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Alternate Names for Refined Sugars

If you need to monitor or avoid sugar, it is important to read labels before purchasing a product. While you may look for the word "sugar," there are many forms of refined sugars. To cut down on refined sugars, you need to know alternate names for different types of these sugars.

  1. Sugar

    • Sugar is a white crystalline powder made from cane and beet sugars. Sugar names also include sucrose, glucose, maltose and lactose sugars, all of which taste sweet. Sucrose is another name for common table sugar. Sweetener, dextrose, dextrin, syrup and malt are other words for refined sugars.

      Sugar is used in any number of products to enhance taste and flavor. While you may recognize sugar on a label, you might not realize that sucrose, lactose and many other terms are also sugars and need to be considered when figuring sugar content of a product. When checking labels remember to look for words that end in "ose." While there are other sugars to consider, and this isn't foolproof, it does assist you when trying to understand just how much sugar may be in any given product.

    Lactose

    • A combination of glucose and galactose, lactose is a sugar found in milk. While the amounts vary depending upon the source of the milk, by weight, two to eight percent of milk is lactose. Sour or sweet whey is the actual source of the lactose.

    Dextrose

    • Dextrose is a sweet-tasting substance found in fruits and honey. Dextrose can be found in the tissue and blood of animals as well. Also called corn or grape sugar, dextrose is used in hospitals to temporarily increase the volume of blood and as a diuretic. It is also used to increase the sweet taste of certain foods.

    High Fructose Corn Syrup

    • High fructose corn syrup is also a refined sugar. High fructose corn syrup is a corn syrup sugar that has undergone processing to increase the content of the fructose before being mixed with regular corn syrup. Glucose is another name for corn syrup in the pure state. Fructose is found in many foods including melons, berries and fruits grown on trees such as apples, oranges, peaches and pears. Fructose is the most water-soluble of the sugars.

    Molasses & Brown Sugar

    • Some labels will list molasses and brown sugar. Both are refined sugars to be figured into any sugar-restricted diet. Molasses is a product from sugar cane or sugar beets. Molasses is made in three grades --- blackstrap, dark and mild. Two types that may be confused are sulfured and unsulfured molasses. The first means the molasses was derived from young sugar cane plants to which sulfur dioxide is added as a preservative. Unsulfured molasses comes from mature plants and doesn't require the addition. Molasses is a byproduct of making sugar cane. It is sweet and, unlike table sugar, does contain both minerals and vitamins including iron, calcium and magnesium along with potassium.

      Brown sugar is a simple product of regular sugar combined with molasses. You can even make brown sugar at home using this combination.

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