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Nov. 28, 2006 Sugarcane, one of the major sources of table sugar, has the scientific name ‘Saccharum officinarum’. Saccharum is a genus with about 10 species, Saccharum officinarum being merely the most commercially important species. Saccharum is a grass, and therefore belongs to the family Poaceae, along with wheat, rye, corn and other grains, bamboo, grasses grown on lawns, like rye-grass, Bermuda grass and many, many others. Poaceae are also called ‘Gramineae’, an older term likely to be encountered now and then. Poaceae belong to the order Poales, according to the APG classification. Before 1998, Poales were called ‘Cyperales’. These double names, of course, are all unnecessarily complicated, but what can one do? At any rate, grasses are monocots, one of two main categories among flowering plants. I first became aware of sugarcane when I lived along the so-called Golden Crescent—the east Texas shore of the Gulf of México—in 1982. Louisiana, Florida and Texas are the most important cane-growing states in the US, as cane won’t grow in more northerly latitudes. Then later, in 1986-1987, when I was living in Hawai’i, I often passed through the sugarcane fields. Sugar was the backbone of the Hawaiian economy in the 19th century, and it was Hawaii’s desire to sell sugar to the US that involved it in the US economy and led to its involuntary annexation in 1898. Here’s a picture of a Hawaiian canebrake: http://www.lindaching.com/Kauai/pages/Sugarcanefields.jpg Sugar, though orginally cultivated in southeast Asia, was introduced to the Mediterranean region by Arabs. The English word ‘sugar’ is derived from the Arabic word ‘sukkar’, which in turn in taken from Persian. Sugarcane yields massive amounts of sugar, up to 50,000 tons per square mile. Compare this with 10,000 to 15,000 tons of potatoes or yams per square miles, and 700 to 2000 tons of wheat per square mile. Unfortunately, sugar doesn’t have the all-around nutritional value of these three latter crops. Sugarcane is used for the extraction of sugar, as well as the manufacture of ethanol (ethyl alcohol), rum and molasses. Molasses is also made from another grass, sorghum (milo). At harvest time, the canebrake is set afire to burn off the plant trash, but the moist stalk and roots are left intact. Then the cane is harvested mechanically, by reaper, or manually, by machete. The stalks are crushed in water in sugar mills, and the sugar is dissolved, later to be refined. The crushed stalks are called ‘bagasse’. Bagasse is burnt as fuel, and also used in the production of low-grade composition board. If distilled to make alcohol, sugar may yield up to 6000 barrels per square mile, in Louisiana, perhaps more in tropical climes. During my thousands of miles of bus rides and ship voyage in Brazil, I saw sugarcane fields galore. Brazil is the world’s leading producer of sugar, followed by the EU, China, India and the US. That ranking is based on figures that include both cane and beet sugar, and that explains the inclusion on the list of the EU, where, of course, no sugarcane is grown. Here are world sugar statistics and charts. Incidentally, SADC stands for the South African Development Community, a collaborative of 14 countries that grow sugarcane among other crops: http://www.illovosugar.com/worldofsugar/internationalSugarStats.htm In Brazil, if you go into a snack bar or diner, you may see 18-inch lengths of sugar cane stacked up in a hopper. If you ask for the beverage that they make of it, the person at the counter will put a stick or two into a machine like a big blender, which chops it up and makes your drink. Then the counterperson will draw it, just as (s)he would draw a soft drink, like Coca Cola, from a tank in a restaurant. Here’s a picture of a sugarmill: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~caguirre/sugarmill.jpg The sugar derived from cane is called ‘sucrose’ or ‘saccharose’ and has the molecular formula C12H22O11. There are, of course, many other sugars, like ribose, galactose, levulose, fructose, etc. Sugar is the most fundamental compound produced by plants, during photosynthesis, whereby water and carbon dioxide are combined under the influence of heat to yield sugar and oxygen. From sugar, plants make polysaccharides, including cellulose, lignin, starch and other compounds. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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