On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Geoffrey Stanford wrote:

> geoff here:  there is a difference in sugars:  most fruits have fructose,
> but cane and beet have sucrose.  can anyone expert tell us more about this
> difference?  which has maple?

Fructose and glucose are monosaccharides; sucrose is a
disaccharide, which is composed of one molecule of each.  Fruits
may contain any or all three of these sugars, in different
proportions.  An orange, for example, contains 5.5g of sucrose,
3.3g fructose, and 2.9g glucose.  Since the sucrose will be
broken down into equal amounts of fructose and glucose (by the
sucrase enzyme) the net result will be slightly more fructose
than glucose.

I mention this to correct a common misconception that fruits
contain *only* fructose.  I don't know about maple sugar.
Lactose is another disaccharide consisting of glucose plus
galactose, which are separated by the enzyme lactase, which many
people do not retain into adulthood, or can only produce limited
amounts of.

Todd Moody
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