Unless you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you’ll know
that the Belize Sugar Industry has been having issues the quality of sugar that
is delivered- and that’s what the core sampler is all about. But there’s
a problem that no core sampler can solve; it’s mud on the cane. And when
there’s too much of it, the sediments of that mud end up right in your
coffee cup! That’s what a former principal nursing officer found when
she was making some juice.
Julia Castillo, Concerned Shopper
“This first bottle is just boiling water poured over the sugar right
and you can see the amount of sediment in there. If you shake it up, you see
all those things dancing in there. And then I put it through the paper and this
is what I got. Mud or whatever.”
Sixty five year old retiree Julia Castillo says three weeks ago she first became
concerned about the quality of the sugar she had at home when she decided to
make one of her favourite beverage, the sorrel drink.
Julia Castillo,
“Usually after you draw the sorrel and you leave it for a period of
time, you draw it with boiling water, and you leave it for like 24 to 48 hours, 
you strain it and then you sweeten it and you drink it. But when I did it about
three weeks ago, I had a bit of sediment in the sorrel and I didn’t like
that.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
Why?
Julia Castillo,
“I didn’t know because I couldn’t drink the whole glass
because there was all this sedimentation at the bottom; when you pour it out
and the thing settled. So I decided this time that I would dilute the sugar
and strain it to see if that is what was spoiling my sorrel. So I diluted some
sugar and I saw that it was very dirty. So what I did is I boiled the water
and I took the whole big five pounds of sugar that I had in my house and I poured
boiling water on it and then I filtered it through paper towel twice but the
first time what came out was like black mud and I said is this is what people 
put into their system when they are using sugar.”
Totally dissatisfied with the result and troubled by the quality Julia Castillo
says she then filtered the sugar water twice. She used a thick paper towel and
this black residue is what was left on it. After a second straining, that left
a second napkin looking like this. The sugar and water was clearer and it was then she used it to sweeten the sorrel.
Julia Castillo,
“So now all the sugar in my house is in liquid form. But I guess we
use sugar to make cake, we use sugar for all kind of things. People use sugar
in their coffee. Do you know what you’re drinking? I think a lot of people,
you always hear complaints that I sweetened my lime juice or my lemonade and
you know it looks kind of dirty but we don’t really and truly go through,
‘okay I am gonna filter this thing or something to see what’s happening,’
but I just decided what I am putting in my system. And if we are talking about
quality control and everything like that, we need to have some quality. Once
upon a time I know when I was young they used to have granulated sugar. That
is the nice pretty white one but today we don’t have a choice; it is either
this or brown sugar. I haven’t used brown sugar. Maybe I should dilute
some brown sugar and see what we’re getting out of that.”
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