I eat a lot of sugar and
it’s been figuring as a dietary demon in various things I’ve been watching and
reading for a few years now. I’ve had a sweet tooth since I was a little kid, fuelled
by the always reliable treat in the top drawer of a dresser in my grandma’s
kitchen; crystallised in one of my few memories of early childhood when I made
Russian caramels with her. Unlike many of my friends whose passion for alcohol
has dulled their sweet tooth, mine remains keen.
What is sugar? Sugar is a
very simple carbohydrate. Indeed, in biochemistry sugar and carbohydrate are
synonyms. A carbohydrate is a large organic molecule composed of carbon, oxygen
and hydrogen. Depending on how complex these carbohydrates are, they are
referred to a monosaccharides (the simplest), disaccharides, oligosaccharides
and polysaccharides (the most complex).
What we think of as sugars
are actually the mono- and disaccharides. The more complex saccharides include
things like starch or cellulose (which we think of as carbohydrates) and are both
part of what we eat and what we are made of at a cellular level. This isn’t to
say though, that simple sugars don’t also form a part of us. The D in DNA
stands for deoxyribonucleic – in which the deoxyribose is a monosaccharide.
That’s a lot of syllables.
Suffice to say sugars and carbohydrates are the same thing, and they aren’t
just what you put in your coffee, they’re basic organic molecules that are
absolutely everywhere.
But back to sugar:
Monosaccharides:
- Glucose. You can buy it as
a syrup from the supermarket. Plants make it via photosynthesis. It’s one of
the three sugars that are absorbed directly into your blood stream during
digestion. I like to add it to home-made icecream to make it smoother.
- Fructose. Known as fruit
sugar, it is found in fruit, root vegetables, honey and maple syrup.
Disaccharides:
- Sucrose. Table sugar. It
is a disaccharide formed when glucose and fructose link together. Also known as
‘white poison’ in more hysterical circles.
- Lactose. Formed from
glucose and another monosaccharide known as galactose. It is the sugar in milk.
- Maltose. Formed by joining
two glucose molecules. It is present in germinating seeds and 1950s
milk-shakes.
Pseudosaccharides:
- Smackose. The sugar you
can’t stop thinking about. You try to ignore it with will power and clean
living, then there’s a 2-for-1 special at the supermarket and you’ve suddenly
downed a family block.
- Wankose. Seen increasingly
at trendy cafes that don’t appreciate that if the coffee’s good you’ll have it
black and unsweetened, but sometimes a latte with 2 sugars is nice… however not
so much if their ‘raw organic Haitian cane sugar’ that looks more like dirty
sand changes the flavour entirely.
- Chokose. Dusted over Greek
pastries this can be easily inhaled by the novice, leading to rapid
asphyxiation. Over 3,500 tourists die in Greece
- Artificial Sweeteners: you're eating them because you're fat, worried about the health effects of sugar, or both. Unfortunately sprinkling this shit on your cornflakes still leaves you a cancer-riddled pig at the end of the day.
Bonus Level: My grandma Barbara Stebbings’s recipe for Russian
Caramels:
