About Sugar Beets
From James Donahue’s Journal
Among the big cash crops in the Thumb District are sugar beets. The farmers that grew them during my years in the area appeared to make good money, although the process of growing, harvesting and trucking the beets to market involved a heavy investment in equipment and a lot of work. The beets that were harvested were huge, sometimes more than a foot wide, and they had to be pulled from the ground by large machines that loaded them onto large trucks.
When the beet harvest was on it was dangerous to travel the roadways. The trucks and heavy equipment leaving the fields usually dropped large chunks of mud from the wheel treads on the road. The lumps were sometimes large enough to throw cars out of control if the wheels hit them the wrong way. The trucks were usually filled so full of beets some flew off on the way to market. Consequently, local drivers wisely kept their distance when forced to follow a beet truck. A flying beet was heavy enough to smash a windshield.
There were four major sugar beet plants in the area, all owned and operated by Michigan Sugar Company. One was in Croswell, in Sanilac County, the second was in Caro, in Tuscola County, the third was in Sebewaing, in Huron County, and the fourth was in Bay County. I think there was a fifth plant south of us, but I cannot recall its location. While all of the plants had large yards with which to store the giant stacks of sugar beets at harvest time, the crop became so popular during the years I covered the area, large storage yards were developed at other locations to accommodate all of the additional beets. We had one such facility located just east of Sandusky, and another one was located at Ruth, in the heart of Huron County.
The beets were allowed to lie in those large piles for several weeks until the early frosts, which apparently brought out the natural beet sugar content and made the beets ready for processing. After that, the sugar plants fired up and the job of cooking the beats and making sugar began. There never was such a terrible smell as that of cooking sugar beets, and all of the Michigan Sugar plants were located in towns where people had to endure that odor. But the plants provided needed employment, often for farmers that had free time during the winter months, so nobody complained much.
I was provided a tour through the Croswell plant one year, so I learned something about the complex process of producing sugar from beets. It involved the use of a lot of chemicals and toxic mixtures that first produced molasses syrup, then was dried to a raw form of brown sugar. That went through a refinement until it became the form of brown sugar that people buy in stores. To turn brown sugar white, it had to go through several more complex processes where it was mixed with more chemicals. After observing the production of sugar from beets I had a different opinion about sugar.
My wife and I began buying only cane sugar, hoping the production process was different than Michigan Sugar used on the beets. Also we had more interest in using brown sugar, which I realized was closer to the raw product than refined white sugar.
From James Donahue’s Journal
Among the big cash crops in the Thumb District are sugar beets. The farmers that grew them during my years in the area appeared to make good money, although the process of growing, harvesting and trucking the beets to market involved a heavy investment in equipment and a lot of work. The beets that were harvested were huge, sometimes more than a foot wide, and they had to be pulled from the ground by large machines that loaded them onto large trucks.
When the beet harvest was on it was dangerous to travel the roadways. The trucks and heavy equipment leaving the fields usually dropped large chunks of mud from the wheel treads on the road. The lumps were sometimes large enough to throw cars out of control if the wheels hit them the wrong way. The trucks were usually filled so full of beets some flew off on the way to market. Consequently, local drivers wisely kept their distance when forced to follow a beet truck. A flying beet was heavy enough to smash a windshield.
There were four major sugar beet plants in the area, all owned and operated by Michigan Sugar Company. One was in Croswell, in Sanilac County, the second was in Caro, in Tuscola County, the third was in Sebewaing, in Huron County, and the fourth was in Bay County. I think there was a fifth plant south of us, but I cannot recall its location. While all of the plants had large yards with which to store the giant stacks of sugar beets at harvest time, the crop became so popular during the years I covered the area, large storage yards were developed at other locations to accommodate all of the additional beets. We had one such facility located just east of Sandusky, and another one was located at Ruth, in the heart of Huron County.
The beets were allowed to lie in those large piles for several weeks until the early frosts, which apparently brought out the natural beet sugar content and made the beets ready for processing. After that, the sugar plants fired up and the job of cooking the beats and making sugar began. There never was such a terrible smell as that of cooking sugar beets, and all of the Michigan Sugar plants were located in towns where people had to endure that odor. But the plants provided needed employment, often for farmers that had free time during the winter months, so nobody complained much.
I was provided a tour through the Croswell plant one year, so I learned something about the complex process of producing sugar from beets. It involved the use of a lot of chemicals and toxic mixtures that first produced molasses syrup, then was dried to a raw form of brown sugar. That went through a refinement until it became the form of brown sugar that people buy in stores. To turn brown sugar white, it had to go through several more complex processes where it was mixed with more chemicals. After observing the production of sugar from beets I had a different opinion about sugar.
My wife and I began buying only cane sugar, hoping the production process was different than Michigan Sugar used on the beets. Also we had more interest in using brown sugar, which I realized was closer to the raw product than refined white sugar.