Talk:White sugar

Merge into sucrose

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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As noted in the text of this article, white sugar is pure sucrose (to the extent of possible purity). Originally raised by @Smokefoot on Talk:Carbohydrate, where my initial thought was to keep white sugar and sucrose separate, by analogy to salt versus sodium chloride. I've since changed my mind, because the clearer analogy to a white sugar page is a table salt page, and that currently redirects to salt.

It follows that white sugar would likewise be best served as a redirect - though I do not think it is appropriate for white sugar to redirect to the main sugar article. Unlike salt versus table salt, sugar is a much broader topic even outside chemistry than just sucrose, so I think merging into sucrose is in fact the best option. Many other compounds with common/culinary names redirect to their scientific names, e.g. baking soda to sodium bicarbonate, quicklime to calcium oxide, so I don't see why white sugar would break the pattern. Fishsicles (talk) 17:54, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

On one hand, while table sugar is essentially solely sucrose, I think the articles do serve distinct purposes. The article "Sucrose" immediately covers the chemical composition and properties, more apt for those studying chemistry or saccharides/enzymes in the body. The article "White Sugar" focuses on its history and role in food, as well as the nutrirional value.

This is not to say every substance requires this science/common word division. A seperate article for water, called "H2O", seems more redudant and it's easy to see why: it would be absurd to explain water's significance without listing its major chemical properties (i.e. colorless, solvent, freezing point.) That said, I don't think this exists for white sugar. There is an expected audience interested in its use in food and an audience for the scientific aspect. There is some overlap, but the article serve their respective roles well. Joseijn (talk) 01:04, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the articles cover separate topics, but not that this means they should be separate. This page is the length of a short section, and lacks many details from sucrose#Culinary sugars, which would be the primary merge target. This article also very much does not "[focus] on its history and role in food, as well as the nutrirional value." - it mentions that it is refined from beet or cane sugar, that it is pure sucrose, discusses some brief means of purification and rudimentary chemistry, and briefly discusses health impacts. None of this is unique to "white sugar" versus "sucrose".

The convention for almost all specific chemical compounds with non-chemical names and uses seems to be that they are placed under the chemical title with details in the lead and dedicated sections. See e.g. sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, calcium oxide, potassium bitartrate. The main exceptions are the aforementioned salt-sodium chloride split, and alcohol being a disambiguation referencing the separate pages ethanol, alcohol (drug), and alcoholic beverage (as well as the broader class). I do not think the salt/sodium chloride distinction is applicable here as mentioned above. Fishsicles (talk) 14:49, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Fishsicles, is this something you're still interested in? I'm checking old merge proposals to see which ones are no longer applicable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 04:51, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I still think this should be done, yes, but I'd like to hear a bit more of the case against it rather than doing it unilaterally (though I think my case above holds sufficient water, I would of course think that). Fishsicles (talk) 15:29, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

@Fishsicles @Joseijn @Thebiguglyalien Has a decision on this been made? The last comment was nearly a week ago. VidanaliK (talk) 01:13, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.