More on sugar - sucrose versus fructose
read time: about three minutes
Sucrose (table sugar) is made from cane or beet sugar. Fructose is made from corn. Well fructose is found naturally in fruits, but the fructose used in food products is generally from corn.
Corn is a lot cheaper than cane. Additionally, fructose is about twice as “sweet” as sucrose, absorbs only 40% as quickly and causes a lower increase in blood sugar.
Cheaper and more efficient. Sounds good so far.
Since fructose absorbs more slowly and causes less rise in blood sugar, Doctors reasoned that it would be good for diabetics.
The food industry was delighted to come out with a plethora of fructose products (after all, it’s a lower cost ingredient).
Do you see where this is going?
Yep, sometime AFTER we fell madly in love with fructose, “we” decided to look a little more closely at it. And low and behold, there are some warts under that mask…
- Fructose has no enzymes, vitamins, and minerals… so it takes micronutrients from your body to assimilate itself.
- Fructose is not converted to useable glucose, but instead is removed by the liver.
- Fructose converts to fat more than other sugars leading to greater weight gain.
- Fructose raises serum triglycerides.
- Fructose increases total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol.
- Fructose reduces insulin sensitivity.
- Fructose interferes with the metabolism of minerals and chelates minerals out of the body including iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc and copper.
- Fructose browns food more easily which decreases protein quality.
- Fructose increase lactic acid in the blood.
- Fructose can cause bloating, gas and diarrhea.
In 1980 sugar consumption per year for the average person was 84 lbs. of sucrose and 39 lbs. of fructose.
1994 it was 66 lbs. of sucrose and 83 lbs. of fructose. That’s a 113% increase in fructose.
Try this…
next time you go to the grocery store, randomly pick out any five food products and flip them over. Do the ingredients include “corn syrup”, “high fructose corn syrup”… how close to the top are those ingredients?
check this out:
Looking at that bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes from a different perspective.
This entry was posted on Fri, 27.Oct.2006 at 8:09 am and is filed under Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
9 Responses to “More on sugar - sucrose versus fructose”
i would like to ask, does this mean fructose does not cause diabetes?
Is it safe for a diabetic patient to take fructose (honey)?
If yes, what is the difference between sucrose and fructose? Why sucrose causes diabetes but fructose not?
Is it due to the ketoses and aldehoses?
I’m here to appologize that i ask that much of question instead of giving comment. I’m just curious about it, and generally this article is well writen.
The fructose you are mentioning is from corn. What is the granulated fructose you buy in bulk made from ?
Dan, I bought some granulated fructose and I see on the package it’s made from corn. I don’t know if that’s the same as the high frutcose corn syrup this article tells about. But I think for now what I’ll use is a very small amount of sugar. I was using artificial sweeteners and have sworn off them! The tiny sugar in tea won’t make it nearly as sweet but I hope to get used to it. I’m trying to control diabetes II (no medication) and clear up a sinus problem.
I’ll write again if I find an answer and hope you will, too.
Donna
hi Donna,
Congratulations on trying to control your diabetes.
Both use corn fructose. High Fructose corn syrup is MUCH sweeter.
You can try stevia which is an herb.
You can also try sweet teas such as Rooibos - which is not
caffeinated. If you want caffeine, you could blend in some
Rooibos with the preferred caffeinated tea.
Another tea which is nice is Jasmine Green tea… caffeinated,
aromatic and a touch sweet.
-Patti
There are so many types of sugars listed, how do we know what are the right ones to eliminate?
Examples are carob syrup, dextran, diastase, maltodextrin, date sugar, etc. Many foods contain maltodextrin, is this a good sugar? It is very confusing as which foods to keep and which to get rid of.
[…] Fructose is healthier than Sucrose. – Sucrose (table sugar) is made from sugarcane. Fructose is usually made from corn (also found in fruits) and is a cheaper alternative to Sucrose. Once thought to be healthier, fructose actually has many negative downsides. Some of these downsides include cholesterol increases and digestion difficulty, in addition to the fact that it converts to fat more easily than other types of sugar. […]
[…] Fructose is healthier than Sucrose. – Sucrose (table sugar) is made from sugarcane. Fructose is usually made from corn (also found in fruits) and is a cheaper alternative to Sucrose. Once thought to be healthier, fructose actually has many negative downsides. Some of these downsides include cholesterol increases and digestion difficulty, in addition to the fact that it converts to fat more easily than other types of sugar. […]
To manufacture High Fructose Corn Syrup you have use a genetically modified enzyme. HFCS should be labeled as an artificial sweetener but because the unnatural process produces a product that contains sugars found in nature they don’t have to label it that way. It seems to me if you have to use something that is not found in nature to make something then the product shouldn’t be considered natural. In fact, Sprite or 7up had “All Natural” on their cans for a short period and had to go to court to change it to “All Natural flavorings” because of the HFCS. Look it up.
Ahh Jack,
It’s blatantly apparent you don’t work in government.
I’m familiar with Sprite & 7Up being “All Natural”.
There are specific qualifications to use “organic” on the label (tho there’s some sketchiness there). But the FDA has extremely broad regulation concerning “natural”.
There’s more teeth in the “truth in advertising” regulation that rests on what a typical person would believe about a claim. Hence, they decided to add “flavorings”.
By the way, have you seen the latest 7Up commercials. They’re equating 7Up with carrots out of the ground.
Right up there with “whole” wheat Trix.
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