Brown sugar has a high appeal among the people of China. Besides brown sugar, there are yellow sugar, brown sugar, brown sugar and so on. In recent years, the dispute between "brown sugar" and "brown sugar" has been constant. Not only among health lovers, but also recently to the regulatory authorities, to the court. Interestingly, Wuhan and Hangzhou have made diametrically opposite judgments on the relationship between them, which makes this dispute even more confusing. In Hangzhou, because the regulatory authorities determined that the two were different, all businesses that mixed the two were "ordered to make corrections, confiscated illegal income and illegally operated food, and fined 82,290 yuan".

There are three main points about "brown sugar vs brown sugar":

First, brown sugar and brown sugar are really different in production technology.

In national standards, the definitions of the two are as follows:

This description may not be understood by everyone. Simply put, both are made of sugarcane juice. Direct dehydration and drying of brown sugar, extracting brown sugar to make white sugar, and drying the rest to make brown sugar.

In a sense, brown sugar can be regarded as a "by-product" of white sugar production.

Due to the different processing technology, there are some differences in trace components and morphology between brown sugar and brown sugar. The rulings of the State Administration of Market Supervision, the municipal government and the court accepting the appeal are also based on the fact that "brown sugar and brown sugar are subject to different national standards and industry standards respectively", so it is considered that "the two names are not equivalent and cannot be used together".

Second, in terms of nutrients, there is actually little difference between the two.

Obviously, brown sugar and brown sugar are mainly composed of sugar. For the "trace components" emphasized by brown sugar advocates, some samples in the literature have also been tested and compared, and the conclusion is that they have their own advantages and disadvantages. The problem of this test is that the standardization of brown sugar production process is very low, and the trace components fluctuate greatly, and the trace components of brown sugar from different manufacturers and batches will also be very different. This comparison is difficult to be representative.

The US Food and Drug Administration in Wuhan believes that there is no essential difference between the two:

Third, neither brown sugar nor brown sugar has the legendary "health care function"

Many people think that brown sugar has health care functions such as "enriching blood". And this function can only be possessed by "ancient brown sugar". Because "ancient brown sugar" is produced by traditional technology, it retains more components in sugarcane juice, while brown sugar is processed by machinery and chemical treatment, so it has "low nutritional value".

Whether it is "ancient brown sugar", "brown sugar" or white sugar, the main ingredient is sugar. The "health care effect" expected by brown sugar advocates comes from the impurity components in it. According to this idea, then brown sugar with low sucrose content and high impurity content should be "good brown sugar". However, in industry standards, products with high sugar content (that is, less impurities) have high grades. The sugar content of first-class brown sugar should be not less than 90%, and the sugar content of second-class brown sugar should be not less than 85%. The sugar content of brown sugar is not less than 92% in the first grade and 89% in the second grade.

So how good is the impurity or how little is it? Are you dizzy?

Judging from these figures required by the standard, it seems that the impurities in brown sugar (that is, the "effective components" that everyone thinks) are higher than those in brown sugar. However, it should be noted that besides sucrose and these micronutrients, they also contain a lot of water. Because the water content of brown sugar is often higher than that of brown sugar, it is hard to say whether those imaginary "functional impurities" are more brown sugar or more brown sugar.

In fact, what are the trace components with "health care effect"? Brown sugar advocates often rely only on the "unwarranted" belief to support. The most common saying is that "brown sugar is rich in iron", so it can "replenish blood". 100g brown sugar contains a few milligrams of iron-that is, for these milligrams of iron, you have to consume nearly 400 calories and100g sugar (the sugar intake in the dietary guide should be controlled below 50g). In contrast,100g lean pork also contains similar content of iron, but the calorie is only140th calorie, and contains 20g high-quality protein. If you eat pig liver, you only need 10 g, and the calories are only 13 calories.