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Consumer properties of sugar. Consumer properties of sugar What is the difference between sugar and table salt

Sugar and salt are similar in appearance. These are white crystalline substances that are easily soluble in water. Both sugar and salt are edible and are often found in powdered form. But despite such a number of similar features, each of the substances has its own properties.

General information

Sugar, in terms of its chemical composition, is a substance from the group of carbohydrates. It is very valuable as a food product. Sugar is added to drinks, culinary and bakery products. Ice cream, sweets, pastry creams, cocoa and tea are all prepared with sugar.

Sugar

Salt, in the language of chemistry, it is sodium chloride. It is also used in the cooking process and, like sugar, is important in certain amounts for human health. Excess salt or sugar is harmful to the body.


Salt

Comparison

Substances, first of all, have a different origin. The difference between sugar and salt is that sugar is obtained from organic raw materials. This substance is extracted from cane, special varieties of beets, maple sap and palm trees. Salt has a mineral, inorganic, origin. It is located in natural deposits, which can be found very deep, at the bottom of reservoirs. There is also a technology for obtaining salt by evaporating special solutions.

If you compare the grains of sugar and salt, you will notice that in sugar they look like miniature bricks, while in salt they have more rounded outlines. Sugar particles reflect light rays better, as a result of which this substance shines in an illuminated space. Salt has a more matte appearance because its grains absorb a lot of light. Sugar may have a beige tint. There is also a variety of the product, called brown sugar by color. If the salt has a tint, then it is grayish.

It is impossible to confuse the taste of sugar and salt. Sugar is sweet and pleasant. Salt, respectively, is salty. Eating a lot of salt at once will not work. Sugar has a peculiar sweet aroma, especially well felt in an incompletely filled container. The smell of salt is not captured.

You can understand the difference between sugar and salt by placing each of the substances in the palm of your hand. From sugar, the hand will become sticky, while salt can cause tingling, especially if there is a wound on the skin.

check yourself

1.Question: what are the main properties table salt and sugar?

Answer: Table salt and sugar are crystalline solids. white color, odorless, soluble in water, tasteful: sugar - sweet, salt - salty; table salt and sugar are excellent preservatives, in order to prepare vegetables and fruits for future use and prevent their spoilage, we either salt them or make jam from them. Salt and sugar are complex substances. Components of salt and sugar are part of the blood. Both lack and excess constituent parts salt and sugar in human blood lead to diseases. (an increased level of sugar in the blood will lead to diabetes mellitus, and its lack to poor mental activity, a lack of sodium, a component of salt, leads to hypotension - low blood pressure, and an overabundance to hypertension, kidney disease.) In order for a person to constantly replenish the necessary the amount of sugar and salt in the body, we salt and sweeten food, we also do this to improve the taste of the food we eat.

2. Question: how to detect starch in food?

Answer: in order to detect starch in food, you need to cut the test product with a knife and drop a drop of iodine on the cut, if after a while a blue-violet spot appears on the cut, then the product contains starch.

3. Question: what acids are found in nature?

Answer: citric, malic, oxalic, lactic acid are of natural origin.

4. Question: why is acid rain dangerous?

Answer: any precipitation that contains pollutants - oxides of nitrogen, sulfur and other acidic oxides - is called acid rain. The consequences of such a meteorological phenomenon for environment deplorable: they destroy plants, deprive animals of food, pollute water bodies. A person also suffers from acid rain, the body reacts to pollution with the appearance of a number of diseases.

Homework assignments:

Task 2.

At home, take three saucers, and pour sugar into one of them, table salt into another, and starch into the third. How to distinguish between these substances?

Answer: in order to distinguish between sugar, starch and table salt, it is necessary to divide each substance into two parts, add a drop of iodine to one part of all substances, the substance in which a blue-violet spot forms is starch. The remaining substances can be tasted, which is sweet - sugar, and which is salty - salt. In general, one cannot taste unknown substances, but in this experiment it is known for sure that substances are harmless and can be distinguished by taste. But this is an exception to the general rule!

In the next lesson

Question: remember how you can prove that there is air around us. What is the importance of air for plants, animals, humans?

Answer: the wind, especially strong, is a clear evidence of the presence of air around us. The wind blows light leaves from trees and heavy roofs from houses. Wind is the movement of air masses.

Our breath is also a way to detect air. When we draw air into our lungs, we can hold our breath and then expel the air with noise. This is especially visible in the winter when it's cold outside.

You can also inflate bicycle tires with air using a simple pump.

And blow up a balloon. And the walls balloon after all, it would seem that nothing is holding back, but it is elastic and retains its shape.

Air is of paramount importance for all life on Earth - we breathe it, and therefore we can live. Strictly speaking, we do not breathe air, but oxygen, which is part of the air.

Anna Dolaevskaya on why the "white poison" is named that way

I love delicious food. Diets, scrupulous calorie counting and other "ladies' entertainment" are not for me at all - can there be anything better than a cup of fragrant sweet coffee with a cake? And when choosing between "steamed fish" and "pepper steak", I will prefer the latter. But lately I have become more and more interested in the question: only a lazy person does not say that “salt and sugar are poison”, so it turns out that I myself, with my own hands, harm myself, more precisely, feed myself with poison? Can you eat sugar and salt? Are all the controversies about their harm true? Oleg Grishin, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head. lab. Respiratory Physiology Research Institute of Physiology and Fundamental Medicine, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (Novosibirsk), and Olga Krashennikova, nutritionist, private consultant on healthy eating(St. Petersburg).

white crystals

The birthplace of sugar is India. Translated from Sanskrit, śarkaraḥ  is “a grain of sand, gravel”. These grains of sand were made from sugar cane as early as 3000 BC. e.! The ancient Romans also knew sugar - they established trade channels and bought a miracle sweet from the Indians. And Russia got acquainted with sugar only in the XI-XII centuries: then it was very expensive, and only people could feast on it. At the beginning of the 18th century, the reformer Tsar Peter I opened a “sugar chamber”: they began to produce sugar in Russia, and although raw materials were still imported from abroad, it became publicly available. Later, in 1809, the production of sugar from domestic raw materials - sugar beet - began to improve. And by 1897, there were already 236 factories operating in Russia, the productivity of which was up to 45 thousand pounds of sugar per year (about 735 thousand kg).

Salt has been known to mankind even longer than sugar. So, at the end of the 5th millennium BC. e. salt pans on the modern territory of the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria in the city of Ankhialo produced up to 4-5 tons of salt per year - now the city has been renamed Pomorie and it houses the Salt Museum.

On the territory of our country, the Proto-Slavic tribes were also engaged in salt production, the beginning of this activity dates back to the 5th century BC. From century to century, salt production in Russia increased. For example, the salt pans at the Solovetsky Monastery already in the 17th century produced 100-140 thousand pounds per year, that is, 1630-2280 tons of salt!

Dolce Vita

Sugar is the common name for sucrose, which belongs to the disaccharides and is formed from two linked monosaccharides, glucose and fructose. Sugar is produced from sugar beet or cane. Sugar can be refined or not completely refined (this is the recently popular brown sugar). Unrefined beet sugar is rare because it has a strong and bad smell and bitter. And raw cane sugar, on the contrary, is in great demand. Its color can be of varying degrees of saturation - from golden to actually brown, which depends on what percentage of molasses was preserved after processing the raw materials. Molasses contains various vitamins and minerals, but this does not reduce the number of calories in the product itself, that is, such sugar will not help to lose weight. How do the benefits and harms of sugar correlate and in what quantities can it be consumed?

The benefits of sugar: In the body, sugar is broken down into glucose and fructose. Glucose is a source of energy for our body, which is spent on various physiological processes. In addition, glucose increases the antitoxic performance of the liver and is one of the "signal bells" for the body: when its concentration in the blood reaches a certain level, the brain receives a signal of saturation.

Fructose also provides nutrition to the body. Unlike glucose, it is less caustic, breaks down more slowly, and does not spike blood sugar levels. However, do not get carried away and fructose. Recently, scientists are increasingly inclined to consider it no less guilty of the obesity epidemic than β-glucose.

Excessive consumption of sugar has a whole bunch of very unpleasant consequences.

  • Decreased reserves of vitamin B1 and calcium in the body. “During the digestion of carbohydrates, vitamin B1 is necessary,” comments Olga Krashennikova, dietitian, private consultant on healthy nutrition (St. Petersburg). “However, sugar and other sweeteners do not actually contain it, that is, it must be supplied to the body with other foods: for example, there is a lot of vitamin B1 in whole grains, legumes and lean pork. In addition, for the absorption of sugar, the body spends a lot of calcium, which means that bone tissue suffers, and these losses also need to be replenished.
  • Premature aging skin. Excess glucose can attach to protein molecules (a process called glycation), including collagen and elastin, which are responsible for skin elasticity. In the glycated state, collagen and elastin perform their functions worse.
  • Excess weight. Glucose that is not used to “nourish” the body is converted into fat by the liver and stored in fat cells.
  • The risk of diabetes. The use of sugar, especially in adulthood, increases the body's tolerance to glucose, which in turn leads to the fact that the pancreas cannot produce the required amount of insulin. chronic insufficiency insulin leads to the development of diabetes mellitus.
  • Sugar can cause atherosclerosis, heart attacks, due to its ability to disrupt lipid metabolism and stimulate the production of insulin, which leads to an increase in the production of cholesterol in the body.

Harm of sugar: Despite the fact that glucose is necessary for the full functioning of the body, sugar can disrupt this work, because we do not need it by itself. Our body is able to release glucose from daily consumed foods: complex carbohydrates in the body break down with the help of enzymes, releasing glucose. Sugar, in fact, is nothing more than a highly refined, easily digestible carbohydrate. It has no biological value: it does not contain vitamins and microelements, but there are calories (in 100 grams of sugar - 409.2 kcal), which are most often superfluous.

Oleg Grishin, MD, Ph.D. lab. Respiratory Physiology Research Institute of Physiology and Fundamental Medicine, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (Novosibirsk), explains: “Glucose is bad because it quickly increases blood sugar, and this leads to an increase in the production of the pancreatic hormone—insulin. When you are young and perfectly healthy, this is not too dangerous, but with age it leads to an increase in glucose tolerance, and in a not completely healthy body, this can cause a pre-diabetic state. Fructose, on the other hand, passes more easily into fat, moreover, it contributes to the disruption of lipid metabolism.

How to use: moderately, realizing that we get glucose not only from sweets, but also from many other products: cereals, bakery products and much more. Oleg Grishin comments: “In principle, giving up sugar is a hoax. It will still enter the body as part of certain products. In addition, sugar is a source of pleasure. And our body is cunning, it saves its pleasures very much - - mechanisms are switched on at the subconscious level, giving the command to look for and eat sweets! Just like in a joke about a lady who went on a diet: she went into the kitchen, then everything was in a fog, she woke up with a pot of borscht. Sometimes people do not even think about the fact that they are eating sugar, they do it unconsciously. I mean, a person simply does not remember that he ate something sweet: even keeping a “food diary”, where you should write down everything that you ate during the day - chocolates, a spoonful of sugar in tea or candy pass "by" our consciousness and do not fall into the diary! In addition, a lack of sugar - hypoglycemia - is more dangerous for the body than an excess of sugar. With hypoglycemia, headaches begin, weakness.

How to be a sweet tooth? You can partially reduce the amount of sugar consumed by honey and dried fruits. But remember that in this case you will receive fructose, so you still have to observe the measure, but at least minerals and vitamins will be a bonus. But don't rely on sugar substitutes. “Our body is a finely tuned mechanism,” explains Olga Krashennikova. “It is difficult to deceive him, because he will respond to any of our dietary “tricks” with the defense of his beloved. The sugar substitute first hits the taste buds, they send a signal to the brain about the arrival of something sweet, and he, in turn, “commands” to start producing insulin to transport glucose to the cells. But sugar is not supplied, and its level in the blood falls. At the same time, the stomach is waiting, but does not receive the "promised" carbohydrates, because the sugar substitute really has zero calories. The body "remembers" the stressful situation, and the next time, trying to deceive it, we provoke the release of glucose and, as a result, the production of insulin and the deposition of fat "just in case."

For salty

Salt is a chemical compound, the crystalline form of sodium chloride (NaCl). Table salt, which is used for food, can be divided into two types according to the method of production. Rock salt (halite) is a mineral that was formed in the earth's crust at the stage of drying of the ancient seas. Sea salt is obtained by evaporating sea water, so it contains a large number of mineral elements (iodine, phosphorus, iron, etc.). Despite the fact that much is now being said about the exceptional benefits of sea salt, the situation with it is similar to the story with cane sugar: the presence of additional trace elements does not affect the main component of salt, sodium chloride. Therefore, the same rules apply to the use of such salt as to the use of rock. What is more from addiction to salt, benefit or harm?

Benefit: Salt is constantly needed by a person - without it, all the physiological processes of the body would stop, since NaCl is a key parameter of the activity of the cell.

NaCl regulates the balance and distribution of fluids in the body, helps maintain a normal pH level, is involved in muscle contraction and relaxation, and nerve stimulation. Na and Cl ions also play an important role in the secretion of hydrochloric acid in the stomach.

In addition, NaCl itself plays an important role in the process of intracellular and intercellular metabolism. It participates in the occurrence of a nerve impulse, plays a role in the mechanism of short-term memory, affects the state of the muscular and cardiovascular systems, participates in the structure of bone and muscle tissues (for example, the inorganic part of the intercellular substance of bone tissue - bone matrix - contains, among others, salts Na). NaCl is also involved in oxygen transport and keeps other minerals dissolved in the blood, preventing β-thrombosis.

Harm of salt: However, with healthy salt, as in the case of sugar and many others, the main thing is not to overdo it. Oleg Grishin explains the processes that occur in our body with an excess of salt: “The excess of salt is perceived by the body as a violation of osmotic pressure. When there is a lot of salt, the kidneys begin to work to retain water in order to reduce the concentration of salt in the body. And water retention is an acceleration of blood circulation and, as a result, an increase in blood pressure. Young people begin to drink more and even out this balance. In the elderly and those prone to hypertension, the mechanism for leveling the salt concentration does not work so flawlessly - the volume of circulating blood does not decrease, the pressure rises.

An increase in blood pressure with an excess of salt leads to a variety of heart and kidney diseases, stomach cancer and osteoporosis. In addition, salt retains water in the body and can cause swelling. And, for example, severe swelling of the eyelids can cause an increase in intraocular pressure and contribute to the development of cataracts.

How to use: Olga Krashennikova emphasizes that it is important to carefully monitor your diet: “On average, we consume 10-15 grams of salt per day. That's a lot—the WHO recommends no more than 5 grams. That's half a teaspoon! At the same time, salt is contained in all ready-made food products: bread, cheese, sausage, canned food, and soy sauce that we love so much. Some foods list the amount of sodium on the label. In principle, based on this information, we can find out approximately how much salt is contained in the product: to do this, multiply the value on the label by 2.5 (the proportion of sodium in salt is 40%). I recommend that my patients think about their diet, for example: if we want to eat "potatoes with herring", then it is important to remember that the potatoes were salted during cooking, the herring was also salted. And this means that we have already received the recommended daily dose of salt.”

It is quite possible to compensate for the “undersalting” of products, while not only not losing, but also adding new flavor notes to your dishes: “I always undersalt food during cooking,” Olga Krashennikova shares her advice. — There are such "flavor enhancers" as lingonberry sour jam — it's perfect for meat, and lemon juice — for fish. Fragrant herbs - for example parsley, dill, cilantro - must be present on the table, and, believe me, you will not feel a lack of salt.

It is also not worth overdoing it with the exclusion of salt from the diet - sodium deficiency is also very dangerous for the body. Oleg Grishin clarifies: “All the “communication” of cells with each other is based on the fact that they need sodium chloride molecules for this. Therefore, the "salt-free" diets that are so popular today disrupt the normal process of interaction between body cells. In addition, if there is not enough salt, then the body will begin to try to save salt, which will cause the kidneys to suffer.

Is there or isn't there?

Of course, it is unlikely that it will be possible to completely exclude “harmful” sugar from the diet and strictly observe the norm of salt intake, and this is not required. Oleg Grishin warns against a categorical approach to the use of salt and sugar: “With the complete exclusion of sugar and salt from the diet, the body begins to experience stress, turning into distress —  prolonged stress. Being in such a critical, from the point of view of psychology, situation, the body sooner or later begins to look for ways out of it. And this, as a rule, happens through the most accessible - through food. Chocolates, salting - in the end we get what we tried to "run away" from. Everything should be in moderation: the body itself chooses this golden mean. Therefore, you need to listen to your body, observe it, monitor body weight. Most The best way adequately assess the state of your body — do physical education. Loads help to understand what shape you are in - your muscles, joints, breathing. If the situation has gone far, then it is better to seek help, therapeutic, psychotherapeutic.

There is only one conclusion - the main thing is to know the measure. After all, sugar in small quantities will not bring much harm, and salt is absolutely essential. In addition, there are reasonable ways to replace both salt and sugar - you just have to want to know about them.

They have long become the most familiar products present in our daily diet. Some people consider them harmful and tend to limit the amount of sweet and salty foods, while others, on the contrary, value sugar and salt for their healing properties.

Our body needs a certain amount of salt every day. According to experts, the human need for sodium chloride is up to 5 g per day. These are not only white crystals that we add to food, but also the so-called "hidden salt" contained in prepared foods. Without salt, the formation of full-fledged gastric juice and bile is impossible. Sodium chloride ensures the constancy of the blood composition, normalizes intercellular metabolism, maintains an optimal level of electrolytes in body fluids. Salt deficiency leads to disruption of the gastrointestinal tract and deterioration of muscle function. With heavy physical exertion, stress, hot weather, etc. the amount of daily salt intake should be increased.

Now available in stores various varieties salt. You can choose the cheapest - cookery, or pay attention to imported varieties. According to nutritionists, the most useful is sea ​​salt. As you know, our blood is close in composition to sea water - in addition to sodium chloride, it contains a variety of chemical elements. That is why sea salt will help you not only improve the taste of food, but also optimize your metabolism. Add it to ready-made dishes so as not to disturb the balanced chemical composition by heat treatment. Table salt attracts with its low price, but it beneficial features small. And if there is an iodine deficiency in your area, replace the usual salt with iodized - so you can avoid thyroid dysfunction.

It is very useful to add natural salt that has not been subjected to chemical and heat treatment to cooked food. Similar products can be purchased at pharmacies and specialized stores selling dietary supplements. Natural salt contains impurities valuable for our body - soluble mineral compounds. Unlike sea salt, this salt does not help against iodine deficiency, so it is advisable to additionally use iodine-containing preparations.

Keep in mind that almost any beneficial substance shows its valuable properties, being consumed in small quantities. Large doses of salt cause the opposite effect. People who prefer salty food to fresh food experience edema, salt deposits in the joints, digestive disorders, and hypertension. Excess sodium chloride affects the kidneys and liver, as well as the cardiovascular system. It is no coincidence that in most diseases internal organs doctors recommend limiting the amount of salt consumed, replacing it with herbs and spices that improve the taste of food. For example, the popular Japanese diet is built on the rejection of salt.

Do not add salt to cooked food - it already contains sodium chloride! If you like fast food and often visit cafes or restaurants, do not reach for the salt shaker. Your chosen dishes have already been salted by the chef. Imagine - in one tablespoon of traditional soy sauce contains almost the entire daily norm of salt! In salads, you can add vinegar, lemon juice, natural vegetable oils. A reasonable approach to the consumption of sodium chloride will allow you to avoid undesirable consequences and make a balanced diet.

In addition to cooking, salt is used in cosmetology. Very useful, for example, salt baths to strengthen nails and cuticles. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of sea salt in a small amount of cool water, dip your fingers into the liquid. After 20 minutes, dry your skin and nails with a terry towel. Daily carrying out of this procedure will help you cope with burrs, fragility of the nail plates, chapping of the skin of the hands. A small amount of natural salt will be appropriate in the manufacture of homemade masks for the face and neck, homemade shampoos and hair creams.


In medicine, saline solutions of a certain concentration are used to restore water balance in the body - for example, after operations and severe injuries. Such liquids are an ideal basis for dissolving drugs introduced into the circulatory system.

Sugar is another popular food that can be both medicine and poison. It all depends on how much you consume daily. From the point of view of chemists, the group of sugars is easily digestible carbohydrates. Once in the body, they are absorbed and become a source of energy. Surely you have noticed that after a chocolate bar or a sweet cookie, your performance increases dramatically. Unfortunately, this effect is short-lived. Fast-digesting carbs run out very soon, and your body needs food again. And an excess of these substances leads to an increase in body weight.

In everyday life, the word "sugar" means sucrose. In addition to it, there are many varieties of sugars. Each of them has individual properties. For example, the sweetest is fructose, which is present in natural honey and fruits. Sucrose known to us is found in sugar cane and sugar beets. Glucose was found in vegetables, fruits and honey, and maltose, which has a sweetish taste, was found in germinated grains of cereals. In milk, respectively, there is milk sugar - lactose.

In addition, sugars, it turns out, are external and internal. According to nutritionists, substances related to internal sugars are present in the cell walls of the shoots and roots of plants. External sugars are found in plant juices, nectar, and pollen. The most useful are internal sugars, since they enter our body along with fiber and other valuable compounds.

Don't overdo your sugar intake! In the presence of a certain genetic predisposition, an excess of glucose in the blood can cause the development of a severe endocrine disease - diabetes mellitus. As you know, blood sugar levels are regulated by the hormone insulin produced by the pancreas. Insulin reduces the percentage of sugar in the blood, and the antagonist hormone glucagon, on the contrary, increases it. In diabetes, glucose levels become either too high or too low, which in most cases poses a threat to health or even life. The rate of sugar consumption for each person is individual. You can consult with a nutritionist and find the optimal level of daily intake of sucrose.

The vast majority of sugars are very quickly absorbed by our body. The blood glucose level immediately rises, but after a while it becomes average again. The feeling of a surge of strength is replaced by drowsiness and apathy. That is why nutritionists advise limiting the amount of sugary foods in the diet, eating them only as a dessert or addition to the main meal.

If you want to prolong the energy effect that comes after eating sugar, choose sugary foods that contain fats and proteins. For example, you can eat chocolate, buttercream cakes, desserts, and so on. Glucose in combination with lipids is absorbed more slowly, so it lasts longer. Unfortunately, this diet can lead to weight gain, so don't get carried away.


Thanks to annoying ads, many of us mistakenly believe that Brown sugar much healthier than traditional white. Unusually colored sucrose has a pleasant aftertaste and a rather high cost. This product is made from ordinary sugar crystals, coated with cane molasses and boiled using special technologies. Varieties of brown sugar differ from each other in the percentage of molasses molasses. Dark sugar is more aromatic and rich in taste than light sugar. There is an opinion among the people that such varieties of sucrose are slowly digested and do not overload the body with carbohydrates. Actually it is not. Essentially, brown sugar is plain sucrose with natural flavorings. In the body, it undergoes the same changes as ordinary white.

So, you are already convinced that sugar and salt are not “white death” at all, as some adherents believe. healthy lifestyle life. Observe moderation in the consumption of these products - and your body will function normally.

(Photo illustrations: Gayvoronskaya_yana (photo 1), ilanporat (photo 2), AnnaRise (photo 3) Shutterstock.com)

An obligatory companion of any tea party, confectionery masterpieces and just a sweet life. But in order for sugar not to harm our body, you need to know a lot about it, do not exceed the dosage.

For most, sugar is the usual white sand sucrose. In the world there are a huge number of varieties of sugars. In terms of sweetness, fructose (fruits and honey) is the sweetest, followed by sucrose (sugar cane and sugar beets), glucose (honey, fruits and vegetables), maltose (sprouted grains) and lactose (milk sugar).

By composition, sugar is divided into monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides. Monosaccharides are grape sugar (glucose), fruit sugar (fructose) and galactose. Disaccharides are milk sugar (lactose), malt sugar (maltose), beet and cane sugar (sucrose).

Like potatoes, vegetables, legumes, and grains, sugar is a complete source of carbohydrates. Different kinds sugar and starch are the most important carbohydrates for humans, which give energy to muscles and the body, organs and cells. The norm of carbohydrate intake is 300-500 grams per day. Monosaccharides are quickly digested, from the intestines getting directly into the blood, so eating them quickly restores lost strength.

Healthy kind of sugar - . By the way, it contains 80% sugar (glucose, fructose and sucrose) plus minerals and beneficial trace elements (iron, potassium, calcium, copper, magnesium, sodium and phosphorus).

According to statistics, each person consumes about 40-50 kilograms of sugar per year, which is about 110 grams per day. If your diet is low in foods containing vitamin B (liver, eggs), sugar will harm the body. The human body, in order to break down sugar, needs vitamin B1, the symptoms of a lack of which are precisely a decrease in efficiency and attentiveness.

Most sugars are digested fairly quickly. But the faster the blood sugar level rises, the faster it falls. That is why the energy effect of sugary drinks or chocolate is transient and eventually leads to drowsiness. If you eat regularly and in small portions, combined with a sufficient amount of complex carbohydrates, the body is not stressed by changes in blood sugar levels.

Sugar is a high calorie food. The usual sugar is produced from sugar beet or sugar cane. The record holder for calories is ordinary white granulated sugar and refined sugar. Brown cane sugar is slightly lower in calories, but not too much. Honey contains the least amount of calories.

Consumer properties of salt

Salt has been used as human food for centuries. In ancient times, salt was considered wealth. Therefore, an indicator of generosity was the tradition of welcoming guests with bread and salt.

Salt is white, pink, black, iodized, extra, dietary, sea. Each type of salt has its own purpose - iodized is suitable for salads, extra for pickles, sea salt is an excellent disease prevention.

Table salt is sodium chloride, commonly known as "table salt", "rock salt", or simply "edible salt". This product is vital for the human body.

Salt is involved in many metabolic processes in the transmission of nerve impulses. It contains chloride ions, which contribute to the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Salt is generally involved in the regulation of the water-salt balance of the body. Lack of salt can lead to the destruction of bone and muscle tissue, nervous disorders. These are depression, nervous and mental diseases, digestive and cardiovascular disorders, osteoporosis, anorexia. Chronic lack of salt in the body can be fatal.

But, despite the fact that without salt human body will not survive, salt is contained in all natural products that are eaten, which means that there is no need to add salt to them. It's a matter of taste. In this case, excess salt is absorbed by the body. And it is excreted through the kidneys with urine and through sweat. Kidney dysfunction can lead to edema with excessive salt intake. Salt attracts water and retains it in the body. If the volume of fluid in the body is excessive, edema appears, pressure rises, and the kidneys cannot cope. Salt should be consumed in moderation.

The most useful is iodized salt. But iodized salt should be used only for dishes without heat treatment. Otherwise, the iodine from the salt evaporates and can even give a bitter taste to food.

Coarse sea salt is also no less useful. The traditional formula of edible salt is sodium chloride. Sea salt contains potassium chloride. Potassium displaces sodium and helps lower blood pressure. It is also useful for people with diabetes, as it regulates the amount of glucose in the blood.

The taste of sea salt is softer and richer than table salt. Moreover, due to the natural crystallization of sea salt, it does not have an expiration date. Even after 20 years, not a single mineral will be destroyed by ultraviolet radiation and oxygen. Table salt has an expiration date. Iodine is added to this salt artificially, it breaks down over time. Edible sea salt from different seas has different chemical compounds, different concentrations of micro and macro elements.

Sea salt is divided into varieties. The most valuable variety is gray sea salt. It is gray from inclusions of oceanic clay with particles of microscopic algae dunalyella. It's incredible medicinal plant has antioxidant properties.

How to choose high-quality sugar and salt

Salt and sugar should be dry and free-flowing in appearance. If you find a large lump in a bag of sugar, it means that moisture has got into it. It is better not to take such sugar. Improper storage loose products can lead to the formation of mold.

To distinguish fake brown sugar, which is actually made from cane and is rich in vitamins, dilute a small amount of it in water and add a drop of iodine. The liquid turns blue - high-quality sugar.

Sugar produced in Russia according to the standards of the sugar industry must contain the mark GOST 21-94 - granulated sugar, GOST 22-94 - refined sugar, GOST R 52305-2005 - raw sugar. Most of the salt on the shelves in Russia is domestically produced, its reserves in Russia are the largest in the world. She calls it "Edible Salt", is done in accordance with GOST R 51574-2000. If these guests are indicated on the packaging, then they guarantee a quality product.

When buying salt, read on the packaging how it was mined: this affects the amount of harmful sodium chloride and the presence of useful minerals in the composition. The grade of salt will also indicate this: extra, higher, first or second. This is an indicator of the degree of purification and grinding of salt. From the point of view of health: the lower the grade and the closer the composition of the salt to natural, the more useful. It is no coincidence that sea salt is considered the most useful.

Always on the package of salt should be an indication of:

  • The product's name.
  • Method of production: boiling, stone, garden or self-planting.
  • Salt grade: extra, highest, first or second.
  • Grinding number or size of salt crystals.
  • Fortification information: potassium iodate or potassium iodide, iodine concentration, and for dietary salt: information on potassium and magnesium compounds.
  • Information about additives: anti-caking, stabilizing, etc.
  • Consumption recommendations: no more than 5-6 g per day.
  • Name and legal address of the manufacturer
  • Shelf life.

The same information must be present on the packaging of sugar, with the exception of the grinding number and variety.

Sugar and salt must be stored in a glass and hermetically sealed container. And iodized salt should be stored in a dark place.