In your grandmother’s time, foods were sweetened with a limited number of sweeteners – table sugar, honey, corn syrup, molasses or maple syrup. But scan the ingredient list of foods today, and you’re likely to find an assortment of sweeteners that reads like the index of a high school chemistry text. You may not even see the word ‘’sugar’ among them.
The average American eats about 130 pounds of sugar each year, partly because we’ve become addicted to the stuff, but also because manufacturers sneak sugar into hundreds of foods that don’t normally require sweetening, including soups, dressings, sauces, chips, crackers, fruit juice, luncheon meats and even table salt.
The purpose of this article is not to vilify sugar – we already know that too much is bad for our health – but rather to describe the various names and kinds of sweeteners found in foods today so you can make informed choices about what you eat. The nutritional label helps by telling you how many grams of sugar are contained in a serving of food, but keep in mind that some foods contain natural sugars; a cup of milk, for example, contains 13 grams of sugar in the form of naturally occurring lactose.
A Brief Primer on Sugars
There are two main kinds of sugar – monosaccharides, consisting of one sugar molecule, and disaccharides, consisting of two sugar molecules chemically bonded. Both are considered simple sugars.
When multiple sugar molecules are chemically bonded, they form a complex carbohydrate, also known as a polysaccharide or starch.
Sugars end in the suffix, ‘-ose,’ as in sucrose. Some sweeteners on the market are technically alcohols, and end in the suffix, ‘-ol,’ as in mannitol. Also called ‘sugar alcohols,’ they are not as sweet as true sugars.
Sweeteners can be divided into two categories: ‘nutritive,’ meaning they contain calories, and ‘non-nutritive,’ or no-calorie artificial sweeteners. This article deals only with the former.
A Glossary of Sweeteners
Sucrose is the sugar we’re most familiar with, and it comes in many forms; white granulated (table sugar,) confectioner’s (powdered sugar), superfine (also called bar sugar, which dissolves easily in drinks), and dark and light brown sugars, which are simply white sugar coated in molasses. Sucrose is a disaccharide made of one glucose and one fructose molecule.
Fructose is a monosaccharide found in fruit, molasses and honey. It is sweeter than sucrose but absorbed more slowly, so it doesn’t raise blood sugar as quickly. Keep in mind that whole fruit contains relatively small amounts of fructose, while commercially sweetened products may contain higher, more concentrated amounts.
Glucose is a monosaccharide found naturally in fruit, some vegetables, honey and corn syrup. Eventually, all forms of sugar get converted to glucose in the blood.
Dextrose, also called grape sugar, is actually a form of glucose called D-glucose.
Lactose is the natural sugar found in milk. It is a disaccharide composed of glucose and galactose.
Maltose, found in molasses, is a fermentable sugar used in brewing and distilling. It is a disaccharide made of two glucose molecules.
Galactose is a component of lactose, found in milk.
Corn syrup is a liquid made from cornstarch, composed primarily of glucose. It keeps food moist and prevents spoilage.
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is manufactured from cornstarch, but has been treated with an enzyme to convert some of the glucose to fructose. At 55 percent fructose, it is called ‘high’ in comparison to regular corn syrup, which contains no fructose at all. HFCS is cheap, mixes well with foods and beverages, helps breads to brown, prevents freezer burn and has a long shelf life.
Science has yet to prove that HFCS is that much worse than table sugar (which is 50 percent fructose), but most experts agree that if you cut out HFCS, you’ll automatically eliminate a lot of highly processed junk food.
Invert sugar occurs naturally in fruit and honey, but is made commercially from a solution of cane sugar. It is a combination of D-glucose and D-fructose.
The sugar alcohols, mannitol, sorbitol, erythritol and xylitol, originate from a variety of plants and are roughly 60 percent as sweet as sugar, with one third fewer calories. Frequently used in sugar-free products such as cookies and candy, sugar alcohols have minimal effect on blood sugar because they are not well absorbed by the body. Eaten in high doses, they can cause diarrhea.
Turbinado sugar, also called ‘raw’ or ‘demerara’, is made from partially-refined sugar cane extract, resulting in large, light brown crystals.
Date sugar is a powdered sweetener made of dehydrated dates.
Honey, made by bees from the nectar of flowers, is high in fructose and sweeter than table sugar. It contains a small amount of trace minerals and vitamins and is absorbed into the body more slowly than sucrose.
Barley malt syrup is made from sprouted barley, and has a consistency and flavor similar to molasses. It is less than half as sweet as fructose.
Rice syrup is lighter in flavor than barley malt. It comes in a clear variety (100 percent rice) or amber (blended with barley malt).
Maple syrup contains 65 percent sucrose if classified Grade A; lesser grades have a lower sugar content. Forty gallons of sap yield one gallon of syrup.
Agave syrup is from the same plant that brings us tequila. Its taste is comparable, though not identical, to honey.
Sorghum syrup is made from a few different species of rice, the sweetest of which makes ‘sweet sorghum syrup,’ once popular in Southern cooking. Sorghum syrup is now being used to make gluten-free beer.
