Sugar
 

When we eat chocolate bars we eat a product which has sugar added.

When we eat fruit we consume sugar which is naturally occurring.

Is there any difference between the two when is comes to thinking about the sugar content that is in the food we eat?

I ask because I try to watch my sugar intake so that I try not to too often exceed the recommended daily intake of sugar of 90g.

Re: Sugar
 

This is informative

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325550

Re: Sugar
 

Most added sugars are sucrose which the liver can cope with. Fruit sugar is fructose, which the liver has a lot of problems with. A fruit smoothie or fruit jioce is far more of a problem than an actual piece of fruit. Fatty liver disease is becoming more common in non-alcoholics for this very reason.

Re: Sugar
 

All Simple Carbohydrates are basically sugar. Everything the body uses for energy is turned into Glycogen.

---------- Post added at 17:41 ---------- Previous post was at 17:40 ----------

Sucrose is just Glucose and Fructose mixed

Re: Sugar
 

I suppose, just in the same way water is a mix of hydrogen and oxygen.

Re: Sugar
 

Hmmm not quite that simple

C6H12O6 +C6H12O6 = C12H22O11 see who fructose and glucose have the same molecular composition? (you lose some H2O as condensation) jfi I did not know this I looked it up

If you break down everything you get a mixture of elements

Re: Sugar
 

Info ;

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition...ucose-fructose

Re: Sugar
 

Very interesting. That places Sucrose at the bottom of the pile.

---------- Post added at 20:56 ---------- Previous post was at 20:49 ----------

Now this is my opinion and it is dated from when I did my diplomas in nutrition, anatomy and physiology and it does match Pauls link. Glucose whether as is or broken down from Sucrose causes the spike in blood sugar. This spike gives the consumer a rush. This rush soon wanes and the consumer wants another (very much the same as a cocaine user). This consumption of Glucose based sugar products in food imo has done a lot of damage and partly to blame for the obesity crises. So many processed foods have sugar in and often Sucrose based which gives the consumer the hit.

So in short if you only add a bit of Sugar to your tea and only eat a modest amount of fruit and eat a healthy diet low in processed food imo Fructose is better

Re: Sugar
 

I just pointed out it wasn't a mixture as you implied. A mixture is made from different substances that are not chemically joined. However, sucrose is a disaccharide ie a molecule made up of two monosaccharides a fructose molecule and a glucose molecule but they are chemically bonded in to a third molecule. So as you can see not technically a mixture. I'll sort of give you the it breaks down to a mixture of elements. Someone with more knowledge than me my well explain it better, but I'm just scraping the darkest corners of my memory having grown up with a father who was a FRSC and sort of expected all his children to do chemistry to A level and I was always more interested in inorganic chemistry.

Re: Sugar
 

I was just posting it as simple as possible for everyone when I said mixture. Plus I am not a Chemist or have any knowledge on Chemistry but I stand by my points on sugar

Re: Sugar
 

I've always wondered about the "fake sugars" that exist in all these zero % sugar products such as yoghurts, drinks, etc.


Are they actually good for you? Sucralose, acesulfame, aspartame, etc...


I'd rather eat a "full fat and sugar" product and just eat in moderation.


It's like the diet butters out there. Some are full of random ingredients!

Re: Sugar
 

My Biochemistry is very old. This could be out of date now.

D-Glucose (chiral has a L and D form) is the most abundant organic molecule in the biosphere.
It is broken down in a process called glycolysis (sweet splitting).
D Glucose -> Glucose 6 Phosphate (G6P) -> Fructose 6 Phosphate (F6P)-> Fructose 1,6 Diphosphate


And then down a further chain of reactions to the TCA and then on further. The net goal is production of molecules like ATP which is a energy source for cells.


Sucrose (what we call sugar) is glucose attached to fructose. We would break that down to glucose and fructose. In the cell F6P and G6P can be interconverted or joined to get Sucrose P and then Sucrose.


Fructose can be metabolised in the liver to Fructose 1 Phosphate (F1P) but we don't have the ability to change that to F6P. We can get fructose intolerance in some cases. One of the products we can break F1P to is glycerol which can make fat.

Re: Sugar
 

My late mum was a diabetic, she was told to avoid all sugar-free food as it could be bad for her.

Re: Sugar
 

I dont think sugar free as such is bad for everyone, but its a common myth that diabetics should avoid suger - doing that would be bad for you. Diabetics need to control their sugar, not avoid it.

Re: Sugar
 

I actually did try to do this and found that a lack of sugar could be as much of a problem as too much sugar. Therefore, I now calculate how much sugar I put into my body, both from sweets/chocolate etc and from fruit, and I was wondering if I was calculating this correctly, hence me starting the conversation.

---------- Post added at 14:30 ---------- Previous post was at 14:28 ----------

To clarify, my enquire re fruit is actual pieces of fruit and not fruit products such as fruit juice.