Sugar is another product of vegetation. It is consumed in various forms in large quantities. The reported sugar-consumption in 1895 gives for England 86 lb. per capita, and for the United States 64 lb., and 80 lb. in 1912.

Sugar-cane until recently yielded the sugar consumed as food. Now sugar-beets supply an increasing proportion of that used. Substitute sirups are also taking the place of cane-sugar in manufactured foods.

Production of sugar from sugar-cane consists in cutting and pressing the cane to secure the juice. This is purified and evaporated. The sugar then crystallizes. Such sugar is brown. The sirup left is molasses. When sugar is made from beets, the sugar is dissolved from the beets after they have been chopped fine.

Refining raw sugar is accomplished by a series of processes that remove all impurities, reevaporate it and recrystallize the sugar in purer form. Slight difference in degree of coarseness of sugar is produced in the crystallizing of the grains. But powdered sugar is ground usually from that broken in cutting loaf sugar for table use. Its seeming lack of sweetness is due to its fine division, not necessarily to adulteration. Sugar that entirely dissolves is probably pure. If starch were added it would remain insoluble.

Glucose is a sirup commercially produced from corn and used as a sugar substitute in made-foods, especially candies. It should be wholesome if pure and carefully made. Glucose when pure is a predigested food, that is, is ready for assimilation as consumed. But all digestive processes performed for the body outside of it do not always aid it, even though it is not known exactly why they do not. The body to be properly fed seems to need to do its own work of digestion.