10 March 2024 , 09:30
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Brown sugar is a favourite in baked treats and desserts, but have you ever wondered how it differs to white sugar?
People are only just discovering what it's actually made from and it's left them feeling pretty cheated.
The conversation began when one woman shared a TikTok video after discovering that paprika is simply crushed up bell pepper. "Are you kidding me? What other kitchen secrets do you guys have? What are you keeping from me?!" she asked.
Her followers wasted no time in sharing their surprising food revelations - including one confirming what brown sugar actually is. To date, it has racked up more than 21.3k likes.
One woman simply wrote: "Brown sugar is regular sugar with molasses" and it left the internet in a frenzy. "WHAT?" one person reacted, while a second admitted: "Wooah I didn't have any clue there was a difference!"
'I don't want children staying up late at weekends - I really need adult time'
"My jaw dropped," a third confessed - and a fourth echoed: "Excuse me?!" And she's right. According to Discovery UK, "The only difference is that brown sugar is processed with molasses (a dark syrup made as a by-product of the sugar-making process). It's the molasses which gives brown sugar the colour and flavour difference."
Brown sugar can also be made at home by coating white granulated sugar with molasses. While sugar beets and sugar cane are used to make white granulated sugar, only molasses from sugar cane is used in the production of brown sugar.
Sugar is harvested from sugar beets, root vegetables that grow in cooler climates, and sugar cane plants, tropical grasses that grow up to 20 feet tall. The refining process is similar for both.
The website britishsugar.co.uk details how sugar beet makes it to our tables, once it has been harvested in the autumn.
When it arrives on site at the factory, the sugar beet is washed and then sliced into thin strips called cossettes. These thin strips are mixed with hot water to extract the sugar and a lime solution is added to the raw juice to remove any impurities.
The syrup is then filtered, heated and seeded with tiny sugar crystals, which grow into the required size. The sugar crystals are then washed, dried and cooled, ready to be packaged.
The truth about brown sugar wasn't the only revelation on the TikTok thread. One person shared, "Teriyaki sauce is soy sauce and sugar…" while another person revealed: "Wasabi in most sushi restaurants is horseradish coloured green. Real wasabi is SO expensive."
A third wrote: "White/button mushrooms, brown/crimini mushrooms, and portobello mushrooms are all the same thing at different stages of maturity - agaricus bisporus."
Someone else revealed: "Figs have the broken down protein of female wasps, so while you aren't eating them directly, all figs have remnants of wasp bodies." And another added: "Strawberries aren't actually berries but avocados are."