GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Jaxuary, 1921 



fault in it tlint eane or beet sugar does not 

 possess. Let us give credit where credit is 

 due. Later on, I can show you why honey 

 is a better food. 



Well, you see that I have told you a fam- 

 ily secret of the sugar family; you see the 

 relationship between dextrose and maltose 

 and dextrine and starch. You know that 

 maltose is merely a combination of two 

 molecules of dextrose minus a molecule of 

 water, that dextrine is merely a combina- 

 tion of 30 or 40 dextrose molecules minus 

 the same number of molecules of water, and 

 that starch is merely a combination of about 

 200 dextrose molecules minus the same num- 

 ber of molecules of water. Also, you see 

 that we can take the larger aggregates and 

 break them down, thus getting sugar from 

 starch. But do not think that we can as 

 easily reverse the process, and build up a 

 conglomerate. That is almost out of the 

 question. 



Honey's Near Relative. 

 There is just one more family secret, I 

 must reveal to you. Let us take, this time, 

 one molecule of dextrose and one molecule of 

 levulose and imagine them to combine, with 

 the customary loss of a molecule of water 

 in the process. Note that I did not say that 

 I could combine these two molecules — in 

 fact, no one has ever succeeded in doing 

 it — but let us imagine that they are 

 combined. What have we? We have one 

 molecule of sucrose, our No. 1 sugar, which 

 is ordinary cane or beet sugar. Now we are 

 able to break this molecule in two, and ob- 

 tain one molecule each of dextrose and levu- 

 lose. Just a little acid and hot water will 

 do the trick. What shall we call the product, 

 which consists of equal parts of dextrose 

 and levulose? It is the well-known invert 

 sugar. Perhaps some of you may think that 

 invert sugar is about the same as honey, 

 since both are composed mainly of dextrose 

 and levolose in equal proportions. About 

 the same they are, but not by any means 

 identical. And this brings me to a discus- 

 sion of the merits of honey. 



Why Honey Excels Other Sweets. 

 You already know that honey is a mix- 

 ture of dextrose and levulose in nearly equal 

 proportions. In addition, honey contains a 

 small amount less than eight per cent of 

 sucrose, ordinary sugar. These three sugars, 

 with about 17 per cent of water, constitute 

 more than 9/10 of honey. But the remain- 

 der, small as it is, is nevertheless highly 

 important, and serves to lift honey above 

 the other sweets in food value. 



What is the remainder? First, there is 

 mineral matter; every mineral in the hu- 

 man body is present in honey. Of course, 

 we need mineral matter in our food, and 

 we need more than the present generation 

 usually gets. We need calcium and phos- 

 phorus for our bones and teeth, and iron, 

 sodium, potassium, calcium, etc., in the 

 t)Jood; not to mention man^ others required 



by various organs of the body. Common 

 sense would tell us if science did not, that 

 what mineral matter we get we must get 

 in our food. And yet, what do we do to our 

 food products? We refine them so much 

 that they are greatly demineralized. I am not 

 an alarmist, but I stand ready to prove that 

 we have reached a danger point in this 

 elinjination of minerals from our foods. Con- 

 sider, for instance, white granulated sugar. 

 It is 99.9 per cent pure sucrose if it is cane 

 sugar; beet sugar differs only in that it is 

 about 99.6 per cent pure sucrose. Where is 

 there any room for voluble mineral salts? 

 We must concede that the great fault of 

 ordinary granulated sugar is its purity, 

 strange as it may sound. Brown sugars 

 have some ash, and are therefore better, 

 altho the assortment of minerals is far from 

 perfect. Old-fashioned cane syrup is very 

 much ahead of refined sugar in this respect, 

 and so is maple syrup, which, I might re- 

 mark, is composed of sucrose with a small 

 percentage of mineral salts and organic sub- 

 stance. These last give maple svrup its 

 flavor, and incidentally make it more 

 healthful. However, maple syrup and cane 

 syrup are all too rare and ordinary sugar 

 is conspicuously lacking in this matter of 

 mineral salts. What about molasses? This 

 product has too much ash, strange as that 

 may seem. The ash is, however, mostly the 

 lime that was added during the sugar re- 

 fining. Present-day molasses is not a very 

 wholesome food product. Corn syrup and 

 glucose have a little mineral matter, but 

 unfortunately it is mostly common salt, in- 

 troduced in the process of manufacture, and 

 common salt is never lacking anyway. Thus 

 we see that honey stands alone in this high- 

 ly important phase of food value. 



There is one other respect in which honey 

 excels, and those of you who have been 

 reading ' ' Gleanings in Bee Culture ' ' will 

 know to what I refer. It is in regard to the 

 vitamines in honey. It has recently been 

 proved by scientific research that honey 

 does contain vitamines, especially comb 

 honey. I will not take time to tell you about 

 vitamines; everybody is hearing about them 

 nowadays, and everybody has come to real- 

 ize that they are essential to life and health. 

 But, as in the case of mineral salts, refined 

 foods are apt to be lacking in vitamines.- 

 Even heat will often destroy them, and it 

 is partly for this reason that none of the 

 commercial sweets except honey contain 

 them. 



Thus we see that there are at least two 

 respects in which honey clearly excels all 

 the other sweets. There are many little de- 

 tails I could give you which would increase 

 your appreciation of honey, but this dis- 

 course has undoubtedly lasted long enough 

 already, and I will close by urging you to 

 study all the sweets in order that you may 

 have a clearer understanding of the merits 

 of each one. 



