Posted by Jock on February 08, 2008 at 10:36:10 from 87.105.81.146 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Brand names - Meta Fuel posted by Allan_Lang on February 08, 2008 at 07:08:16:
According to Wikipedia's entry for Golden syrup:
In cane sugar refining, Golden syrup is a combination of byproducts at the crystallization stage, but an equivalent product is made by beet sugar refiners by processing a sugar solution and breaking down the disaccharide sucrose so that some, but not all, is converted into glucose and fructose. This is either done by acid hydrolysis or by adding an enzyme invertase.
Note, that an 'equivalent product' is made by a chemical process.
There's a nice non-technical account of sugar refining on the SKIL website. According to the process shown here, it would appear is that molasses is a by product from sugar refining rather than an early stage in the process of transformation from raw to refined sugar.