You might worry about getting enough vitamins and minerals in your diet, but it's unlikely you have to worry about getting enough sugar. The average American eats up to 150 lbs. of refined sugar every year. Sugar can come straight from the sugar jar or be used as an additive in everything from pickles and ketchup to bread and peanut butter.
Sucrose
Sucrose is the white, refined table sugar you might add to your coffee and tea. Derived from sugar beets, sugar maples and sugar cane, sucrose goes through different stages of crystallization to produce a few variations. These include molasses, which is only 50 to 70 percent sucrose; maple syrup, which is about 65 percent sucrose; and brown sugar, which is about 96 percent sucrose. White sugar is the sucrose king, containing 99.9 percent pure sucrose.
Fructose
Fructose, also called levulose or fruit sugar, is a natural sugar that is 70 percent sweeter than its refined sucrose cousin. It is also lower in calories, and is naturally present in fruit and honey. Fructose in its refined form is a widely used food additive. Refined fructose comes from sugar cane, sugar beets and corn. The latter is used to make high fructose corn syrup, often criticized as an unhealthy junk-food ingredient.
Maltose
As the name suggests, maltose is a sugar made from malting. Malted foods have been soaked in water, left to germinate, and cooked into a syrup. Barley malt is maltose syrup made from dried, soaked and cooked barley. Brown rice syrup mixes and cooks barley with rice. Maltose falls short on the sweetness scale, and is only about 16 percent as sweet as sucrose.
Glucose, Lactose and Galactose
Glucose is a natural sugar that is sweeter than maltose but still only 66 percent as sweet as sucrose. You can find refined glucose or stick with it in its natural state in honey, carob and corn. Glucose, also called dextrose, grape sugar and corn sugar, is the end result of all sugars once your body breaks them down. Lactose and galactose are the natural sugars in milk.
Chemical Details
Sugars, which are carbohydrates, all contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Monosaccharides are sugars in their simplest form, and include glucose, fructose and galactose. Disaccharides are a bit more complex, and the term describes the bonding of two monosaccharide molecules. Lactose, maltose and sucrose are disaccharides. The three disaccharides have the same chemical makeup, but in a different arrangement, making them isomers.
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