I Sugar by Elizabeth Preston art by Amanda Shepherd Mmm....Why do we love sugar so much? rom chocolate Building Sweet the simple sugars can cookies to crisp, “Sugar” is the name for be found in plants. Fjuicy apples, we many different sweet- Fructose is what makes humans are sweet on tasting molecules. fruits taste sweet, for sugar. And that’s only They’re all made of example. natural. All plants and carbon, hydrogen, and Combining these I need fuel. animals need sugar to oxygen atoms. simple sugars makes live. It’s the fuel that There are three other kinds of sugar. powers our cells. So it’s basic sugar building The most common is not surprising we’re blocks, or “simple sucrose, also called hard-wired to crave the sugars.” These are table sugar. The sugar sweet stuff. called fructose, glucose, your family keeps in and galactose. All of the kitchen for baking, fructose glucose Three simple sugars— galactose fructose, glucose, and galactose—snap together in different ways to form many other kinds of sugar, a little like Legos. H ? ow ar M uc h Sug sucrose lactose art © 2016 by Amanda Shepherd © 2016 by Elizabeth Preston, text 12 a s k I Sugar or in the sugar bowl? in their milk as babies. That’s sucrose. Brown But some people grow sugar, powdered sugar, up to be “lactose intol- and molasses are erant,” which means sucrose too. Most of the their bodies can’t digest sucrose we eat comes this sugar anymore. 3 teaspoons from sugar beets and High-fructose corn natural sugar H sugarcane. syrup (HFCS) is a ow A sucrose molecule sugar we get from corn. ar? M Sug is one glucose molecule Like sucrose, it’s a uch stuck to one fructose mixture of glucose and Most foods naturally contain sugars. But molecule. Plants make fructose. Agave syrup food makers often add more sugar to make their foods sweeter. Added sugar is not a sucrose along with is glucose and fructose different kind of sugar—there’s just more simple sugars. Animals from a cactus. Honey of it. These pictures show natural sugar as plain cubes, and the added sugar in spoons. make sugars too. is glucose and fructose Glucose plus galactose from flower nectar, makes lactose, the collected by bees. To sugar found in milk. All your body, they’re all mammals drink lactose pretty similar. 3 teaspoons natural sugar + 3 teaspoons added sugar ? How gar 5 teaspoons Much Su 6 teaspoons Ho r? w M Suga Does this uc h have sugar? Is it sweet? ? text © 2016 by Elizabeth Preston, art © 2016 by Amanda Shepherd © 2016 by Elizabeth Preston, text r ga How M uch Su 12 a s k ask 13 Plants use energy from the sun to build sugar out of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen they get from water ½ teaspoon and air. They make many + different kinds of sugars. carbon dioxide ½ teaspoon ? water Ho ar w Much Sug When an animal eats the plant, it breaks The Body’s apart the sugar to get Battery back the energy put in by the sun. Sugar is fuel for all the sugars plants and animals I get my on Earth. Plants use building blocks. It sugar from And cupcakes. cupcakes sunlight to make sugar uses some simple get it from from ingredients they sugars for energy plants. get from air and water. right away. The Animals get the sugar rest get stored they need by eating (sometimes as fat) plants, or by eating for the body to break energy. That’s other animals that eat down later. because the sugars plants. Sugar stores It’s only a myth in those sweet foods the sun’s energy like a that sugar makes you are easy for your body battery. hyper. But having a to turn into fuel. When After a meal, sugary snack or a glass you eat other kinds of your body breaks of fruit juice can give foods, like whole grains down foods into their you a quick burst of 1 teaspoon 5 teaspoons ? Ho r? ar w M uga How Much Sug uc h S 14 a s k I can’t help myself. 1 teaspoon + H o w 4 teaspoons Long M ago, when food uc h Sugar? took a lot of work to find, liking sweet tastes helped Your pancreas, early humans seek just under your stomach, or vegetables, it takes out the best, most helps your body longer for your body to energy-rich food. So use and store sugar. If you eat break the sugars down. humans developed too much sugar, Have a sweet tooth? a strong built-in it can’t keep up. You’re not alone. Even hunger for sugar— babies love sweet foods. and no “off” switch. Humans may have Now that sweet food evolved to crave sugar is everywhere, that because it’s such an love of sugar can get important fuel source. us into trouble. Sneaky Sugar “Added sugar” is any kind of sugar that doesn’t start out in your food. By 2018, food makers will have to tell you how much sugar they add to your snack. Even if you read the list of ingredients, it can be hard to spot! Look for anything with “sugar” in the name (date sugar, brown sugar, palm sugar). But some are sneaky. See if you can find any of these in your kitchen or lunch box—they’re all different names for sugar. Agave Fructose High-fructose corn Molasses Sucrose Barley malt Fruit juice syrup Muscovado Syrup Cane juice Fruit nectar Honey Nectar Treacle Caramel Glucose Lactose Refiner’s syrup Carob syrup Golden syrup Maltodextrin Rice syrup Corn syrup Gr ape juice Maltose Saccharose Dextrose concentrate Maple syrup Sorghum syrup How r? M uc h Suga 14 a s k ask 15 Too Much of a seem healthy, such 1 teaspoon + 2 teaspoons Good Thing as granola bars These days it’s easy or yogurt, can be to find sweet snacks packed with sugar. whenever we want Food makers add them. Sodas, candy, sugar because they H r? Just...one...more. cakes—even foods that know that to humans, o a w ug sweet makes everything M uc h S taste better. All that sneaky The American Heart sugar adds up. Association says kids Americans eat about should have no more 20 teaspoons of extra than six teaspoons sugar every single of extra sugar a day. day—that’s sugar That’s less sugar than that’s added to food in one can of soda. 9 teaspoons and drinks, not the Eating too much ? natural sugar that’s in sugar can cause more How gar most foods already. than a stomach-ache. M uch Su That’s way more It can make people than is good for us. overweight, because Fooled you! Sweet Fakes teaspoons. (Most of that colorful packet is Sugar is sweet, but not filled with edible filler.) Since there’s so everything that’s sweet is little of it in the food, it doesn’t add extra sugar. Sweeteners such energy that gets stored as fat. as aspartame, saccharin, For people with diabetes or trying to lose and sucralose are artificial weight, non-sugar sweeteners can help, molecules made in labs. but they aren’t perfect. Some doctors Another non-sugar sweetener, think that a sweet taste with no called stevia, comes from a plant. energy rush might actually confuse The secret of these sweeteners is the body and make us crave more that they are way, way, way sweeter sweet things. Others worry that the than sugar. That means it only takes a few artificial molecules might not be good grains to sweeten your food, instead of several for us. Then again, neither is too much sugar. ? Ho ar w Much Sug 16 a s k I wish someone would invent a toothbrush. Experts aren’t H r? worried about o a naturally w ug M uc h S sweet foods— 1 teaspoon the problem is added sugar. So Ho r? go ahead and w M uga enjoy a big bowl uc h S of berries, a sweet Queen Elizabeth I was so fond of sweets that her teeth turned black! Portraits always show her with her mouth closed. apple, or even a crunchy, sugar-rich carrot! the body stores extra Smart Sweets Even cake is great fuel as fat. Sugar also Fruits and vegetables once in awhile, as long as We should changes the kinds of can be pretty sugary you don’t overdo it. After take up microbes living in your too. But these foods all, no one wants life to sports. gut, decays your teeth, are also full of vitamins be dull. And your body and can cause diseases and other good stuff. needs its fuel! like type 2 diabetes. 1 teaspoon + 4 teaspoons 3 teaspoons + 3 teaspoons 9 teaspoons H r? r? H ? ow ga ga ow gar Much Su How M uch Su M uc h Su 16 a s k ask 17.