What Is Sugar, Exactly?

Sugar is a carbohydrate, one of many three main dietary vitamins referred to as macronutrients (the opposite two being fats and protein). Sugar is simple to vilify, nevertheless it’s a macronutrient for a cause — and our organic requirement for it calls for nuanced understanding and respect.

Sugar is both a monosaccharide or a disaccharide. A monosaccharide, comparable to glucose, is the smallest unit of sugar. A disaccharide is a mixture of two monosaccharides. Sucrose, generally generally known as desk sugar, is a disaccharide made up of glucose and fructose. It’s sometimes refined from sugarcane or sugar beets.

“Glucose is so important that should you don’t eat it, your physique turns different issues into glucose simply so you may have it.”

Glucose fuels every one of many physique’s roughly 30 trillion cells. “Glucose is so important that should you don’t eat it, your physique turns different issues into glucose simply so you may have it,” says pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, MD, MSL, writer of Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Meals, Diet, and Fashionable Drugs.

Nonetheless, with regards to desk sugar, glucose is just half of the image. The opposite half is fructose.

Till the Sixties, a lot of the fructose within the American weight loss plan got here from fruit, which is why fructose can be referred to as “fruit sugar.” But as the worth of refining sugar rose, meals makers turned to corn for a less expensive, sweeter different, and high-fructose corn syrup entered {the marketplace} to be used largely in sodas and ultraprocessed meals.

Not like glucose, fructose performs no important position within the physique, Lustig says. And in excessive portions, it may be addictive, contribute to mobile ageing, and injury the liver. (Extra on fructose and the liver in query No. 3.)