Lec. 15 Sugar

Question 1

What commonly explains the absence of honey as an important part of the diet in traditional societies?

Answer 1

Cold Climate and absence of honey bees.

Question 2

What would toxic honey fetch higher prices?

Answer 2

If bees collect nectar from plants that produce psychoactive toxins, some people may cherish a buzz.

Question 3

How can honey consist mostly of monosaccharides when most nectar contains the disaccharide sucrose?

Answer 3

Bees cleave the disaccharide sucrose into glucose and fructose using an enzyme in their gut

Question 4

What prevents honey from going bad?

Answer 4

The high concentration of sugars and low water content.

Question 5

If honey is said to never go bad, how can people ferment it into mead?

Answer 5

Diluting the honey with water will allow yeasts to ferment it.

Question 6

Why would you dilute honey in water?

Answer 6

When separating the wax from the honey comp from honey and grubs, boiling the remainder of the combs allows the wax to float on top and all the honey to dissolve in the water.

Question 7

Sugar cane did not exist first millennium Europe. What do you expect was the sweetener of choice in early recipes from Europe?

Answer 7

Dried fruit and honey.

Question 8

Why does the botanical name for sugar cane refer to an apothecary (medical professional) ?

Answer 8

Sugar was considered a medicine

Question 9

How did sugar cane get to southern Spain?

Answer 9

The Arabs and Moors brought it there when they civilized southern Spain in the 8th century.

Question 10

What do sugar and durum wheat have in common?

Answer 10

Both were discovered by Europeans during the early crusades in the 11th century.

Question 11

What is the link between the slave revolt /successful revolution in Haiti and the United States?

Answer 11

It contributed to the Louisiana purchase, the transfer of large territory from France to the US.

Question 12

What is pulque?

Answer 12

A traditional alcoholic drink in Central America made from fermented agave sap.

Question 13

What is the principal sugar in agave juice?

Answer 13

Fructose and polyfructose (fructan).

Question 14

What is the difference between harvest from agave (Maguey) for aguamiel and for the production of tequila?

Answer 14

Only the sap is used for aguamiel/pulque , but the whole base of the plant (pina with sap and starch) is used for making tequila.

Question 15

What plant does the word maguey refer to?

Answer 15

Agave

Question 16

Which non-human animals also enjoy palm wine?

Answer 16

chimpanzees and bats

Question 17

What steps are required for fermenting starch from grain, tubers of fruit into alcoholic beverages?

Answer 17

Malting, and mashing.

Question 18

What is a SCOBY?

Answer 18

Symbiotic Community of Bacteria and Yeast, e..g. Qu or Koji, used to directly ferment any starch in East Asia.

Question 19

How is the East Asian variant of aldehyde dehydrogenase acting in a codominant manner?

Answer 19

One copy of the variant reduces the person’s ability to metabolize alcohol, two copies reduce it further.

Question 20

How can corn starch give rise to glucose and fructose corn syrup?

Answer 20

By the use of enzymes that cleave the starch and change glucose into fructose

Question 21

What is the link between explosives and fertilizers?

Answer 21

Both are based on industrial nitrogen fixation.

Question 22

Why is hydrolyzed sucrose called inverted sugar?

Answer 22

Fructose rotates light the opposite way than sucrose does.

Question 23

What is a heterodimer as seen in taste receptors?

Answer 23

A heterodimer is the combination of two different proteins to form a single functional unit

Question 24

Why would carnivores have lost functional sweetness receptors during evolution?

Answer 24

Their diets do not include fruit or honey. There was no evolutionary disadvantage for mutations that inactivated the receptor proteins.

Question 25

Otters and bears are both in the order carnivora. How do spectacled bears and
otter differ in their ability to sense sugars?

Answer 25

spectacled bears are omnivores (eats plant and animal) and sense most sugars, while otters don’t.

Question 26

How can scientists understand sweetness detection by our bodies.

Answer 26

Through studies of the cell surface receptors (proteins),
- their 3-dimensional organization
- and their interactions with sweet molecules at the molecular level.

Question 27

What tissues in your body carry taste receptors?

Answer 27

Your tongue and much of your digestive tract.

Question 28

What is jaggery?

Answer 28

evaporated cane juice, produced by boiling unfiltered cane juice.