Talk:Molasses

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Molasses article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1: 3 months

Food and drink High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Food and drinkWikipedia:WikiProject Food and drinkTemplate:WikiProject Food and drinkFood and drink articles

High

This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Food and Drink task list:

To edit this page, select here

Here are some tasks you can do for WikiProject Food and drink:

Help bring these Top Importance articles currently B Status or below up to GA status: Agaricus bisporus (i.e. mushroom), Beef, Bread, Curry, Drink, Food, Ham and eggs, Soy sauce, Sushi, Yogurt
Bring these Top Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Beer, French cuisine, Sugar
Bring these High Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Apple, Burger King, Fish
Participate in project-related deletion discussions.
Delete unrelated trivia sections found in articles. Please review WP:Trivia and WP:Handling trivia to learn how to do this.
Add the {{WikiProject Food and drink}} project banner to food and drink related articles and content to help bring them to the attention of members. For a complete list of banners for WikiProject Food and drink and its child projects, select here.
Provide photographs and images for Category:Wikipedia requested images of food
Consider joining this project's Assessment task force. List any project ideas in this section

Note: These lists are transcluded from the project's tasks pages.

Molasses was featured in a WikiWorld cartoon. Click the image to the right for full size version.

So what is it, really?

The first sentence tells me that molasses is a viscous substance; that's not very helpful. Farther on the sentence says it "varies in the amount of sugar. Apparently, it contains sugar. That could be my morning coffee: dark, sweet, and viscous.

What is it, really? In the nutrition section almost at the end of the article there's a breakdown: roughly 75% carbohydrates and 25% water. Of those carbohydrates, roughly 30% is "sugar". What about the rest? In any case, the numbers are from the USDA, a US-centric source. There is no indication of the scope of those limited figures.

I still don't know what it is. I'm sorry for being sarcastic, but I really think the first paragraph should give the reader that vital piece of information. It sounds as if molasses is very roughly a mixture of 25% water, 25% sugar, and other "stuff", possibly carbohydrates whatever they are. I will leave it to the experts to figure out exactly what the first sentence should say to answer the question "what is molasses?" Humpster (talk) 02:40, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I don't share your confusion; the lede explains it satisfactorily to me, at least. While the later-described proportions of types of sugars doesn't 'add up' within the narrative text, it's not a significant matter; the bottom line is that it's mostly some water and a lot of sugar - a blend of assorted sugars, likely from the Maillard reaction or carmelization converting sucrose into other sugars. I think the reality is that molasses simply hasn't been subjected to very much study; a google search actually yields more information about it than here, e.g. the history of molasses. I guess molasses just isn't that interesting a topic for most readers (or editors). cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 05:26, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is a sugarcane byproduct containing large amounts of fossilized dinosaur retains 2600:1001:B000:8378:ED00:4A5C:6870:BAE3 (talk) 04:20, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sugar beet molasses ≠ sugar beet syrup

I've removed the following sentence from the article:

Sugar beet molasses is widely consumed in Europe (for example Germany, where it is known as Zuckerrübensirup).^[1]

For the following reason:

The section about sugar beet molasses is conflating two different products: sugar beet molasses vs. sugar beet syrup (Zuckerrübensirup). Sugar beet molasses is a byproduct of sugar production from sugar beets. Sugar beet syrup on the other hand is the result of cooking sugar beets which were specifically grown for syrup production (the syrup is not a byproduct, it's the product). Sugar beet molasses is not used for human nutrition in Germany.

https://www.atco.de/produkt/melassen/zuckerruebe/

https://www.rewe.de/lexikon/melasse/

https://www.grafschafter.de/service-kontakt/faq

To quote the last link (which is the most prominent sugar beet syrup vendor in Germany, if I'm not mistaken):

Ist Zuckerrübensirup das gleiche wie Melasse? Nein. Zuckerrübensirup ist der naturreine, konzentrierte Saft erntefrischer Zuckerrüben ohne deren Pflanzenfasern und ohne jeglichen nachträglichen Zusatz. Er entsteht durch Eindicken von Rübensaft, der aus den gekochten Rübenschnitzeln abgepresst wird und damit alle wertvollen Inhaltsstoffe der Rübe enthält. [...] Melasse ist ein Nebenprodukt aus der Kristallzuckergewinnung. Es muss allerdings zwischen der Zuckerrüben- und Zuckerrohrmelasse unterschieden werden. Die Zuckerrübenmelasse wird vorwiegend als Futtermittel verwendet, wohingegen Zuckerrohrmelasse auch für Ernährungszwecke angeboten wird.

And in a different section the same site says:

Kristallzucker wird zwar auch aus der Zuckerrübe hergestellt, durchläuft jedoch ein anderes Herstellungsverfahren [als Zuckerrübensirup], bei dem ausschließlich die Saccharose gewonnen wird.

Nakonana (talk) 15:43, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nutrition section

The table should probably specify that it is (I assume) referring to sugar cane molasses. The values would likely look different for sugar beet molasses. Nakonana (talk) 17:06, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Zuckerrübensirup Translation". Dict.Cc English-German Dictionary. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2019.

[1]