The Week End Economists Take a Trip Down the Candy Asile. Apr 30 - May 01, 2016.

[Hugin]

Right about now, I imagine you're wondering what exactly is wrong with me...

But, I'm basing this weekend's WEE topic on an often overlooked tidbit of Economic Lore.

Most of the candy consumed in the United States is produced in the United States.

and, if that isn't enough to convince you of the economic impact of candy, try this on.

The VAST MAJORITY of candy consumed in the United States is produced in North America.

When I say, produced, I mean all of it. Growing, processing, manufacturing, packaging, wholesale, and retail are all done nationally, regionally, and locally.

(Excluding the cacao beans used in chocolates, of which the only State in the growing zone is Hawaii. Which does it's best to supply our emo sweet tooth. But, cocoa is mostly imported and processed into goodies onshore.)

Before, I go any further. An apology to those of my friends (and myself) who for one reason or another can't eat much sugar. I'm sorry.

Please, hang on... Big Candy is spending huge to make sure you too, can indulge.

Why this is true, I've been pondering. Why hasn't this been off-shored? Multi-nationalized? Sliced and Diced? like so much else in consumerdom. I'm sure it's been looked into and the only reasonable answer I have come up with is that there's no advantage to be had for the supply-side in doing so.

So, let's look a little in the magical properties of sugar, heat, and water that make candy possible.

Candy making is the preparation of candies and sugar confections. Candy making includes the preparation of many various candies, such as hard candies, jelly beans, gumdrops, taffy, liquorice, cotton candy, chocolates and chocolate truffles, dragées, fudge, caramel candy and toffee.

Candy is made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a syrup, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize. The type of candy depends on the ingredients and how long the mixture is boiled. Candy comes in a wide variety of textures, from soft and chewy to hard and brittle. A chocolatier is a person who prepares confectionery from chocolate, and is distinct from a chocolate maker, who create chocolate from cacao beans and other ingredients. Cotton candy is a form of spun sugar often prepared using a cotton candy machine.

Sugar stages

The final texture of candy depends on the sugar concentration. As the syrup is heated, it boils, water evaporates, the sugar concentration increases, and the boiling point rises. A given temperature corresponds to a particular sugar concentration, and temperature is easier to measure than concentration, so temperature is used as a marker for the necessary concentration.[4] In general, higher temperatures and greater sugar concentrations result in hard, brittle candies, and lower temperatures result in softer candies. The stages of sugar cooking are as follows:

Stage Temperature Sugar concentration

thread (e.g., syrup) 110 to 112 °C (230 to 234 °F) 80%
soft ball (e.g., fudge) 112 to 116 °C (234 to 241 °F) 85%
firm ball (e.g., soft caramel candy) 118 to 120 °C (244 to 248 °F) 87%
hard ball (e.g., nougat) 121 to 130 °C (250 to 266 °F) 90%
soft crack (e.g., salt water taffy) 132 to 143 °C (270 to 289 °F) 95%
hard crack (e.g., toffee) 146 to 154 °C (295 to 309 °F) 99%
clear liquid 160 °C (320 °F) 100%
brown liquid (e.g., liquid caramel) 170 °C (338 °F) 100%
burnt sugar 177 °C (351 °F) 100%

The names come from the methods used to test the syrup before thermometers became affordable. The "thread" stage is tested by cooling a little syrup, and pulling it between the thumb and forefinger. When the correct stage is reached, a thread will form. This stage is used for making syrups. For subsequent stages, a small spoonful of syrup is dropped into cold water, and the characteristics of the resulting lump are evaluated to determine the concentration of the syrup. A smooth lump indicates "ball" stages, with the corresponding hardness described. At the "soft crack" stage, the syrup forms threads that are just pliable. At the "hard crack" stage, the threads are brittle.

This method is still used today in some kitchens. A candy thermometer is more convenient, but has the drawback of not automatically adjusting for local conditions such as altitude, as the cold water test does.

Once the syrup reaches 171 °C (340 °F) or higher, the sucrose molecules break down into many simpler sugars, creating an amber-colored substance known as caramel. This should not be confused with caramel candy, although it is the candy's main flavoring.

As always, from the Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_making

There you have it...

Stay sweet!

[Hotler]

1. My mom used to make candied apples when I was a kid for Holloween.

She would boil Kayro syrup until the hard cracked stage using the water test then add oil of cinnamon, red food coloring and then dip apples on a stick. They were awesome. The right amount of crackly crunch with a bit of cinnamon heat together with the tart sweetness of a McIntosh Apple. She would make them by the bushel for us kids. We had them all over the house days before Halloween. She would have to go to the Pharmacy to get the oil of cinnamon. It came in a small vial and we would stick tooth picks in it to make our own cinnamon picks as kids. Damn, I miss my mom. I found her old recipe written in long hand on an old yellowed piece of paper, it's at least 50-yrs old. I may have to try my hand at the apples to see if I can do it.

Any one remember Jolly Rancher Fire sticks. They used to be here in Colorado up in Arvada and when you drove by you could smell the candy being made.

[Hugin]

6. Jolly Rancher! Yes, yes, I do remember them.

(and I also remember biting down on them and about yanking out my molars trying to get my mouth open again. )

I used to see their trucks on the highways.

Yep.

[Gungnir]

2. The Amazing Chemistry of Candy Floss (cotton candy to Americans)

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160427-the-amazing-chemistry-of-candyfloss

Candyfloss – or cotton candy to Americans – is a singular sort of confection. The fluffy carnival treat is like nothing else edible. What else feels lighter than air in your hand and seems to evaporate once it gets past your lips, leaving only sweetness and red dye? When you're a kid – or sometimes an adult, let's be real – it ranks up there with astronaut ice cream in the hierarchy of fascinating treats.
...
Candyfloss begins as solid sugar, which is poured into a little hopper with a heating element. Surrounding the mouth of the hopper is a ring pierced with minuscule holes; surrounding that is a big metal receptacle a lot like an oversized cake pan. As the heating element melts the sugar into a liquid, a motor sets the whole contraption spinning.
...
And it just so happens that this method of making a solid web from a liquid material has potential medical applications: Scientists at Vanderbilt University (also, by coincidence, in Nashville) are using a candyfloss machine to help build scaffolds for growing cells in, as part of an effort to create artificial tissues.

One trouble with the gels currently used by scientists studying this is that they aren't always as porous as one would like, so cells can't populate them completely. The Vanderbilt team used their machine to spin a cloud of polymers, embedded them in a gel, and then caused them to dissolve, leaving behind an intricate network of vessels. Ninety percent of the cells encouraged to take up residence in this structure were alive a week later, compared to 60-70% of those in gels without vessels.
more

[Hugin]

7. Biotech candyland.

That's what I'm talking about. I've also heard of the use of sugars in a similar way to plastics in 3-D printing.

They've been using reusable corn starch molds to cast gummie candy for at least a century.

There's a complete description of the molding process at about 2 minutes into this video:

[Gungnir]

3. That Sugar Film

http://thatsugarfilm.com/

THAT SUGAR FILM is one man’s journey to discover the bitter truth about sugar. Damon Gameau embarks on a unique experiment to document the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body, consuming only foods that are commonly perceived as ‘healthy’. Through this entertaining and informative journey, Damon highlights some of the issues that plague the sugar industry, and where sugar lurks on supermarket shelves. THAT SUGAR FILM will forever change the way you think about ‘healthy’ food.

[Gungnir]

4. High-fat diet starves the brain (keeps glucose from getting to brain)

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-04-high-fat-diet-starves-brain.html

A high-fat diet of three days in mice leads to a reduction in the amount of glucose that reaches the brain. This finding was reported by a Research Group led by Jens Brüning, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne. The mouse brain restored its sugar uptake after four weeks, albeit at the cost of the rest of the body.

High-fat-content foods throw our bodies out of kilter. Obesity and diseases such as type 2 diabetes can be the result. But what does a high-fat diet actually do to our brain? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne have looked into the brains of mice to understand how obesity and diabetes develop.

"A high-fat diet reduces the uptake of blood glucose into the brain in as little as three days. So the brain is starving, even though the mice are consuming a lot of calories daily. Responsible for this is the protein GLUT-1, which is the most important glucose transporter at the blood-brain barrier," explained Alexander Jais, author of the study. Possible triggers for the reduction of the GLUT-1 transporter are free saturated fatty acids that have a toxic effect on the cells of the blood-brain barrier. The brain lacks glucose in significant areas: the hypothalamus, which controls metabolism, and the cerebral cortex, responsible for learning and memory.
...
The selfish brain

Balancing the brain's need for sugar when the diet remains high in fat can only be done at the cost of the rest of the body. "We call it the selfish brain, because it gets its glucose by stimulating the body's appetite for sweet foods and in the long run preventing the uptake in muscles and fat. The cells in the musculature are becoming resistant to insulin, the hormone that normally regulates glucose uptake in the cells of these organs. Ultimately, this leads to the development of diabetes," explained Jais.

[Hugin]

5. This is really a fascinating article!

Thanks for posting it.

Yet another reason to really watch that fat! (and also a good reason for that little candy treat I allow myself.)

[DemReadingDU]

11. High fat low carb for me

Never hungry, belly flab is gone, more energy, no lunch coma. It's great!

It's easy to follow:
Eggs, cheese, meat, fish, chicken, butter, green veggies and salads, occasionally fruit

Stay away from:
Anything with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, or other sweetners, junk food, fast food joints, flour products or grains of any kind, starchy foods as in potatoes, corn, rice, pasta


5/2/14 The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease By Nina Teicholz
"Saturated fat does not cause heart disease"—or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries. For many diet-conscious Americans, it is simply second nature to opt for chicken over sirloin, canola oil over butter.

The new study's conclusion shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias.
.
.
The real surprise is that, according to the best science to date, people put themselves at higher risk for these conditions no matter what kind of carbohydrates they eat. Yes, even unrefined carbs. Too much whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast and whole-grain pasta for dinner, with fruit snacks in between, add up to a less healthy diet than one of eggs and bacon, followed by fish. The reality is that fat doesn't make you fat or diabetic. Scientific investigations going back to the 1950s suggest that actually, carbs do.
more...
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?

THE BIG FAT SURPRISE
Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet
https://thebigfatsurprise.com/

[Gungnir]

16. A new piece in the 'French paradox' puzzle—cheese metabolism

http://phys.org/news/2015-04-piece-french-paradox-puzzlecheese-metabolism.html

Figuring out why the French have low cardiovascular disease rates despite a diet high in saturated fats has spurred research and many theories to account for this phenomenon known as the "French paradox." Most explanations focus on wine and lifestyle, but a key role could belong to another French staple: cheese. The evidence, say scientists in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, is in cheese metabolism.

Hanne Bertram and colleagues note that recent research on some dairy products' positive effects on health has cast doubt on the once-firm rule that saturated fats are bad for our hearts. For example, one study found that cheese reduced "bad" cholesterol when compared to butter with the same fat content, suggesting that high cheese consumption could help explain the French paradox. To further investigate this possible explanation, Bertram's team looked into how cheese gets digested.

The researchers compared urine and fecal samples from 15 healthy men whose diets either contained cheese or milk, or who ate a control diet with butter but no other dairy products. They found that those who consumed cheese had higher fecal levels of butyrate, a compound produced by gut bacteria. Elevated butyrate levels were linked to a reduction in cholesterol. Their results, they say, suggest a role for gut microbes and further shore up the connection between cheese and the French paradox.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-piece-french-paradox-puzzlecheese-metabolism.html#jCp

[Bearware]

18. This is worded like it was written by the sugar lobby, it is not clear what study is referenced.

There are a number of statements about the science that are flat wrong. It looks like someone took parts of one or more studies and not understanding the concepts produced a press release with an huge agenda. Example:"High-fat-content foods throw our bodies out of kilter. Obesity and diseases such as type 2 diabetes can be the result."I looked for the study in Pubmed but maybe I needed to search for the scientificy sounding "throw our bodies out of kilter".

Can the OP please post a link to the actual journal article rather than just a reference to it being published in Cell?

[Gungnir]

19. Try reading the article, like the part that says "more information" for starters...

More information:
Alexander Jais, Maite Solas, Heiko Backes, Bhagirath Chaurasia, André Kleinridders, Sebastian Theurich, Jan Mauer, Sophie M. Steculorum, Brigitte Hampel, Julia Goldau, Jens Alber, Carola Y. Förster, Sabine A. Eming, Markus Schwaninger, Napoleone Ferrara, Gerard Karsenty, Jens C. Brüning, Myeloid-Cell-Derived VEGF maintains brain glucose uptake and limits cognitive impairment in obesity. Cell; May 5, 2016

Then google search the paper title and it will come up #2.

You should know the journal article is pay-walled.

Tip: read up on Aaron Schwarz who was killed for trying to make sure these studies are not pay-walled.

[Gungnir]

8. Eating chocolate each day could reduce heart disease and diabetes risk

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-04-chocolate-day-heart-disease-diabetes.html

A new study published in the British Journal of Nutrition appears to back up the adage that a little of what you fancy does you good.

Including a small amount of chocolate each day could help prevent diabetes and insulin resistance. That's one of the research findings from the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), the University of Warwick Medical School, the University of South Australia and the University of Maine.

Data of 1,153 people aged 18-69 years old who were part of the Observation of Cardiovascular Risk in Luxembourg (ORISCAV-LUX) study were analysed. It was found that those who ate 100 g of chocolate a day - equivalent to a bar – had reduced insulin resistance and improved liver enzymes. Insulin resistance is a well-established risk factor to cardiovascular disease.
...
The paper concluded that further observational research and randomised controlled studies are needed to understand the role chocolate may play in insulin resistance and cardiometabolic disorders.

more

Note: 100g=3.5oz (That's a lot of chocolate! Especially if its high quality)

More research is clearly needed.
- Dnews tag line (Discovery channels science news podcast)

[Gungnir]

9. Eating up to 100 g of chocolate daily linked to lowered heart disease and stroke risk

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-06-chocolate-daily-linked-lowered-heart.html#nRlv

They base their findings on almost 21,000 adults taking part in the EPIC-Norfolk study, which is tracking the impact of diet on the long term health of 25,000 men and women in Norfolk, England, using food frequency and lifestyle questionnaires.

The researchers also carried out a systematic review of the available international published evidence on the links between chocolate and cardiovascular disease, involving almost 158,000 people—including the EPIC study participants.

The EPIC-Norfolk participants (9214 men and 11 737 women) were monitored for an average of almost 12 years, during which time 3013 (14%) people experienced either an episode of fatal or non-fatal coronary heart disease or stroke.
...
Higher levels of consumption were associated with younger age and lower weight (BMI), waist: hip ratio, systolic blood pressure, inflammatory proteins, diabetes and more regular physical activity —all of which add up to a favourable cardiovascular disease risk profile.

More, Much, Much More at link!

[Gungnir]

10. Eating chocolate improves cognitive function, study finds

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-04-chocolate-cognitive-function.html#nRlv

People who ate chocolate at least once a week performed better on multiple cognitive tasks, compared to those who ate chocolate less frequently, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maine, University of South Australia and Luxembourg Institute of Health that has garnered international attention.

With age, education, gender age and race controlled, cognitive tasks were related to following domains, each, measured by multiple tests: Visual-Spatial Memory and Organization, Working Memory, Abstract Verbal Reasoning, Scanning and Tracking, and overall cognitive functioning.
...
The 968 participants ages 23–98 in the study came from the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study, directed by Elias, which has tracked more than 1,000 people over 35 years.
...
In addition, compared to those who never or rarely ate chocolate, those who ate chocolate weekly had higher total and LDL cholesterol, but lower glucose levels. Hypertension and Type 2 diabetes also were lower in regular chocolate consumers than in nonconsumers. But positive associations between chocolate consumption and cognitive performance remained with control for these variables, other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and consumption of other food and beverages.

[DemReadingDU]

12. Okay, I do eat some chocolate

[Gungnir]

13. Fructose alters hundreds of brain genes, which can lead to a wide range of diseases

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-04-fructose-hundreds-brain-genes-wide.html

A range of diseases—from diabetes to cardiovascular disease, and from Alzheimer's disease to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—are linked to changes to genes in the brain. A new study by UCLA life scientists has found that hundreds of those genes can be damaged by fructose, a sugar that's common in the Western diet, in a way that could lead to those diseases.

However, the researchers discovered good news as well: An omega-3 fatty acid known as docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, seems to reverse the harmful changes produced by fructose.

"DHA changes not just one or two genes; it seems to push the entire gene pattern back to normal, which is remarkable," said Xia Yang, a senior author of the study and a UCLA assistant professor of integrative biology and physiology. "And we can see why it has such a powerful effect."

DHA occurs naturally in the membranes of our brain cells, but not in a large enough quantity to help fight diseases.

More

[Hugin]

15. HFCS also makes lousy candy.

A few years ago I was making up some peanut brittle and it simply wouldn't reach the hardness I was used to and I was searching my recipe for where I'd gone wrong. I just couldn't understand what was happening, because I had been doing this for years. Well, actually, decades.

I happened to look at the side of the corn syrup bottle and noticed a list of ingredients on the side. Of course, I thought, "WTF, ingredients?" Upon inspecting it, I noticed it listed HFCS before the Corn Syrup in the Corn Syrup!

To understand what was happening, you have to know that the "candy stages" listed above is only part of the answer. The sugar concentration achieved by boiling off the water governs the end crystallization of the sugar. To get more control of the crystallization process candy makers over the centuries have learned to add a small amount of syrup containing a different sugar (usually glucose) to halt the process at a certain stage. This "fine tunes" the final crystallization. By adding the HFCS to the corn syrup they had thrown off the ratio of sugars and ruined a process I'd been using for years. Instead of a bubbly crunchy peanut brittle, I'd ended up with a rock hard block of sugar with peanuts embedded in it.

Luckily, I had a couple of bottles left from a previous year to make what I needed. But, I played hell finding pure corn syrup for a couple of years after that debacle.

Someone else with more sway than I must have noticed the problem, because suddenly, pure corn syrup has become widely available again.

Ha! Just try explaining this to the know-it-all Monsanto Bros. over in GD.

[Gungnir]

17. "Let's find out who's in charge of the laws of physics and make them change them"

Overheard from executives after they reluctantly, just possibility, maybe, almost made a slight misstep by making the corn syrup, HFCS. After all they are the exact same natural chemical.

<sarcasm>

[Gungnir]

14. Natural sugar may treat fatty liver disease

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-02-natural-sugar-fatty-liver-disease.html


Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition closely linked to obesity, affects roughly 25 percent of people in the U.S. There is no drug treatment for the disease, although weight loss can reduce the buildup of fat in the liver.

Now, studying mice, new research shows that a natural sugar called trehalose prevents the sugar fructose—thought to be a major contributor to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease—from entering the liver and triggers a cellular housekeeping process that cleans up excess fat buildup inside liver cells.
...
"In general, if you feed a mouse a high-sugar diet, it gets a fatty liver," said first author Brian J. DeBosch, MD, PhD, a pediatric gastroenterologist. "We found that if you feed a mouse a diet high in fructose plus provide drinking water that contains three percent trehalose, you completely block the development of a fatty liver. Those mice also had lower body weights at the end of the study and lower levels of circulating cholesterol, fatty acids and triglycerides."
...
Trehalose is a natural sugar found in plants and insects and consists of two glucose molecules bound together. While it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human consumption, DeBosch cautions that more research is required before trehalose could be tested in people with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease as part of a clinical trial.

"I can't recommend it to my patients yet," said DeBosch, who sees patients at St. Louis Children's Hospital. "We know the mice that received drinking water with three percent trehalose lost weight, and we suspect that weight loss was due to loss of fat, but we can't be certain that's the only effect. We need more studies to make sure they were not losing bone or muscle mass."
...
more