What is sucrose?

   Sucrose, or saccharose, is a sugar, C12H22O11, which, together with lactose and maltose, belongs to the important group of carbohydrates known as disaccharides. It is soluble in water, slightly soluble in alcohol and ether-, moderately soluble in dilute alcohol, and crystallizes in long, slender needles. Sucrose is dextrorotatory, rotating the plane of polarized light to the right. Upon hydrolysis, it yields a mixture of glucose and fructose, which are levorotatory, turning the plane of polarized light to the left. Thus the mixture obtained is known as invert sugar, and the process is known as inversion. Inver¬sion is carried on in the human intestine through the aid of the enzymes invertase and sucrase, metabolism of Sucrose is extracted chiefly from sugar cane and sugar beet, and is commonly called "cane sugar". When heated to temperatures above 180 °C. (356 °F.), sucrose becomes an amorphous, brown, syrupy substance called "caramel", which is used as a coloring matter in baking.

Some Facts about Foods

Pickled ants, smoked seaworms, blubber, fried tadpoles—to some people these are fine foods. Many of our foods would be just as strange to people of other lands. But whether we eat pickled ants or pickled peaches, smoked seaworms or smoked ham, blubber or butter, food serves the same purpose for us all.

In the first place food is a fuel. It keeps our bodies running. It gives us energy to work and play. It keeps us warm, too. It does for us very much the same things gasoline does for an automobile.

But it does much more for us than gaso¬line does for an automobile. No one expects his automobile to get bigger because he keeps putting gasoline in it. He does not expect the gasoline to mend a punctured tire, either. But our food makes us grow, and it furnishes the materials we have to have to mend cut fingers and broken bones. Food also gives us materials that make our bodies run in just the right way.
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Some facts about flavors

  Candy comes in a number of different flavors. So does chewing gum. So do ice cream and puddings and many other kinds of desserts.

  The most popular flavoring for ice cream and cake is vanilla. A great deal of soft candy has vanilla in it, too. Vanilla comes from the seed pods of an orchid. No one in the Old World had ever heard of vanilla until the Spaniards conquered México about 400 years ago. The Spaniards learned how to make it from the Indians.

  These Indians were also using chocolate. Chocolate is now a very popular flavoring.

  Peppermint, spearmint, and winter-green are made from the leaves of mint and wintergreen plants. They are the best-liked flavorings for chewing gum.

  Peppermint and wintergreen are also used in hard candies. Many fruit flavorings are used in these candies, too. Lemon and orange flavorings are made from the rinds of lemons and oranges. Most fruit flavor¬ings are made from fruit juices.

  Actually the good taste flavorings give the things we eat is mostly a good smell. There are really only four tastes—bitter, sour, sweet, and salty. The rest of the taste of anything is its smell. Smell is a stronger sense than taste. If someone held a pear under your nose while you were eating an apple, the apple would taste like a pear.

  At first all flavorings were made from plants. Now scientists have learned other ways. Artificial vanilla, for instance, can now be made from coal tar!