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| Sugar |
Refined from sugarcane, sugar beets, and corn, sugars are a major and vital part of nutrition and provide the basic molecular structure for most living matter.
Sugars, through the process called cellular respiration, are the primary power sources used to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy exchange molecule that sustains all life.
Energy is stored in organisms as starch or fat but is burned as sugar. Sugars include some of the simplest carbohydrates, and they are building blocks of more complicated molecules. Common sugars include glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, and lactose.
