60 Fun Facts About Sugar

Which simple sugar is a component of the antigens on red blood cells that determine your blood group?

It rarely occurs free in nature and is mostly met bound to glucose in milk sugar; on its own it is less sweet than glucose.

Which two crops supply virtually all of the world's commercially refined sugar?

Cane accounts for about 79% of global sugar output; the two crops together weighed in at roughly two billion tonnes in 2016.

Which country produces the largest share of the world's sugarcane, around 38-40% of the total?

Sugarcane is the world's largest crop by tonnage, and much of the Brazilian harvest ends up as ethanol fuel rather than sugar.

Sugarcane is a giant member of which plant family?

It belongs to Poaceae alongside maize, wheat and rice, with jointed stalks up to 7 metres tall that store sucrose in their internodes.

The main species of sugarcane, Saccharum officinarum, was first domesticated on which large island?

Papuans began breeding it from wild Saccharum robustum around 4000 BC, and Austronesian voyagers later carried it across the Pacific as a canoe plant.

The word 'sugar' traces through Arabic and Persian to śarkarā, a word in which language?

The word originally meant 'grit, gravel', and the Sanskrit khanda for a sugar crystal is the root of the English word candy.

Around AD 350, people in which region first turned cane juice into granulated sugar crystals?

Chinese envoys were sent there in 647 to learn the refining technology, and travelling Buddhist monks carried the method east.

Which explorer carried sugarcane seedlings to the New World on his second voyage in 1493?

He planted them on Hispaniola, where the first sugar harvest came in 1501, and mills spread across the Caribbean within a few decades.

Henry the Navigator brought cane in 1425 to which Atlantic island, producing 3 million lb of sugar a year by 1492?

The Canaries and this island were the stepping stones that carried the sugar industry from the Mediterranean toward the Americas.

Which German chemist announced in 1747 that sugar could be extracted from beets?

His student Franz Karl Achard turned the discovery into an industrial process and made the first beet sugar in 1783 in Kaulsdorf.

The world's first beet-sugar factory opened in 1801 in Cunern, a village in which then-Prussian region?

Backed by King Frederick William III, the plant never turned a profit and was destroyed in the wars against France that followed.

Which ruler banned sugar imports in 1813 and ordered 32,000 hectares planted with beetroot?

A French beet-sugar industry grew out of the decree, and by 1899 beets supplied roughly two-thirds of the world's sugar.

Until the late 19th century, refined sugar was usually sold in what shape?

Households used pliers-like 'sugar nips' to break pieces off the hard sugarloaf, which is why the sugar cube was such a relief when it arrived.

Sugarloaf Mountain, named for its resemblance to a block of refined sugar, overlooks which city's harbour?

The 396-metre granite peak got its name from 16th-century Portuguese sugar traders, who shipped sugar in conical clay moulds.

A standard sugar cube weighs roughly how much?

That is about a teaspoon, which is why cubes are the go-to visual for showing how much sugar a soft drink contains.

Globally, the average person eats roughly how much sugar per year?

North and South Americans reach up to 50 kg a head, while Africans average under 20 kg.

In 2015 the WHO recommended keeping free sugars below what share of total energy intake?

It also encouraged a further cut to below 5%, citing links between added sugar and obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Which is the only common sugar that cannot be extracted from plants?

It occurs only in milk, including human breast milk, and some adults stop producing the lactase enzyme needed to digest it.

Which naturally occurring sugar is the sweetest, rated about 1.7 times as sweet as sucrose?

Its sweetness is why corn syrup is enzymatically converted to high-fructose corn syrup, and why fruit and honey taste so sweet.

Naturally occurring glucose, D-glucose, is also known by what other name?

It is sometimes called grape sugar because drying grape juice yields crystals of it, and it is the sugar carried in the bloodstream.

A burst tank sent a 35 mph wave of what through Boston's North End in January 1919?

The 2.3-million-gallon tank killed 21 people and injured 150, and residents insisted the neighbourhood smelled sweet on hot summer days for decades afterwards.

The 1764 Sugar Act cut in half the duty imposed by which earlier, widely evaded, colonial law?

The 1733 law's sixpence-a-gallon tax was never effectively collected; halving it and actually enforcing it helped feed the anger that became the American Revolution.

From the 1740s to the 1820s, sugar held what distinction in Britain's economy?

By 1750 sugar had overtaken grain as the most valuable commodity in European trade, making up a fifth of all European imports.

In the mid-1740s which French colony became the world's largest sugar producer?

Better irrigation, water power and machinery made the French islands the most profitable of the 18th century, until revolution and abolition upended the trade.

Which largely flat Caribbean island became the region's richest sugar producer in the 19th century?

Nearly three-quarters of its land is rolling plain, and its planters adopted steam engines and vacuum pans while keeping slavery longer than most neighbours.

American Sugar Refining, forerunner of Domino, was one of the original 12 companies in which 1896 stock index?

The Havemeyer family's Brooklyn refinery was the largest in the United States after being rebuilt following an 1882 fire.

Which animal features on the tin of Lyle's Golden Syrup, the world's oldest unchanged brand packaging?

The 1888 logo shows the biblical Samson story, with bees swarming the carcass and the motto 'out of the strong came forth sweetness'.

What is true of the relationship between rival sugar refiners Henry Tate and Abram Lyle?

Their refineries sat just 1.5 miles apart on the Thames, and at the merger the combined firm refined about half of Britain's sugar.

At which university did Constantin Fahlberg discover saccharin in 1879 after noticing a sweet taste on his hand?

Lab head Ira Remsen fumed as Fahlberg patented and profited from the discovery, calling him 'a scoundrel'.

Saccharin is roughly how many times sweeter than sucrose?

It has a bitter, metallic aftertaste at high doses, so it is often blended with cyclamate or aspartame to mask it.

Which US president snapped that 'anybody who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot'?

The target was chemist Harvey Wiley, whose crusade against the sweetener under the Pure Food and Drug Act ended up wrecking his career.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi completed the switch of their US drinks from sugar to corn-derived HFCS in which year?

Both still use sugar in many other countries, which is why some Americans hunt down Mexican Coca-Cola and Passover Coke.

William Morrison, who co-invented machine-spun cotton candy in 1897, practised what profession?

Sold at the 1904 World's Fair, it shifted 68,655 boxes at 25 cents each; a second dentist, Joseph Lascaux, later patented the name cotton candy.

In Australia, cotton candy is still commonly known by what name?

The UK, Ireland, India and South Africa use 'candy floss', while similar spun-sugar sweets include Chinese longxusu and Iranian pashmak.

Sugar skulls, or calaveras, made from cane sugar in moulds are associated with which Mexican celebration?

Originally made as gifts for children to eat, they are now often placed on ofrenda altars; the first record of skeletal figures for sale dates to the 1740s.

Which province produces about 72% of the world's maple syrup?

Its producers work under a government-sanctioned quota system that even keeps a strategic reserve of syrup — and there is a black market.

The scientific consensus on the children's 'sugar rush' is that it is what?

A 2019 meta-analysis found sugar does not improve mood and can actually lower alertness and increase fatigue within an hour.

'Sugar, Sugar', the 1969 US and UK number one, was credited to which fictional cartoon band?

Ron Dante sang lead, and astronaut Alan Bean took the song to the Moon on a cassette during Apollo 12.

Sugar Ray Robinson, often called the greatest boxer pound-for-pound, was born with what name?

He borrowed a friend's amateur card to fight underage as 'Ray Robinson', and a ringside fan calling him 'sweet as sugar' finished the name.

Sugar Ray Leonard won Olympic gold at which Games before turning professional?

He was the only one of boxing's 'Four Kings' — with Durán, Hearns and Hagler — to beat the other three.

The Sugar Bowl, played annually since 1935, is held in which city?

It moved from Tulane Stadium to the Superdome in 1975 and was played in Atlanta's Georgia Dome only once, after Hurricane Katrina.

In which ballet does the Sugar Plum Fairy dance to the tinkling sound of a celesta?

Tchaikovsky's 1892 score is famous for the instrument, which he had used only once before, in his little-known ballad The Voyevoda.

The Sugarhill Gang's 1979 'Rapper's Delight' was the first rap single to do what?

It peaked at number 36 in January 1980; the group and its label were named after the Sugar Hill neighbourhood of Harlem.

In Some Like It Hot, Marilyn Monroe plays a band singer and ukulele player with what sweet name?

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon join her all-female band in drag while fleeing Chicago mobsters in Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy.

Sugar Land, Texas takes its name from which company, whose crown logo is on the city seal?

Founded in 1843, the company ran the town as a company town until Sugar Land incorporated in 1959.

The sugar glider, which glides between trees on skin membranes, belongs to which group of mammals?

It is a possum whose scientific name Petaurus breviceps means 'short-headed rope-dancer', and it resembles a flying squirrel purely through convergent evolution.

Which country's January 2014 sugary drinks tax cut consumption an estimated 12% within a year?

Hungary had taxed sugary and salty foods since 2011 and France began taxing soft drinks in 2012.

What is the dry fibre left after sugarcane is crushed, often burned to power the mill?

The syrupy by-product left after crystallisation goes into rum, ethanol, animal feed and citric acid.

Producing one kilogram of cane sugar requires roughly how much irrigation water?

Cane needs a frost-free climate and heavy rain, and the juice is clarified with lime before being boiled down and seeded with crystals.

In 2022, which country led the world in sugar beet production with almost 19% of the total?

Beet is a biennial cousin of chard grown in temperate regions, and its white sugar crystallises pure enough to need no further refining.

Pliny the Elder said sugar, a kind of honey found in cane, was used only for what?

He added that Indian sugar was better than Arabian and came 'in lumps the size of a hazelnut'.

The first recorded sugar sculptures appeared at a 1457 feast in which French city?

Sugar sculptures survived at royal tables until at least Edward VII's 1903 coronation banquet, where every guest took home a sugar crown.

In 1923 a German wholesaler named Karl Hellmann started what café innovation involving sugar cubes?

The wrappers carried advertisements or collectible pictures, but by the 21st century paper packets and sticks had mostly replaced them.

Which Tang emperor's interest in sugar led Indian envoys to teach cane cultivation in China?

China set up its first sugarcane plantations in the seventh century, during the reign of Harsha in North India.

Which admiral of Alexander the Great is credited with carrying knowledge of sugar west in 325 BC?

He learned of it during Alexander's Indian campaign, as recorded by Arrian.

Which Italian republic ran sugar estates near Tyre from the 12th century and refined for Europe?

Genoa instead became known for candied fruit, while Venetians specialised in pastries, candies and sugar sculptures.

Where was the first New World sugar harvest gathered, in 1501?

Mills had sprung up on neighbouring islands by the 1520s, and the Dutch carried cane to the Caribbean after 1625.

Where did the steam engine first power a sugar mill, in 1768?

Steam soon replaced direct firing as the source of process heat, and Edward Charles Howard's 1813 vacuum pan followed.

Which pupil of Marggraf first made beet sugar in 1783 and devised an industrial extraction method?

His work led to the first beet-sugar factory, opened under Frederick William III of Prussia in 1801.

Who first applied the centrifuge to separating sugar from molasses, in Hawaii in 1852?

Hawaii's plantations later drew hundreds of thousands of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino workers.