Giant Blocks of Sugar Rocks

This is a sugar crystal. A big one. This sucker was about 4 or 5cm across. I like the misty blue effect along the top of the crystal in the photo above. This is actually a simple light smear due to camera shake.

The colors in these photos are from Legos that surrounded the sugar crystals when I was shooting. Crystals pickup the reflected tones, shadows and light that surround them. I was intrigued by the textures on/in the crystals that looked like rain on a window.

I love the geometric-ness of many of the crystals we grew. I made them with the kids by making a super-saturated solution of sugar and water, then we placed sticks in it and waited, and waited... and waited.

It took about three weeks for us to get pretty good sticks encrusted with big, blocky crystals. I was surprised it took so long, all the online tutorials for growing great sugar crystals made it sound like it was a much faster process. We also saw a lot of extra crystal growth on the bottom of the cups. I think this happened because we must have had a little un-dissolved sugar in the solution.

Below are the crystal-encrusted sticks we grew, and from which these photos have come.

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PureVia, Purple Sugar, and Demerara Sugar

We've already seen several sugar substitutes up close. Above is PureVia, a newer one derived from the zero-calorie sweetener rebaudioside A (rebiana). More lumpy crystals that look white at normal size.

Below is a photo of good ol' regular sugar crystals-- purple ones! These are for cookie and cake decorating. The girls used bales of this stuff for decorating our holiday treats.

Further down is a shot of demerera sugar. In this photo, the sugar crystals look like the giant stones of a sunken Atlantis roadway. I am surprised how un-sugar-like they look, rounded corners and all. I wonder if it is due to the natural impurities present in this type of unprocessed sugar.

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Sweet & Low, Equal, Splenda, and Sugar

Sweet & Low crystals.

I've been complaining about the shortage of sugar at the office, which I use in my coffee and oatmeal in the morning. And I've been forced by this situation to use sugar substitutes.

In my taste tests, I've found the Sweet & Low to be the most awful-tasting of the sugar substitutes. So bad that it gives the other sugar substitutes a bad rap. Above is a photo of the Sweet & Low product, which appears to be composed of irregular gnarly crystals.

Equal nubs.

I found Equal to be the second worst in my taste tests. Actually, the difference in sweetness and aftertaste between Equal and Sweet & Low is quite dramatic, with Equal being the far better of the two. Its sweetness, however, is still lacking in comparison to real sugar, and it does still leave a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Splenda nubby crystals.

Splenda, one of the newer kids in the artificial sweetener world, is the best of the three fakers I tasted. It leaves the least bitter aftertaste and has the sweetest flavor of the three in this taste test. I believe it would still be very easy, however, to discern the difference between Splenda and real sugar in a blind taste test (which I did not conduct).

Raw cane sugar crystals.

Above is some good old raw cane sugar. Yum. The best in my taste test. Sweet and warm and a touch of caramel flavor.

Since I believe a naturally-occurring food product to be better for my health than a manufactured one, I'll be sticking with the classic sugar, thankyouverymuch.

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Superpost: 6 Seasons in Macro

Just your typical black pepper.

I've shot some spices and seasonings to compare their makeup. It's interesting seeing differences that aren't immediately apparent with the naked eye. For instance, the pepper above is gnarly and big. Being a dried berry of the pepper plant, it's skin is similar to that of the dried wrinkly berry from the previous post. Though smaller, blacker, and crispier.

Below is a look at more seasonings. See how the sugar and the salt are composed of completely different kinds of crystals? The sugar crystals are prism-like and often well formed little geometric shapes. Whereas the salt is sort of chippy, like chipped ice or something. Try rubbing the two between your fingers separately, and see if you can feel the difference in their structures. The sugar may feel more rolling, and the salt may feel more slippy, like all those tiny plates sliding against eachother. The difference is very subtle with such small forms, however.

I've also posted a shot of cinnamon, which, according to this report, is one of the 10 best foods for your health that you're not eating. I, of course, am eating it because it's freaking delicious on toast. Just not every day.

Also further below are red pepper (ground cayenne) and crowd-pleasing curry.

Just regular old white sugar.

Just plain old sodium chloride... er, salt.

Tasty, and apparently good-for-you cinnamon.

Firey ground cayenne pepper powder.

Delicious curry powder.

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