals.
No centrifugation: They retain the molasses around the sucrose crystals and, typically, are not centrifuged. A centrifuge [picture a salad spinner] separates sugar crystals from the molasses. Raw and refined sugars have most or all of the original cane molasses washed off by centrifuging their crystals, but unrefined sugars don't.
Most unrefined sweeteners are "traditional artisan sugars" produced in small batches and little capital in sugar mills around the world in sugarcane growing regions using hundreds of years old know-how.
Some unrefined sugars come from organic sugarcane. If processed, handled, and packaged according to the USDA organic standards, they might carry the certified organic seal. I wrote a post about organic sugars here.
What's in it?
With 8 to 14% molasses, unrefined sugars' crystals hold a strong flavor and dark brown color. The sugar content runs around 90% sucrose and 5% invert sugar (glucose plus fructose).
How to recognize it in stores?
Depending on where they come from, traditional brown sugars have different names: muscovado (Mauritius, Phillippines), piloncillo (Mexico), jaggery (India), panela (Colombia), kokuto (Japan), rapadura (Brazil), and rock sugar (China).
Sucanat (a registered trademark which stands for Sugar Cane Natural) and other similar products labeled as "whole cane sugar" are unrefined sugars produced by a patented drying process, which results in a sweetener that does not clump, cake, or harden.
To check if a syrup or molasses is unrefined, look for terms such as traditional, home-style, open kettle, or original.
I invite you to visit my Unrefined Sugars page to explore all sweeteners I found in stores.
Or read this post Unrefined Sugar: 4 Myths and How it Compares with Common Sweeteners
What is Raw Sugar?
Raw sugar doesn't mean an unrefined, unprocessed, or "in its natural state" sweetener. Instead, it means a single crystallization sugar, because it is crystallized only once. After sugar crystals form, the original cane molasses is washed off almost entirely.
How is it made?
Raw sugars come straight from the freshly harvested cane and are highly refined.
Raw sugars are produced directly from the cane juice in a sugar mill close to cane fields. After the juice is extracted and clarified, it undergoes a single-crystallization process. Crystals are then centrifuged to remove most of the cane molasses.
Most organic sugars we see in stores are raw sugars made from organically grown sugarcane and processed, handled, and packaged according to the USDA organic standards. More on organic sweeteners here.
What's in it?
Raw cane sugars usually have less than 2% molasses, which gives them a delicate flavor and a color ranging from blond to light brown. They are slightly less refined but more processed than the unrefined sweeteners listed first in this post as they generally contain 97 to 99% sucrose.
How to recognize it in stores?
Raw sugars are also called turbinado, demerara, evaporated cane juice, dried cane syrup, dehydrated cane juice, less processed cane sugar, washed sugar, natural cane sugar, and single-crystallization sugar. I made a video showcasing the names of dozens of raw sugars here.
Their crystals size varies from medium to coarse. Coarse crystals are sparkly, light to medium brown in color. Medium-size crystals (slightly larger than table sugar) are blonde to pale brown.
Please visit my Raw Sugars page to explore all sweeteners I found in stores.
Or read this post: Raw Sugar: From Turbinado to Demerara, Find out Exactly What it is
What is Refined Sugar?
When we think about refined sugar, the first thing that comes to mind is white granulated sugar – and I wrote about it here. However, you'll find the other twenty types of refined sugar in stores.
How is it made?
Refined sugars are highly processed and purified sweeteners produced from crude raw sugars.
As opposed to the sweeteners listed before, refined sugars are not produced directly from the cane juice. Instead, they are obtained from crude raw sugar, which is not the same raw sugar explained above. Both raw sugars come out of sugar mills, but the crude version contains a high level of impurities and is sold only to refineries. A refinery is often located close to a waterway to receive raw sugar transported by ship from sugar mills around the world.
The production process involves the removal of raw sugar impurities by remelting, filtering, evaporation, and centrifuging.
Raw and refined sugars have the same basic process: concentration, crystallization, and centrifuging. The difference is that only a single cycle produces raw sugars. On the other hand, refined sugars are purified through a series of cycles.
I am often asked, "Is there an organic white sugar"? The answer is no. Due to the use of synthetic chemicals to help remove impurities, refined sugars made in the United States cannot be certified organic.
What's in it?
The main component in any refined sugar is sucrose—from 91 to 99.96% when in solid form, and from 50 to 80% when liquid (syrup, molasses). Considered one of the purest food products, granulated white sugar (aka table sugar) is 99.95% sucrose.
How to recognize it in stores?
I found fifteen dry refined sugars in several crystal sizes, molasses, and water content. Get the details on my refined sugar page. For details on liquid sweeteners, visit this page.
1. Based on the size of the crystals, white sugars are labeled as granulated, fine granulated, extra fine granulated, superfine (quick dissolve), ultrafine (baker’s special, baker’s sugar, caster sugar), powdered (confectioners), and fondant (icing or frosting sugar).
2. Based on their amount of molasses, brown sugars are labeled as light (golden) and dark. “Pourable” brown sugar (Brownulated) is a refined brown sugar that does not clump, cake, or harden.
3. Coarse refined sugars include sparkling sugar, rock sugars, and sugar swizzle sticks.
4. Refined sugars in lump form are made from table sugar and brown sugar, which are first moist with water, then compressed or molded into a particular shape, and allowed to dry. They include white and brown sugar cubes, tablets, and gourmet sugars.
5. Liquid refined cane sugars include simple syrups, invert syrups, and light, dark, and blackstrap molasses.
To learn more, read another blog post: Here's a Quick Way to Learn About 20+ of the Favorite Refined Sugars