Museo de Vida: Sugar Preservation

Fact Document
Questions:
1. What is sugar?
A sweet crystalline substance used in pastries and other foods that will make your teeth fall
out.

2.

What is the chemical formula for glucose?

C6H12O6

3.

What aspects of the glucose molecule contribute to taste?

Fructose, or fruit sugar, is a simple ketonic monosaccharide found in many plants, where it
is often bonded to glucose to form the disaccharide sucrose. It is one of the three dietary
monosaccharides, along with glucose and galactose, that are absorbed directly into the
bloodstream during digestion. Fructose was discovered by French chemist Augustin-Pierre
Dubrunfaut in 1847.[4][5] The name "fructose" was coined in 1857 by the English chemist
William Miller.[6] Pure, dry fructose is a very sweet, white, odorless, crystalline solid and is the
most water-soluble of all the sugar

4.
How was/is sugar used in the medical field?
Sugar has been mixed with multiple medicines that were responsible for killing 99.9% of germs
in a pea-tri dish.

5.

What is a monosaccharide? Disaccharide? Polysaccharide?

1 are the most basic units of carbohydrates. They are the simplest form of sugar and are
usually colorless, water-soluble, crystalline solids.

2 is the carbohydrate formed when two monosaccharides undergo a condensation reaction

which involves the elimination of a small molecule, such as water, from the functional groups
only. Like monosaccharides, disaccharides form an aqueous solution when dissolved in water.
Three common references are sucrose, lactose,[2] and maltose.

3 Polysaccharides are polymeric carbohydrate molecules composed of long chains

of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages and on hydrolysis give the
constituent monosaccharides or oligosaccharides. They range in structure from linear to highly
branched. Examples include storage polysaccharides such as starch and glycogen, and structural
polysaccharides such as cellulose and chitin.

6 Draw a glucose molecule.

H\ //O
C
|
H-C-OH
|
HO-C-H
|
H-C-OH
|
H-C-OH
|
CH2OH

7.
What is the difference between glucose, fructose, sucrose and lactose? What are they
found in? What are their chemical formulas? What do their molecules look like (you can either
draw each one, or describe them in words)?

8.
What is an isomer?
Each of two or more compounds with the same formula but a different arrangement of atoms
in the molecule and different properties.

9.
What does the body use glucose for? What happens to the human body if glucose levels
are off? Insulin does this by turning the extra food into larger packages of glucose called
glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the liver and muscles. Insulin also helps our bodies store fat and
protein.

10.

What other compounds are sweet but are unfit for human consumption? Why?

Ethylene glycol is poisonous to humans and domestic animals. Ethylene glycols Oxygen atoms
are pretty far apart and thus give it a sweet taste. What the body breaks down Ethylene
glycol into is what makes it so toxic not the compound itself. Death and kidney damage can
occur if consumed in big amounts.

11.

List the artificial sweeteners discussed in the reading. Tell me a bit about each.

12.
Saccharin was one of the first artificial sweeteners to be made. It has an intense
amount of sweetness in it and the article said it is even 100 times sweeter than natural
sugar.
13.
Aspartame is another type of artificial sweetener. It is said to be 200 times sweeter
than Glucose itself. A couple Amino acids also are naturally in Aspartame.
14.
Sucralose is like the similar named sucrose of that of its structure. Sucralose is a type of
artificial sweetener that has no calories in it a.k.a it is noncaloric.