Natural sugars vs refined sugars

What is Sugar?

Sugar is a carbohydrate substance found either in the form of sucrose, lactose, or fructose.

Sucrose – Sucrose is a disaccharide (simplest form of polysaccharides). This is the sugar we are most used to. It’s the table sugar we add in many of our foods. It comes from two plant sources: sugar cane and sugar beet. Too much consumption of sucrose may cause diabetes, obesity, gout, cancer, or tooth decay.

Lactose – This sugar comes from milk and milk products. It makes up roughly 8% or less of milk. For people that may be lactose intolerant, this is caused by the body’s inability to break down the lactose (milk sugar) they consume.

Fructose – This is a simple carbohydrate (monosaccharide) found in many foods, such as fruits, certain veggies, and honey. For more information on fructose see natural sugars section below.

Natural Sugars vs. Refined Sugars

A distinction must be made between natural sugars and refined sugars, because many people lump them together. Both have the same caloric impact on our bodies, however, the way they are digested creates a distinct difference making natural sugars better to consume.

Refined Sugars (glucose) – Glucose is sugar our bodies use for physical and mental energy. It’s absorbed very rapidly within the body. When our bodies get a spike in glucose, the pancreas goes to work, producing insulin to burn the excess glucose. When there is too much glucose to burn the body takes the excess and stores it as short term energy. However, if the short term energy reserves are full the body will store the excess glucose as long term energy in the form of fat.

Natural Sugars (fructose) – Fructose is harder for the body to break down, therefore not absorb as rapidly. Fructose is unusable by the body unless it is converted to glucose. The body will not convert the fructose to glucose unless it needs to increase its blood-sugar levels. Most of the time your body will store the excess fructose as short term energy (glycogen). By eating natural sugars you are not feeding glucose into your blood-sugar as rapidly because the natural sugar is in fructose form and first must be converted to glucose. This keeps your blood-sugar levels from spiking and allows more time for your body to react, which creates less stress on it, particularly in your pancreas.