The Chemical Difference Between Corn Syrup & Sugar
- Ordinary sugar is commonly referred to as sucrose. It has a chemical structure of a disaccharide since it is made of two sugar molecules. The two sugar rings are glucose and fructose. The two sugar rings are bonded chemically resulting into the final product, which is sucrose. When the sucrose is eaten by a human being, the body releases an enzyme called sucrase, which is used to break the sugar into its constituents, glucose and fructose. When broken into these components, it becomes easy for the body to absorb them.
- The manufacture of corn syrup starts of as corn. In the beginning, the highest percentage of corn is starch. Starch is a complex sugar since it contains many chains of glucose attached. This complex sugar structure is referred to as a polysaccharide. Plants use the starch amylase in order to break the starch into its sugar contents. It is after breaking the starch into its constituents that corn syrup is made. The corn syrup is less sweet compared to ordinary sugar. However, many manufacturers use an enzyme called invertase to convert much of the glucose in corn syrup into fructose, thereby making the corn syrup sweeter.
- The formed corn syrup contains both glucose and fructose on nearly a ratio of one to one. The invertase enzyme is the main cause of this. The enzyme is usually used in the hydrolyzing sucrose resulting in a mixture of glucose and fructose. In contrast, to the glucose and fructose in sugar which are chemically bonded, in the corn syrup the two are not chemically bonded, thus they are just a mixture. When consumed in the body, this means there is no need for the body to produce the sucrase enzyme since the body is able to absorb into the system the two monosacchrides.
- Although both corn syrup and ordinary sugar contain fructose, it is important to understand that corn syrup contains high levels of fructose. This means that consuming corn syrup for long may lead to obesity because of the high levels of fructose in it.