• Question: What makes the sugars in fruit good for you as opposed to the sugars in junk food?

    Asked by ogoldfinch09 to Laura, Lena, Sean on 22 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Sean Murphy

      Sean Murphy answered on 22 Mar 2012:

      The difference between FRUIT sugar (fructose) and refined sugar (sucrose) is:

      Fructose is broken down by the body slowly and is converted into sucrose and glycogen. Fructose is often recommended for, and consumed by, people with diabetes mellitus or hypoglycemia, because it has a very low Glycemic Index (GI 23) relative to refined sugar.

      Sucrose is a disaccharide (glucose + fructose). When we eat sucrose, our bodies quickly break it down into roughly equal parts of glucose and fructose. Glucose is the sugar our bodies use for both physical and mental energy. If there’s too much glucose in the blood stream to be used as energy, the glucose can be changed to glycogen, the body’s short-term storage energy supply. And if the glycogen pool is already full, the body will turn it into long term storage in the form of fat.

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