[Event] Sugar Beyond Sweetness at Ryerson University

Website: http://sugar.ca/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CdnSugarNutr
When I attended: April 18th, 2016

As a graduate of Ryerson University, I was excited that the “Sugar Beyond Sweetness” event was located inside the Ted Rogers School of Management building. The event was organized by the Canadian Sugar Institute (CSI), and was a workshop and interactive food demonstration with Chef Claire Tansey. Laura Pasut, the Director of Nutrition at CSI was present to tell us tons of information about sugar. In attendance at the event, we had a group of nutritionist, food bloggers and media influencers.

At times, I felt like I was in a university lecture with a lot of scientific information. I even took notes!

Some facts about sugars :

• Simplist types of sugar include fructose, glucose and galactose. When one glucose and one fructose are joined together, they become sucrose (table sugar).
• The sugar we purchase from grocery stores is obtained from sugar cane or sugar beet.
• The sucrose in a banana is the same as the sucrose in table sugar.
• Regardless of the source, each gram of sugar supplies the body with 4 calories.
• Sugar added to food plays many roles including acting as a preservative for jams and jellies, sugar helps keep baked goods moist and can delay staleness, and is responsible for the smoothness of frozen dairy products like ice cream.
• The consumption of “added sugar” has been declining in Canada over the past 2 decades.
• Foods that claim “Reduced in Sugar”, “Lower in Sugar”, or “No Added Sugar” does not mean lower in carbohydrates or calories.
• Functional roles in sugar include flavour enhancement, caramelization, texture (stabilization) and freezing point decrease.

Source: The Canadian Sugar Institute phamplets and website.

Did you know all of that?!

It was great to know that sugar has many functional roles in food, aside from enhancing the flavour of food. I was most excited about eating, and enjoyed the pickled carrots, caramel salmon with puy lentils, cake and ice cream for dessert.

 

For the pickled carrot and cake, we had a chance to taste a version without sugar. The sugarless cake was not tasty, which really proved the point, sugar is needed in many of our foods!

There are lots of helpful resources about sugar on their website http://sugar.ca/, and I am sure you will learn something new!

*Disclosure: The meal was complimentary but the opinions in the post are my own.