Sugar

Sugar is a term that includes all sweet carbohydrates, although the term is most often used to describe sucrose or table sugar, a 'double sugar'. The body breaks down carbohydrates into simple sugars such as glucose, that can be readily used in the body. There are several different sugars.

Sugar isn't inherently bad. Actually, it's necessary: Our bodies run on sugar. The body processes the carbohydrates from food and turns much of it into glucose (sugar). The cells pull the glucose from the bloodstream and use it for fuel and energy.

Although the main reason for the use of sugar is its sweet taste, sugar has many other functions in food technology. The most important among these are that added sugar in foods acts as a sweetener, preservative, texture modifier, fermentation substrate, flavouring and colouring agent, bulking agent.