consumption of refined sugar during the past two or three generations has been so rapid as in the United States. The prewar per capita consumption of sugar in several of the chief countries of the world is given by Browne as follows:

It will be seen that the per-capita consumption of sugar in continental Europe is not over half that in the United States. England reports a larger per-capita consumption, but it is to be noted that these statistics include both the sugar eaten as such and that used in the preparation of manufactured foods. Since England exports large amounts of jam, marmalade, and other food products containing much added sugar, it may be doubted whether the actual per-capita consumption of sugar is any larger in England than in the United States.

The objection to the too free use of sugar, on the ground that it serves only as fuel and may replace to an undue extent other food materials which meet other nutritive requirements, applies equally to commercial glucose and to most candy. It does not hold to the same extent as regards molasses and those sirups which contain the natural ash constituents of the plant juices. Probably the most desirable of all materials with which to satisfy a desire for sweet-tasting foods are the fruits, several of which contain from 10 to 15 per cent of sugars in the fresh state and from 50 to 75 per cent when dried. Some of the advantageous characteristics of fruit as food have been discussed in Chapter IX.

In addition to the question to what extent sugar may be allowed to displace other foods without danger of making the diet one-sided, there are several other considerations which should be kept in mind in attempting to assign to sugar its proper place as a food.

Sucrose entering the blood as such is not utilized; only the products of digestion are normally absorbed into the body. The digestion of sugar is a relatively simple process since it involves only one hydrolysis. This digestive hydrolysis, however, is not effected until the sugar reaches the intestine. Hence nearly all the sugar eaten remains as such in the stomach unless it is decomposed there by the action of microorganisms. Herter found that cane sugar is more apt to undergo fermentation in the stomach than is milk sugar. The products yielded by the more common types of fermentation, of which lactic acid is perhaps the best example, are not in any ordinary sense poisonous but may be irritating when formed in large amount. Aside from the question of fermentation, sugar is often directly irritating to the stomach, for unless much diluted with other food or with water it is likely in some part of the stomach to furnish a sugar solution of sufficient concentration to result in a distinct abstraction of water from the mucous membrane. The effect of such abstraction of water from the mucous membrane on a small scale is easily observed by holding a piece of hard candy in one side of the mouth for some time without moving it. When the same action takes place on a much larger scale in the stomach, and especially when, from frequent free use of sugar, it occurs repeatedly, some injury to the stomach must be anticipated.

The fact that sugar may have a disturbing influence upon digestion does not imply that the sugar itself is at all likely to escape digestion. The readiness with which sugar is hydrolyzed by the sugar-splitting enzyme of the intestinal juice, combined with the susceptibility of sugar to the attack of bacteria, makes it unlikely that much sugar will pass through the digestive

1

tract unchanged. In a bulletin of the United States Department of Agriculture, Mrs. Abel cites experiments in which 5 ounces of sugar per day, fed to healthy men as part of a simple mixed diet, showed an average digestibility of 98.9 per cent. According to the same authority 3 or 4 ounces per day “seem to be digested by the healthy adult without difficulty."

Athletes and farm laborers at hard work have in many instances been observed to take large quantities of sugar, often as lemonade or in admixture with other fruit juices, without any apparent ill effects. In such cases the sugar is employed to furnish the extra energy required for the muscular activity and so does not necessarily tend toward a subnormal intake of the foods which are valuable for their ash constituents and vitamins as well as their energy. In fact, when the sugar is taken with fruit juices, the consumption of the latter may thereby be increased.

The paragraphs which follow are taken from Mrs. Abel's general conclusions in the Government bulletin referred to above.

One may say in general that the wholesomeness of sweetened foods and their utilization by the system is largely a question of quantity and concentration. For instance, a simple pudding flavored with sugar rather than heavily sweetened is considered easy of digestion, but when more sugar is used, with the addition of eggs and fat, we have as the result highly concentrated forms of food, which can be eaten with advantage only in moderate quantities and which are entirely unsuited to children and invalids.

It is true that the harvester, lumberman, and others who do hard work in the open air consume great amounts of food containing considerable quantities of sugar, such as pie and doughnuts, and apparently with impunity; but it is equally true that people living an indoor life find that undue amounts of

1 Farmers' Bulletin 535, June, 1913.

pie, cake, and pudding, with highly sweetened preserved fruit, and sugar in large amounts on cooked cereals, almost always bring indigestion sooner or later.

From a gastronomic point of view it would seem also that in the American cuisine sugar is used with too many kinds of food, with a consequent loss of variety and piquancy of flavor in the different dishes. The nutty flavor of grains and the natural taste of mild fruits are very often concealed by the addition of large quantities of sugar.

REFERENCES

I

ABEL. Sugar as Food. United States Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletin 535.

BROWNE. Handbook of Sugar Analysis.

BLAKEY. The United States Sugar Beet Industry.

CLASSEN. Beet Sugar Manufacture (translated by Hall and Rolfe).

DEERR. Cane Sugar Manufacture.

Sugar and Sugar Cane.

ELLIS. An Introduction to the History of Sugar as a Commodity.
GEERLINGS. Cane Sugar and Its Manufacture.

The World's Cane Sugar Industry, Past and Present.

HARRIS. The Sugar Beet in America.

HERIOT. The Manufacture of Sugar from the Cane and Beet.

HIND. Heat Conservation in Cane Sugar Factories.

LIPPMANN. Chemie der Zuckerarten.

MARTINEAU. Sugar from Several Points of View.

MUNKE. Condensed Description of the Manufacture of Beet Sugar.
MYRICK. The American Sugar Industry.

PRINSEN-GEERLINGS. Chemical Control in Cane Sugar Factories.
Practical White Sugar Manufacture.

ROGERS and AUBERT. Industrial Chemistry.

THORPE. Outlines of Industrial Chemistry.

TOLLENS. Handbuch der Kohlenhydrate.

WALKER. The Sugar Industry in the Philippine Islands.

WARE. Beet Sugar Manufacture and Refining.

WICHELHAUS. Der Starkezücker: Chemisch und technologisch behandelt.

II

BROWNE and BLOUIN. The Chemistry of the Sugar Cane and Its Products in Louisiana. Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 91 (1907).

BROWNE. Chemical Analysis and Composition of American Honeys. United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry, Bulletin 110 (1908).

Sy. History, Manufacture, and Analysis of Maple Products. Journal of Franklin Institute, Vol. 166, pages 249-280, 321-352, 433-445 (1908). ZERBAN. Investigations on the Use of Sulphur and Its Combinations in the Sugar

House. Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 103 (1908). COWLES. Suggested Standards for Maple Sugar and Syrup. Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 1, pages 773-775 (1909). HORNE. The Sugar Industry and Its Relation to the United States. Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 1, pages 3–4 (1909). WAGNER. The American Industry of Corn Products. Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, Vol. 28, pages 343-348 (1909).

BRYAN. Maple Sap Syrup. United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry, Bulletin 134 (1910).

KAUFMANN. Maize Products and Maize Starch and Its Products. Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, Vol. 29, pages 527-531 (1910). Shredded Sugar Cane. Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 2, page 558 (1910).

BROWNE. The Chemistry of Raw Sugar Production. School of Mines Quarterly, Vol. 32, pages 217-234 (1911).

BRYAN. Composition of Commercial Glucose and Starch Sugars. Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol. 172, pages 337-342 (1911).

HERSTEIN. Centenary of Glucose and Early History of Starch. Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 3, pages 158-168 (1911). HORNE. Sugar Refining. School of Mines Quarterly, Vol. 32, pages 235-243 (1911).

KOPPESCHAAR. Requirements of the Beet Sugar Factory as Compared with the Cane Sugar Establishment. International Sugar Journal, Vol. 13, pages 527, 593 (1911).

KÜSTENMACHER. Chemistry of the Formation of Honey. Biochemische Zeitschrift, Vol. 30, pages 237-254 (1911).

WACHTEL. Development of the Sugar Industry. Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 3, pages 335-339 (1911).

Wisconsin Cane Fiber Experiment. Louisiana Planter, Vol. 46, page 39; Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 5, page 1205 (1911).