Nutrition Science and Everyday Application - beta v 0.1

176 ALICE CALLAHAN, PHD, HEATHER LEONARD, MED, RDN, AND TAMBERLY POWELL, MS, RDN
wander away, and later poop out the seeds from the fruit, thereby sowing the seeds of the
next generation. Animal gets a meal, and the plant gets to reproduce: win-win!
Figure 4.5. Fructose in nature: A bee collects sweet nectar from a flower, in the process spreading
pollen from flower to flower and helping plants to reproduce. Bees use nectar to make honey,
which humans harvest for use as a sweetener. (Honey contains a mix of sucrose, fructose, and
glucose). A kiwi is sweetened in part by fructose. Animals enjoy the sweet fruit and then later poop
out the seeds, sowing them for a new generation of kiwi trees.
Food sources of fructose: Fruits, vegetables, honey, high fructose corn syrup
3 – Galactose
Here is the chemical structure of galactose:
In this class, we’ll sometimes use a blue hexagon to represent galactose:
Food sources of galactose: Galactose is found in milk (and dairy products made from
milk), but it’s almost always linked to glucose to form a disaccharide (more on that in a
minute). We rarely find it in our food supply in monosaccharide form.
The second type of simple carbohydrates is disaccharides. They contain two sugar units
bonded together.
There are 3 disaccharides:
1. Maltose (glucose + glucose)
2. Sucrose (glucose + fructose)
3. Lactose (glucose + galactose)