All About Sugar and Its Many Names
In our Daily Texts this month, we’re talking about carbohydrates. Sugar is one of the 3 types of carbs. It’s not all bad.
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What’s In A Name?
Honey, made of 2 types of sugar- glucose and sucrose.
If we’re talking about sugar, let’s iron out our vocabulary. Sugar isn’t just one thing. There are many types of sugar. They all work differently in your body, and they all have different names. The table sugar you eat or bake with (white or brown) is sucrose. The sugar that grows naturally in fruit is fructose. The sugar naturally found in dairy products like milk is lactose. Other types of sugars are less common. Some sweeteners (like honey) will give you glucose. Remember, your body makes glucose from the starchy foods you eat. Other sweeteners (like corn syrup) are made of maltose. Of course, we’ve all heard about high-fructose corn syrup made of glucose and fructose. Later, we’ll get into the weeds and talk about how these different types of sugar can affect your health. For now, let’s stick with the big picture. What’s most important to your health is how you get the sugar.
By The Numbers
Despite what you’ve heard, sugar isn’t all bad. Like most nutrients, sugar can be helpful or harmful depending on what type you eat and how much you eat. Here’s a glimpse of the bright side:
First, sugar is a form of energy (4 calories per gram), and humans need energy to live. So there’s that.
Next, in naturally sweet foods, sugar is usually tied to a lot of helpful nutrients. For example, fruits naturally have sugar in them. Fruits also contain fiber, which promotes gut health and heart health. Plus, many fruits tend to have antioxidants (vitamins A,C and E) that promote heart health.
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We have to note here that people with diabetes need to watch their sugar intake very closely. If you have diabetes type 1 or type 2, your doctor or dietitian might steer you away from high-sugar fruits like bananas. However, a general diet, eating sugar as it naturally exists in foods with healthful nutrients is not problematic. It’s the processed sugar that scientists have connected to a long list of chronic diseases. You read that right, too much sugar over years can lead to irreversible health conditions, badness that can technically never be cured but which could have been prevented. Here are just a few of the health conditions that have been linked to eating too much processed sugar:
Stroke
Fatty liver disease leading to cirrhosis and need for liver transplant
Overweight and obesity linked to 13 types of cancer and high blood pressure
Ignore all that scariness for a moment. It turns out that eating foods that naturally contain sugars plus other nutrients ISN’T linked to the diseases above. So, if not all sugar will cause diseases, how do you know which type will? 2 words: PROCESSED FOODS.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s topic: Free and Added Sugars
Here’s a sneak peek of some of the names that can mask free and added sugars on a nutrition label:
1. Anhydrous dextrose
2. Agave
3. Agave nectar
4. Beet sugar
5. Brown sugar (light and dark brown)
6. Cane juice
7. Cane juice solids
8. Cane sugar
9. Cane syrup
10. Carob syrup
11. Caster sugar
12. Coconut sugar
13. Confectioners' sugar
14. Corn syrup
15. Corn syrup solids
16. Crystalline fructose
17. Date sugar
18. Demerara sugar
19. Dextran
20. Dextrose
21. Dehydrated cane juice
22. Evaporated cane juice
23. Evaporated cane syrup
24. Evaporated sugar cane
25. Fructose
26. Fructose crystals
27. Fruit juice crystals
28. Fruit juice concentrate
29. Glazing sugar
30. Glucose
31. Glucose syrup
32. Golden sugar
33. Golden syrup
34. Granulated sugar
35. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
36. Honey
37. Icing sugar
38. Invert sugar
39. Invert syrup
40. King's syrup
41. Lactose
42. Maple syrup
43. Maple sugar
44. Maltose
45. Malt sugar
46. Malt syrup
47. Molasses
48. Muscovado
49. Nectar
50. Pancake syrup
51. Panocha
52. Powdered sugar
53. Raw sugar
54. Refiners' syrup
55. Sorghum
56. Sorghum syrup
57. Sucanat
58. Sucrose
59. Sugar
60. Superfine sugar
61. Table sugar
62. Treacle
63. Turbinado sugar
64. White sugar
65. Yellow sugar
Sourced from the American Diabetes Association.