Subreddit: r/FoodScience
User: u/Benjc98
Original Post:
How does sugar differ from fruit to processed sugars?
This might be a really stupid question, but the sugar found in fruit how is it different for our bodies as say the processed sugars we find in soft drinks, and basically any other processed food in the world? I am pretty certain that the sugar in fruit is still somewhat bad for us, as it can still damage teeth etc, but what does it actually do for our body, in comparison to it's processed counterpart?
My Response:
Sugars in fruit are jammed inside plant cell walls, so it takes a little longer to absorb as they migrate out of the cells during digestion.
That’s about it. You extract sugar from fruit in its purified form (which is mostly fructose by the way) and it’s molecularly no different from any other form of fructose.
Both go straight to the liver and need to be converted into glucose to be usable by the body. Sucrose, which is the sugar found in cane and beet sugar, needs a little extra step to be split into glucose and fructose, but basically ends up thr same way.
Some fruits have a little extra allulose or sugar alcohols, which are not metabolized by the human body but are broken down by the gut microbiome.
The real difference is all the compounds that come along with the fruit - fibers, polyphenols, etc. which help to modulate the gut microbiome.
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