How Sweet?

There is a scale for measuring nearly anything in this world. For hardness in minearals, you have the Mohs scale, for the pungency of spicy foods you have the Scoville scale, but was is the scale for sweetness? Surprisingly, there is none.

All we have is a reference point of "1" for sucrose (table sugar). Everything else is relative to sucrose. Among carbohydrate molecules, the various combinations in which Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen arrange themselves gives a range of sweetness but there is a also wide range of non-carb molecules that can shock our tongues with their sweetness.

Perhaps the most common non-carb sugar is Aspartame. It is 200x sweeter than sucrose and it was originally synthsized by a scientist looking for a an anti-ulcer drug. Then there is Steviol Glycoside, a chemical extracted from a plant that was used by the Indians in Paraguay. It is 300x sweeter than sugar. At the far end of the scale there is Lugduname, a Guanidine compound extracted from guano, or bird-shit. It is 300,000+ times sweeter than table sugar!

Chemical wizardry can produce incredible levels of sweetness (at zero calories too!), but are these chemicals safe for consumption? Here again scientific opinion is non quite conclusive, so different countries have their own ways of handling sweetness.

Aspartame is widely marketed in USA under the brand-names Nutrasweet and Equal, and is being used in everything from chewing gum to cola's and puddings. On the other hand, Japan has actively discouraged artificial sweetners and promoted the use of naturally occuring compounds like Steviol. This Stevia-derived compound now accounts for more than 40 percent of sweetners consumed in Japan!

Japan's import of Stevia is so huge that last year it imported the entire lot harvested in Paraguay -- about 600 tonnes, worth about US$ 1.5 billion! Even then, the largest producer of Stevia is not Paraguay, but China, which produces more than 8o percent of global production of Stevia.

Recently, the Government of India has also tossed its hat into the ring by approving the use of Stevia in foods.

Will this result in a sharp increase in the cultivation, processing and use of Stevia as an alternative to cane sugar in India?

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* Aspartame -- http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Aspartame.htmlhttp://www.fssai.gov.in/Portals/0/Pdf/Draft_Notification_Steviol.pdf

* Sweetness Scale -- http://foodconstrued.com/2012/03/sweetness-scale/Lu

* Wiki on Sweetness - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetness

* GoI Gazette notification on Stevia (May, 2015) -- * GoI Gazette (2015) - Approval of Stevia - "Madhu Tulsi" --

* * (2015) - Japan to buy all of Paraguay's Stevia -- http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Sweet-Deal-Japan-to-Buy-All-of-Paraguays-Stevia-20150203-0006.html
- 600-700 tons a year and a value of about US$1-1.5 billion  (= $ 2500/kg = ₹ 1,62,500)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugduname

How Sweet!

Sugarcane is just a variety of grass. I love to dig my teeth into them but whatever else I knew was pretty basic – the slave-trade once thrived on it; to cultivate this crop, thousands of indentured laborers had been shipped from India to the West Indies - including the ancestors of V.S. Naipaul.

But what is story behind the jar of sugar that sits on my kitchen shelf? I knew next to nothing until I read today morning, a paper written by Harish Damodaran & Harvir Singh, titled “Sugar Industry in UP: Rise, Decline & Revival”,

Harish works with the Businessline and specializes on the Agri-Business sector. In his articles he never intimidates you with arcane formulae and statistical analysis. The approach is WYSIWYG - simple and direct , and this article was no different.

It looks at the topic in three parts –Historical Evolution; 1990s and After, and Socio-Economic Impact. Here are some pearls –

· If it were not for a protectionist colonial government, there would have been no Indian Sugar Industry. In 1932, an ad valorem duty of 185% effectively blocked sugar imports from Java. Within five years sugar factories shot up from 29 to 137!

· During the License-Permit Raj (1960-80), the cooperatives in Maharashtra surpassed UP. And then, in August 1998, the industry was full de-licensed. Distance between mills reduced from 40km to 15km; Economies of scale - new factories to have minimum capacity of 2,500 tcd; Dilution of “sugar levy” – govt share reduced from 45% to 10%…they could now sell 90% of production to open market

· Two international developments also helped: skyrocketing oil prices and the forced phase-out of subsidies on sugar exports by the European Union (EU). Big producers like Brazil started diverting sugarcane to Ethanol production.

· In 2005-06, India produced 19.26 million tones of sugar. UP topped the list at 5.7mT, followed by Maharashtra at 5.1mT

· Production: A typical mill recovers about 10 tonnes of sugar from every 100 tonnes of sugarcane that it crushes. 30 tonnes of bagasse and 4.5 tonnes of molasses generated as byproducts. The bagasse can produce power and the molasses, alcohol.

· Sugar one of the few industries that is completely energy self-sufficient and not dependent on coal or other external fuel sources.

· Thanks to more efficient boilers, for every 30 tonnes of bagasse, there is 8-9 tonnes surplus available for mills to sell -- especially to paper and particle-board makers.

· One tonne of cane makes 100kg of sugar. In addition, it also produces 100 units of power and 9.9 litres of alcohol. Thus Sugarcane yields not just sugar, but also alcohol, commercial energy and paper. As well as fodder for cattle and buffaloes.

· Water-guzzler? Not really. Sugarcane, requires 8-10 irrigations, compared to say, 4-6 in the case of wheat. But then, cane is typically grown over 11 months, whereas wheat is only a 4 - month crop.

· C-4 photosynthesis: Sugarcane uses a more efficient solar energy-deploying mechanism for capturing atmospheric carbon-dioxide and water and converting into starch matter or sugar / biomass. This is unlike rice, wheat, groundnut and several other plant species that employ the less efficient ‘C-3’ photosynthetic pathway.

· A modern sugal mill today generates direct jobs for 700-800 people; irrigated cane crop gives a net yearly return of Rs 18,000 to Rs 24,000 per acre.