Functional properties of sugar

Sucrose, glucose and fructose are the most common sweeteners in nature. Glucose is always less sweet than sucrose, whereas the sweetness of fructose is highly dependent on temperature.

Sugar, which refers usually to sucrose, is natural and nontoxic, sweet testing, water soluble crystalline carbohydrates, and every 1 gram of sugar provide body 4K.calories. The main source for sugar is the beet sugar or cane sugar; also there are several sources such as honey, corn syrup, fruits, and vegetables….etc. Sucrose provides a sweetness flavour profile which is consistently liked by consumers at an economical cost.

The relatively high solubility of sucrose is an important parameter for its bulking effect in many foods and beverages. The dissolved sugar increases the viscosity of water-based solutions or mixtures, resulting in enhanced mouthfeel. Dissolved sugar lowers the freezing point of ice cream by preventing the water molecules from combining to form ice crystals, which slows down the freezing process.

By absorbing free water and increasing osmotic pressure, sugar reduces water activity in a food system (e.g. jam), resulting in reduced microbial and mold growth as well as extending the storage life of food. Also sugar can preserve fruits, either in syrup with fruit such as apples, pears.

Crystallization of sugars is desirable in products such as fondant, dragees, fudge etc., but not in many other products like jam and jellies. Crystallization occurs when the solubility limit of the sugar, typically sucrose or glucose, has been exceeded and a supersaturated environment has been created.

Sugar plays an important and single role in contributing to the flavor of food by interacting with other components to enhance or lessen certain flavors. By adding a small amount of sugar to cooked vegetables and meat enhance the food’s natural flavors, without making them taste sweet.

Texture is an expression of the sensation in the mouth. Sugar affects this by providing volume and consistency in many products such as bread, jam and beverages.In bread, sugar affects the volume of dough by speeding up the fermentation process. This gives the bread a more porous structure and softer crumb.
Functional properties of sugar

Sugar as food additive

There are thousands of food additives approved for use in foods. Sugar, high fructose corn sweeteners, salt, citric acid, pepper, vegetable colors, mustard, yeast and baking soda account for the vast majority - some 98% of total amount of food additive consumed.

Sugar is an important source of metabolite energy in foods and its formation in plants is an essential factor in the life process. Sugar typically made from sugar beet or sugar cane is not harmful unless large amounts are consumed over time.

Refined sugar means the white crystallized sugar obtained by refining of plantation white sugar. It shall b be free from dirt, filth, iron filings, and added coloring matter.

It has many uses as a food additive other than just sweetening. It acts as a tenderizer by absorbing water and inhibiting flour gluten development, as well as slowing down starch gelling.

It mixes air into shortening in the creaming process and caramelizes under heat, to provide cooked and baked foods with pleasing color and aroma.

Within a few years, the food industry began replacing some of the sugar it used with the new product, HFCS.

Though scientists can alter the fructose content of HFCS to vary its sweetness, the most common versions of this food additive in manufacturing taste is about as sweet as refined sugar.
Sugar as food additive 

Body and mouthfeel of sugar

Beverage finished products contain about 8 - 14% sugar. The sugar not only contributes sweetness and calories t the drink but also contribute body and mouthfeel to beverages and foods.

The addition of sugar makes more vicious or gives it a less consistency. Mouthfeel was defined as those textural attributes of a sugar or beverage responsible for producing characteristics tactile sensations on the surface of the oral cavity. It relates to density, viscosity, surface tension and other physical properties.

Body is defined as the quality of a food or beverage relating either to its consistency, compactness of texture, fullness, flavor or to a combination thereof.. It is difficult to separate mouthfeel and body.

If sugar is replaced by a nonnutritive or high-intensity sweetener such as aspartame or saccharin the consistency of the food will be watery and thin.

To prevent this, another substance has to be added to give the expected body or mouthfeel to the food.

For example addition of 1 ppm neohesperidine DC to an aspartame-sweetened cola beverage was describe as improved mouthfeel and body with more sucrose-like sweetness quality.

Modified starches or gums usually are added to such food products to give the desired consistency without addition of sugar.

The addition of gums to soft drinks sweetened with sugar substitutes to make the fluid feel as heavy in the mouth as if it were flavored with sugar.
Body and mouthfeel of sugar

Fructose

Fructose
Of the other sugars used by humans, fructose (also known as levulose), a monosaccharide (C6H12O6), is the sweetest (nearly twice as sweet as the table sugar, sucrose); and it is the most water soluble of the sugars.

It is hygroscopic, making it an excellent humectant when used in baked goods. The value of a humectant in baked goods is that it retards their dehydration.

Solution of fructose have a low viscosity that results in lower ‘body’ feel than sucrose but in greater flexibility of use over a wide range of temperatures.

Because of its greater solubility and more effective sweetness than sucrose, fructose is better alternative to sucrose when very sweet solutions are required, as fructose will not crystallize out of solution, whereas sucrose will.

Fructose has sometimes been called the fruit sugar, since it occurs in many fruits and berries. It also occurs as a major component in honey, corn syrup, cane sugar and beet sugar.

In fact sucrose, a disaccharide, is composed of glucose and fructose. Of these tow components, the glucose moiety cannot be monopolized by diabetics and it is for this reason that the ingestion of sucrose cannot be tolerated by diabetics.

Fructose, on the other hand, does not require insulin for its metabolism and can be used by diabetics with no concern. When used with saccharin it tends to mask the bitter aftertaste of saccharin. As its apparently accelerates the metabolism of alcohol, it has been used to treat those suffering from overdoses of alcohol.

It has been recommended as a rapid source of energy for athletes and in combination with gluconate and saccharin, as an economic, effective, safe, low calorie sweetener for beverages.
Fructose