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Sugar is the generalized name for sweet, short-chain, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. They are carbohydrates, composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. There are various types of sugar derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose (also known as dextrose), fructose and galactose. The table or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide. (In the body, sucrose hydrolyses into fructose and glucose.) Other disaccharides include maltose and lactose. Longer chains of sugars are called oligosaccharides. Chemically-different substances may also have a sweet taste, but are not classified as sugars. Some are used as lower-calorie food substitutes for sugar described as artificial sweeteners. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants, but are present in sufficient concentrations for efficient extraction only in sugarcane and sugar beet. Sugarcane refers to any of several species of giant grass in the genus ''Saccharum'' that have been cultivated in tropical climates in South Asia and Southeast Asia since ancient times. A great expansion in its production took place in the 18th century with the establishment of sugar plantations in the West Indies and Americas. This was the first time that sugar became available to the common people, who had previously had to rely on honey to sweeten foods. Sugar beet, a cultivated variety of ''Beta vulgaris'', is grown as a root crop in cooler climates and became a major source of sugar in the 19th century when methods for extracting the sugar became available. Sugar production and trade have changed the course of human history in many ways, influencing the formation of colonies, the perpetuation of slavery, the transition to indentured labour, the migration of peoples, wars between sugar-trade–controlling nations in the 19th century, and the ethnic composition and political structure of the New World. The world produced about 168 million tonnes of sugar in 2011. The average person consumes about of sugar each year (33.1 kg in industrialised countries), equivalent to over 260 food calories per person, per day. Since the latter part of the twentieth century, it has been questioned whether a diet high in sugars, especially refined sugars, is good for human health. Sugar has been linked to obesity, and suspected of, or fully implicated as a cause in the occurrence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, macular degeneration, and tooth decay. Numerous studies have been undertaken to try to clarify the position, but with varying results, mainly because of the difficulty of finding populations for use as controls that do not consume or are largely free of any sugar consumption. ==Etymology== The etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. The English word "sugar"〔The -g- is unexplained, possibly reflecting a Venetian dialect.〕 originates from the Arabic word ''sukkar'', which came from the Persian ''shekar'',〔Compare the OED and the (''Online Etymology Dictionary'' ).〕 itself derived from Sanskrit ''शर्करा'' ''śarkarā'',〔 Ahmad Y Hassan, (Transfer Of Islamic Technology To The West, Part III: Technology Transfer in the Chemical Industries ), ''History of Science and Technology in Islam''.〕 which originated from Tamil ''சக்கரை'' ''Sakkarai''. It most probably came to England by way of Italian merchants. The contemporary Italian word is ''zucchero'', whereas the Spanish and Portuguese words, ''azúcar'' and ''açúcar'' respectively, have kept a trace of the Arabic definite article. The Old French word is ''zuchre'' – contemporary French ''sucre''. The earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρις (''sákkʰaris'').〔(σάκχαρ ), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus〕〔This form is not phonetically explained, but may reflect a mediation through a language ''en route'' from the Sanskrit original. Modern Greek ζάχαρη () is due to cluster simplification () > () and initial sandhi (acc. την σάχαρη (sáχari ) > τη ζάχαρη (záχari )). The word has also changed its nominal class.〕 A satisfactory ''pedigree'' explaining the spread of the word has yet to be done. The English word ''jaggery'', a coarse brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugar cane juice, has a similar etymological origin; Portuguese ''xagara'' or ''jagara'', derived from Malayalam ''chakkarā'' from the Sanskrit ''śarkarā''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Jaggery )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sugar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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