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submitted 3 days ago by wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to c/rant@lemmy.sdf.org

If you're in the US of A it's a regular fuckin' gauntlet to try to ensure your food purchases aren't loaded with corn syrup.

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[-] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

The big picture stuff you're saying is all correct, but some of the details are wrong.

The only difference between the glucose in cane sugar and typical corn syrup and the fructose in High Fructose Corn Syrup is that fructose is a larger more complex molecule, tastes sweeter, and might absorb slower in your digestive tract (which as arguably better for your blood sugar and calorie intake).

Cane sugar is sucrose, a disaccharide that consists of one glucose and one fructose bound together into a single molecule. Note that the bond between the glucose half and the fructose half breaks down in acid, so acidic sweetened beverages (most sodas) tend to have a lot of glucose and fructose molecules sloshing around even if they were sweetened with sucrose. Either way, once eaten, the stomach acid will separate the glucose part from the fructose part.

Sucrose is equally as sweet as a 50/50 mixture of glucose and fructose. Glucose is less sweet than sucrose, and fructose is more sweet than sucrose, so syrups that have more fructose are more sweet per unit weight of sugar.

Fructose is also sent down a different metabolic pathway as glucose, so high fructose consumption can cause issues in some people. That said, because fructose is so sweet, and is pretty much half of table sugar/cane sugar/beet sugar/maple syrup. Most honeys are higher in fructose than glucose, but it depends on the source of the honeybee's nectar, and most producers intend to produce higher fructose honey because higher fructose ratios do not crystallize as easily. And crystallization is bad for packing, processing, shipping, marketing, etc.

fructose is a larger more complex molecule

No, it's the exact same molecular weight, with the exact same elements, C6H12O6, just arranged and bound differently.

Cane sugar is sucrose

Yeah, I knew that. I meant sucrose, not glucose. I brain farted and wrote the wrong one.

fructose is a larger more complex molecule

No, it's the exact same molecular weight, with the exact same elements, C6H12O6, just arranged and bound differently.

And that was me just getting it ass backwards. I was referring to sucrose, not glucose when I was talking about the molecular size. But I was thinking that sucrose was the monosaccharide and fructose was the disaccharide. I had them flipped in my head.

this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2026
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