I try to be careful to avoid hydrogenation and artificial sugars when I buy food products. Hydrogenation seems easy – if it mentions hydrogenation in the ingredients list, I avoid it. I feel more confused by sugars.
So, for example, sugar and honey I feel comfortable with. Corn syrup I feel comfortable with. High fructose corn syrup and aspartame I avoid.
The problem is that there are so many sugars that I have trouble keeping them straight. Sucrose, glucose, maltodextrine – those are chemical names, to be sure, but to my knowledge they are "natural" in the sense that they are naturally derived. I think.
Can someone post a list of the various sugars that we see in ingredient lists – or that we have the option to use as ingredients in the foods we make – with an explanation of whether they are natural or not? Or to what degree they are not natural?
Now, I understand that "natural" means different things to different people, so I expect some qualification will be needed for at least some ingredients. Also, to narrow the focus of the question and the resulting answers, let's keep this focused on the list and short description of the various sugars as opposed to the broader discussion concerning whether artificial sweeteners are bad for you or not.
Update
I guess this isn't a very popular question. Perhaps people who care about this as I do generally understand the ingredient lists better?
So today I ran into an example of what I'm describing above. I noticed polydextrose in an ingredient list. What I would have liked to do is come back to this question and look at an answer to this post that has that ingredient as artificial or natural with a brief description of it. However, this isn't in the incomplete list of artificial sweeteners posted in the answer by TFD (I don't mean for this to be offensive – at least you answered with something, which I appreciate). Not being a dietician, I looked it up and it looks pretty artificial to me.
Is there someone out there who is passionate about this stuff who could post such a list for the rest of us?
Best Answer
Sugar, as in common table sugar from sugar cane, is sucrose, which is a chemically weak linked combination of glucose and fructose. Your stomach acids will split sucrose very fast. So the difference in using natural cane sugar and factory split glucose may only be a matter of minutes once you eat the stuff
Same goes for almost all the sugars other than the "artificial sweeteners" which are generally not sugars at all, they just taste very sweet
Some artificial sweeteners are very natural in the general scheme of things when compared to processed sugar etc.
Nearly everything that comes in a packet with a barcode is not "natural". White table sugar is not natural. Buy some sugar cane stem, and crush and boil it, then you can see the difference
I would rather use the white table sugar though, as it is more likely to be clean and tested as being non-contaminated
Sugar Substitutes
There is a great list of sugar substitutes including artificial sweeteners on Wikipedia. Many of which would be better for you if sugar levels was of a concern in your diet (it is for some people). Many are useless in baking
The list of "artificial sweeteners" is thus:
And the sugar alcohol's, which are also a form of "artificial sweeteners"
Nice info-graphic from Washington Post