62 



SIXTEENTH ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE 



tale, he believes honey the agent" that 

 restored his health. When the facts 

 of the matter are carefully looked into, 

 it is discovered that he - would have 

 been well in a few days without any 

 treatment. 



Another common fault is to explain 

 to the housewife the food value of 

 honey and compare its value with 

 some common article of diet. For ex- 

 ample, that seven ounces of honey is 

 equal to a quart of milk. True it is; 

 but the good housewife don't believe 

 it, and, at any rate, you couldn't ex- 

 pect her to replace milk with honey. 

 On the other hand, if she learns that 

 strawberries or peaches have a better 

 flavor when sugar is replaced with 

 honey, or that bread and cakes made 

 with honey keep better, not drying out 

 as when made with sugar, she is at 

 once interested and will get some 

 honey to see if the story is true. 



It is as an article of diet that honey 

 must be known, if it is ever expected 

 to become more than a luxury or a 

 . sweet to please the children, an arti- 

 cle that surpasses all other siagars in 

 the diet of mankind To understand 

 this it might be well to explain what 

 honey is and the digestion of the vari- 

 ous sugars. The chemist tells us that 

 honey contains forty per cent levau- 

 lose, thirty-three per cent dextrose, 

 and one and a half per cent sacchrose, 

 the rest being moisture, coloring mat- 

 ter and dextrine (vegetable gum). This 

 percentage of sugars varies, due to the- 

 nature of the nectar and age of the 

 honey. In old and well ripened honey 

 sacchrose (cane sugar) is converted, 

 by a ferment present in all honeys, 

 into levaulose and dextrose. 



Honey, therefore , consists of two 

 principal sugars, leavulose (fructose) 

 and dextrose (grape-sugar). These su- 

 gars derive their names from their 

 action on a ray of polarized light, 

 their chemical formula being the same. 



Leavulose in solution turhs the ray of 

 light to the left, it being leavorotatory, 

 and, as its name indicates, is a "left- 

 handed" sugar. Dextrose, on the other 

 hand, turns the ray of light to the 

 right, being destrorotatory, and is there- 

 fore a "right-handed" sugar. The pre- 

 dominating sugar in honey is leavulose, 

 it being the sugar that gives honey its 

 high food value. All sugars are di- 

 gested and assimilated in the small in- 

 testine. Sacchrose (cane sugar) is 

 split, by an intestinal ferment, into 

 parts of levaulose and dextrose, and is 

 then absorbed, while honey already 

 containing these sugars does not have 

 to be acted upon by a ferment and can 

 be assimilated by any one, even if the 

 ferments are absent. Levaulose is 

 very^ readily absorbed in the intes- 

 tinal tract, while dextrose, without the 

 presence of levaulose, is very slowly 

 absorbed. In some manner the "left- 

 handed" sugar in its passage through 

 the intestinal walls pulls along the 

 "right-handed" sugar. 



The glucose of commerce, known in 

 America as corn syrup, must be re- 

 garded as mixture of dextrose, .maltose 

 and dextrine, and is prepared by hydro- 

 lysing starch by boiling with a dilute 

 mineral acid. After the acid is removed 

 and the solution clarified, the liquid is 

 concentrated in vacuum pans to the 

 density of syrup. A small quantity of 

 solution of sodium bisulphate is added 

 to bleach it, to prevent fermentation 

 and to inhibit browning. The maltose 

 of this mixture must be acted upon by 

 a ferment before it can be used by the 

 body, and then it forms more dextrose. 

 So it is easy to see that an individual 

 who uses this syrup is receiving very 

 little food value for his money. The 

 only thing accomplished is the soften- 

 ing of a little dry bread. So, with all 

 of man's methods, nature's sugar — 

 honey — still continues to be the best 

 sweet for man. 



