Molasses A Super Junk Food

2. Molasses: A Super Junk Food

Molasses is a prime example of a junk food. This is a product which has been so degraded that it really should not be called a “food” at all. It has been refined, processed, contaminated with poisons and boiled to such an extent that it could never be of any benefit and, in fact, will contribute to toxicosis if ingested.

So let us take a look at this “super junk food.”

2.1 What Is Molasses?

Molasses is a yellowish or dark-brown, thick, sweet, sticky syrup which is most often used for cooking, candy-making or as a livestock feed. Most molasses is obtained as a by-product in the manufacturing of sugar from sugar cane but some is obtained from the sugar beet. Therefore, countries that grow sugar cane produce most of the world’s molasses. In the United States, Louisiana is the center of molasses production.

Molasses contains 36 to 50 percent sugar. Chemists and drug manufacturers use it to make many chemical products, including industrial alcohol. Molasses yields large amounts of citric acid. This citric acid from molasses is used in making soft drinks. Low-grade molasses, called blackstrap, is fed to livestock.

Molasses that is to be eaten contains much sugar, so it tastes sweet. It is often used in making cookies and candy for the unusual flavor which it imparts.

2.2 How Molasses is Produced

In preparation for harvesting the sugar cane, the fields are set afire to burn off the dried up leaves. Then the sugar cane is cut down and taken to the sugar refinery. It is put through high-pressure rollers to squeeze out the juice. The juice contains many impurities including field soil, cane fiber and wax, organic acids, ash, nitrogen compounds, pectin and gum. On the other side of the vat containing the juice is the resulting fibrous tissue, called bagasse.

The bagasse is further processed to get the ultimate sugar content out of it. It is sprayed with super-heated hot water which quickly saturates the bagasse and picks up, in solution, more sugar. It also picks up some of the pulpy organic matter.

This is then squeezed out of the bagasse by yet another set of high-pressure rollers. It is cooled and combined with the original juice. This diluted juice contains less sugar than the virgin pressing. Also, it contains a lot of organic matter or pulp.

To get crystalline sugar from cane juice, the first step is to stabilize it chemically so that its prized content, sucrose, will not become invert sugar, that is, fructose and/or glucose. Cane juice has a pH of about 5.4, which is on the acid side, and the first boiling would cause the sucrose to break down into its two basic sugars, fructose and glucose. As a stabilizer, about five gallons of liquified quicklime is added to 1,000 gallons of juice. This gives it a pH of about 8.0, thus stabilizing the sucrose. Also added at this stage to clarify the liquid are sulphur dioxide/carbon dioxide and, usually, phosphoric acid.

Then the juice is put through its first boiling to remove most of its water and to obtain the first extraction. What remains from this first extraction is called crude molasses. Then more chemicals are added to the residue and yet another cooking (boiling) is done. Acid sulphite and carbon compounds are added.

After this extraction comes yet another extraction during which bone char (cattle bones that have been heated to the point of charring), sulphur compounds and chlorine are used as clarifiers and purifiers. Chlorine is used for its “bleaching” action.

The final residue is called molasses.

2.3 Molasses Contains Sugar

As you have learned from previous lessons, refined sugar of any kind has devastating effects on our health. Such sugars are responsible for many diseases and disorders including tooth decay, obesity, heart disease, hypoglycemia, diabetes, meningitis and many others.

You have also learned that when you eat any refined carbohydrate, the body must take vital nutrients from healthy cells to metabolize incomplete foods. Thus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium are drawn from various parts of the body to make use of the sugar. Likewise other valuable vitamins, minerals and enzymes are robbed from the body.

Since molasses contains 36-50 percent sugar, the known harmful effects of white sugar would also apply to molasses.