Glucose, sugar, natural cane sugar, table condiment, carbohydrate, what’s the difference? Is sugar collectively known as just sugar, or is there individual properties depending on which kind of sugar you’re referring to?
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I grew up with the mindset that all sugar is the same, but for some reason, I’m having doubts of it from all the crap I read on the internet.
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I’ve had this issue reading drinks for a long while, now, we all know soda is hilariously unhealthy, and no one in their right mind would claim that something like a Coca Cola benefits your health, but I’m referring mostly to sugar in juices and other that don’t have added sugars, but have a “total sugars”
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There’s 44g of sugar in can of cola, and 40g of sugar in a Welch’s grape juice. Are they similar?
I didn’t find a definite answer from my searches, topics claiming that glucose and processed sugar is the same, (are they??), or that natural cane sugar is better for you than simple sugars, but I just want to know if I can regularly consume juices, and not overdose on sugar.
There are multiple forms of molecules that we call sugar. Some of them you’ve heard: glucose, fructose (found in fruit), sucrose (table sugar), lactose (found in milk). Others you might not have: galactose, maltose, dextrose, xylose.
These are all carbohydrates with various numbers of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in different arrangements. They are all calorically equivalent (e.g., 4kcal/g). Some taste more sweet than others, or have slightly different properties and are used for different effects in food.
So the sugar that is the newest dietary bugaboo is mostly sucrose, but also fructose. It’s the “added sugar” part that is the big deal. They provide calories but not much else. Fructose is usually okay when taken as a natural component of fruit, but seems to be problematic when used as a drink sweetener or even naturally occurring fruit juice– you get much more when you drink a lot of it than if you ate an apple or mango. Sucrose is still an issue because so many snacky things are high in it: cookies, candy, ice cream, sweetened cereals.
Another issue with sugars is that they are digested and quickly enter your bloodstream unless you eat it as part of a meal– not normally the way you eat snacks. This can cause insulin spikes and your body will then quickly tuck the extra sugar away as fat.
So I would recommend to stay away from foods with lots of “added sugars”, unless they are part of a full meal (e.g., dessert after dinner), or is a small quantity (e.g., 2 or 3 small cookies). It doesn’t matter which type of -ose it is, but if it tastes sweet it has a lot of added sugar. Fruit juice can also be undesirable because the (fructose) sugar is so concentrated: grape juice, apple juice, and orange juice are all high in it. You can drink it, just smaller amounts; 44g in Welch’s sounds like 12oz worth. There’s an argument that juice is better because it has vitamins and other good molecules, and fructose is not the monster that sucrose is, but: moderation.
Something which might help, a YouTuber who is a food scientist recently did an explanation on different types of sugars and how they are processed in the body. She compares white sugar, honey, agave nectar, maple syrup and coconut sugar. You can view it here
>There’s 44g of sugar in can of cola, and 40g of sugar in a Welch’s grape juice. Are they similar?
Same thing, really. Take a vitamin C pill with your coke, and you have the equivalent of drinking grape juice.
Here are the 4 basic chemical formulations for digestible sugars (ie able to extract most of the energy from it). Several sugars share the same chemical formulation but have a different geometrical structure (same lego pieces assembled differently).
Arabinose, Ribose & Xylose - C5H10O5
Fructose, Galactose, Glucose, Inositol & Mannose - C6H12O6
Lactose & Trehalose - C12H22O11 (some people can’t break Lactose down)
Sucrose - C12H22O11
https://www.thoughtco.com/chemical-formula-of-sugar-604003
“Sugar” is a wide group of carbohydrates that encompasses several molecules, including glucose (aka dextrose - they’re the same thing), sucrose (this is the white table sugar you buy in the store), fructose, maltose, etc.
Largely, all sugars are treated the same by your body - they’ll be broken down into individual units and likely converted to glucose, your bodies preferred energy source. Cane sugar is just sucrose (it’s also the same as beet sugar - some people claim the latter is healthier, but it’s not). Sucrose is a simple sugar. To be more specific, it’s a disaccharide which means it’s two units linked together. In the case of sucrose, those units are glucose and fructose. Once you digest sucrose, it gets broken down into those units and the fructose is converted to glucose by various enzymes.
Grape juice has more micronutrients, like vitamins and minerals, than a can of Coke, but similar amounts of sugar. Most dietitians won’t recommend you get your fruits from fruit juice.
Regularly consuming juice won’t be the worst thing in the world for you, but wether or not it’s your best bet will depend on what you consider “regularly.”
Simply put:
1/2 Fructose + 1/2 Glucose = 1 Sugar
1 Carb = 1 Sugar OR 1 Glucose, or more unlikely 1 Fructose
Sugar ~= High fructose corn syrup, which is usually 55% fructose and 45% glucose.
Fructose = sweet tasteGlucose = flour or other non sweet sugar.
How much chemistry knowledge do you have?
Basically sugar is the general term. Table sugar generally refers to sucrose which is a combination molecule consisting of one part glucose and one part fructose. Glucose is ultimately the main energy source for our cells and is what most “carb foods” get broken down to. Fructose is the type of sugar primarily found in fruits and is instead metabolized by the liver.
Glucose and fructose are “individual molecules” (monosaccharides) that link together to form sucrose (a “di-saccharide”). Things like “fiber” are longer chains of saccharides known as “poly-saccharides” and we are told to eat them (for good reason) because the fiber from plants (cellulose) are chains so long that we don’t have any mechanism to digest them. So they occupy space, allow us to feel more full, help keep things moving in your gut, and slow the absorption of other nutrients (a good thing because the gentle pace of absorption keeps your insulin from spiking too high).
Natural cane sugar is mostly sucrose. It is made from sugarcane (a grass that makes an absolutely delicious juice).
Carbohydrate is just the general scientific term for all things we call “sugars.” It’s a class of molecule.
Basically:
It is a generally good idea to not drink juice — they are not good for you because it’s just drinking liquid sugar (like soda). Fruits are healthier than their juices because the sugars are trapped within the fiber, so when it’s sitting in your guts, the sugar isn’t absorbed insanely fast because the fiber is in the way. Whereas if you drink that same amount of sugar as a juice, you’re allowing your guts uninhibited access to the sugar so it gets absorbed very quickly and your insulin spikes. If you do drink juice, do so in moderation (once in a while not every day) and consume actual fruit juice (like juicing an orange) not store bought juice of any kind. Store bought juice contains the additional negative thing of added sugar. Meaning that’s not just juice they squeezed out of an orange. That’s juice they squeezed out of an orange and then they just dumped more sugar into that liquid.
added sugar is an ingredient you want to avoid like the plague when you look at ingredients, to the best of your ability.
In other words for all intents and purposes you can consider juice to be equivalent to soda in terms of how bad it is for your metabolic health.
Both are loaded with added sugar. So when you drink them, suddenly your blood is filled with way too much glucose, the body’s main energy source as we discussed above. Both will spike your insulin. Insulin is the hormone we use to reduce our blood sugar (by moving glucose from the bloodstream into our cells). What happens when we do this too often, first your insulin receptors start to lose sensitivity because they’re overstimulated all the time. Then your pancreas has to make even more insulin because of that lost sensitivity (like an alcoholic needing more alcohol to feel anything). Eventually your pancreas burns out. This is the process involved in getting diabetes. All the while, because there is so much more glucose than needed, when it does get into your cells, a lot of it gets converted to fat because our cells used what they needed and there was too much left over so gotta do something with it.