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What are the different kinds of sugar?

There are many types of sugar, categorized by their source and sweetness. Perhaps the most well-known sugar, from which table sugar is derived, is sucrose. Sucrose comes from sugar beets or sugar cane. Fruit sugar is called fructose; milk sugar is called lactose; malt sugar is called maltose; and sugar from honey or sweet fruits is called glucose (also called dextrose, corn sugar, or grape sugar).

Fructose is the sweetest sugar and lactose is the least sweet. On an unscientific "sweetness scale," used only for comparison purposes, sucrose would score 100, fructose 173, glucose 74, maltose 33, and lactose 16.

Granulated sugar (white sugar) is highly refined cane or beet sugar. Superfine sugar, known in Britain as castor sugar, is extra-granulated. Confectioners' sugar (powdered sugar) is granulated sugar that has been crushed into a fine powder, with a small amount of...

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