Monday 6 March

The Basic Biochemistry of Dietary Sugar

Sugars are essentially very simple carbohydrates that taste sweet. Our body uses three main types of simple sugar molecules as sources of energy.  Glucose, Fructose, and Galactose (there are some others but these are the main ones). Our remarkable digestive system takes the more complicated sugars and carbohydrates we eat in our diet and breaks them down in to these three usable forms. Once they are in these forms they can be absorbed into the blood stream and provide the energy our body needs to do its daily business.

Most of the ‘sugar’ that we consume in our diet are two of these simple sugar molecules joined together. For example table sugar (Sucrose) is essentially a glucose and fructose holding hands. So all our body’s need to do is break that join, and then it has a pretty instant energy source.

White cane sugar currently seems to be taking the biggest beating in the media and googlesphere. Recently I have been seeing a plethora of recipes and processed foods containing seemingly ‘healthier’ forms of sugars. Ingredients like coconut sugar, organic sugar, organic honey. They do sound like they may well be a lot better for us than white cane sugar, but are they better for us, or are they the same sweet mistress but in a different disguise.

Sugar Biochemistry Part 2

• Cane sugar = Sucrose (This includes all variants: white, brown, raw, organic, molasses etc)
• Coconut/palm sugar = Sucrose (Coconut and palm sugar are essentially the same thing just from two different species of palm)
• Maple syrup = Sucrose
• Sugar beet = Sucrose (It’s grown areas of the world where it is better suited to the climatic conditions than sugar cane)
• Honey = Fructose and Glucose

 So essentially sugar is sugar is sugar.

Our body treats it all in pretty much the same way. They are all concentrated sources of energy with very little vitamin or mineral content. So in my opinion it’s a same same but different scenario. None of these sugars are drastically healthier than others. So if you are going to have sugar then you may as well use the one that is best for the job, and tastes the best with whatever it is being served with.

This article covers off concentrated forms of sugar, the types of sugars that are added to foods, what I haven’t covered is the sugar that comes from Fruits and Vegetables (Fructose) and Dairy Products (Lactose). These will be covered in the next article.