Marilyn's Photos - July 14 2026 - There's Sugar and then there's Sugar
There's headline news that sugar has been detected in the galactic centre region of the Milky Way. It is erythrulose that was found. This is one of the chemical building blocks necessary for the origins of life and this means that it is widespread across the galaxy. One possible conclusion is that it improves the odds that we are not alone.
Chemically there are thousands of types of sugars. I am familiar with the sugars that make food sweet. Even there, there are many types of sugars. I found Robert Lusting 's book on sugar and he has a list of the 156 names for sugar - the list is HERE.
Here are some I don't know about - Muscovado and Panocha. The first is an unrefined moist cane sugar where the molasses is never separated from the sugar crystals. Panocha is a traditional unrefined cane sugar block found in Mexican and Filipino cuisines. Muscovado adds a rich chewiness to chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread, and brownies. Panocha sweetens beverages like chocolate, makes savoury-sweet dishes, and melted with butter makes a spread.
The pictures of these sugars show cones and blocks. I can remember wanting to do a photo series of ants (they were plastic) on sugar cones. I went to all the specialty food stores looking to buy a sugar cone, but never found one. I didn't realize I needed to go to a Mexican or Filipino store.
This is an October 2016 scene of Sugar Beach on Toronto's waterfront. The Redpath Sugar Refinery there has a raw sugar shed that holds between 16,000 and 37,000 tonnes of unrefined raw cane sugar. Can you imagine what it smells like near the Refinery? I would expect it would be very sweet. Here's what they say: toasted cotton candy, caramel, burnt sugar, or molasses.
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