List of sugars facts for kids

Sugarcane and bowl of sugar

This is a list of sugars and sugar products. Sugar is the generalized name for sweet, short-chain, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. They are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. There are various types of sugar derived from different sources.

Generally speaking, chemical names ending in -ose indicate sugars. "Syrup" indicates a sugary solution.

Malting is a way of processing starchy grains like wheat and barley into sugar, so "malt extract" will be mostly sugar. Sugar is mostly extracted from plants by juicing them, then drying the purified juice, so "evaporated cane juice crystals" or "concentrated grape juice" are also very similar to pure sugars.

Sugars and sugar products

Brown sugar

Milk caramel manufactured as square candies, either for eating or for melting down

A block of Indian jaggery

• Agave nectar – very high in fructose and sweeter than honey
• Arabinose
• Barbados sugar
• Barley malt syrup, barley malt – around 65% maltose and 30% complex carbohydrate
• Barley sugar – similar to hard caramel
• Beet sugar – made from sugar beets, contains a high concentration of sucrose
• Birch syrup – around 42-54% fructose, 45% glucose, plus a small amount of sucrose
• Brown sugar – Consists of a minimum 88% sucrose and invert sugar. Commercial brown sugar contains from 4.5% molasses (light brown sugar) to 6.5% molasses (dark brown sugar) based on total volume. Based on total weight, regular commercial brown sugar contains up to 10% molasses.
• Buttered syrup
• Cane sugar (cane juice, cane juice crystals), contains a high concentration of sucrose.
• Caramel – made of a variety of sugars
• Carob syrup – made from carob pods
• Castor sugar
• Coconut sugar – 70-79% sucrose and 3-9% glucose and fructose
• Confectioner's sugar
• Corn syrup, corn sweetener – made from maize starch, made of varying quantities of maltose and higher oligosaccharides
• Date sugar
• Dehydrated cane juice
• Demerara sugar
• Dextrin
• Dextrose - the dextrorotatory form of glucose (and the predominant naturally occurring form). This sugar is used in a lot of products like Gatorade. This sugar is normally produced from your body.
• Disaccharide – also known as double sugar, it is made when two monosaccharides (aka simple sugars) are joined together. Examples include sucrose, lactose, and maltose.
• Evaporated cane juice
• Free sugar – all monosaccharides and disaccharides added to food and naturally present sugars in honey, syrups, and fruit juices (sugars inside cells, as in raw fruit, are not included)
• Fructose – a simple ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants, where it is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose
• Fruit juice, Fruit juice concentrate
• Fucose
• Galactose – a monosaccharide sugar not as sweet as glucose or fructose
• Glucose, glucose solids
• Golden syrup, golden sugar – refined sugar cane or sugar beet juice
• Grape sugar, grape juice
• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) – made from corn starch, containing from 55% fructose to 90% fructose.
• High maltose corn syrup – mainly maltose, not as sweet as high fructose corn syrup
• Honey – consists of fructose and glucose
• Icing sugar – finely ground white sugar, called "confectioners sugar", roughly 50% glucose and 50% fructose
• Inositol
• Inverted sugar syrup – glucose and fructose
• Jaggery – made from date, cane juice, or palm sap, contains 50% sucrose, up to 20% invert sugars, and a maximum of 20% moisture
• Lactose – found in milk, this is a disaccharide sugar derived from galactose and glucose
• Malt extract, malt syrup (malted grain extract, malted barley extract, etc.) – Grains are sprouted, then the enzymes activated in the sprouting grain are used to turn the grain's starch into sugar.
• Maltose – a disaccharide formed from two units of glucose joined with an α(1→4) bond, formed from a condensation reaction
• Maltodextrin, maltol
• Mannose
• Maple sugar – around 90% sucrose
• Maple syrup – around 90% sucrose
• Molasses (from sugar beets) – consists of 50% sugar by dry weight, mainly sucrose, but also contains substantial amounts of glucose and fructose
• Molasses (from sugar cane)
• Monosaccharide – refers to 'simple sugars', these are the most basic units of carbohydrates. Examples are glucose, fructose, and galactose.
• Muscovado – a minimally processed sugar
• Non-centrifugal cane sugar – made by the simple evaporation of sugar cane juice.
• Palm sugar – made from sap tapped from the inflorescence of assorted varieties of palm
• Panocha
• Powdered sugar
• Raw sugar
• Refiner's sugar, refiner's syrup
• Ribose
• Rice syrup
• Rhamnose
• Saccharose
• Sorghum syrup
• Sucrose – also known as white sugar or table sugar is a disaccharide combination of the two monosaccharides glucose and fructose
• Sugarcane, which contains a high concentration of sucrose
• Sugar (granulated)
• Sweet sorghum
• Syrup
• Toffee – caramelized sugar or molasses
• Treacle – any uncrystallised syrup made during the refining of sugar
• Trehalose – a natural alpha-linked disaccharide formed by an α,α-1,1-glucoside bond between two α-glucose units.
• Yellow sugar
• Xylose