Sugar is an informal term for a class of edible crystalline substances, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose characterized by a sweet flavor. In food, sugar almost exclusively refers to sucrose, which primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet. Other sugars are used in industrial food preparation, but are usually known by more specific names—glucose, fructose or fruit sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc.
Excessive consumption of sucrose has been associated with increased incidences of type 2 diabetes, obesity and tooth decay.
Sugar consumption varies from country to country; Brazil has the highest per capita production and India has the highest per-country consumption.

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Aspartame (or APM) (pronounced /ˈæspərteɪm/ or /əˈspɑrteɪm/) is the name for an artificial, non-saccharide sweetener used as a sugar substitute in many foods and beverages. In the European Union, it is known under the E number (additive code) E951. Aspartame is the methyl ester of a phenylalanine/aspartic acid dipeptide.
Aspartame was first synthesized in 1965. Its use in food products was first approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 1974. Because its breakdown products include phenylalanine, aspartame is among the many substances that must be avoided by people with phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare genetic condition.
The most recent medical review on the subject concluded that "the weight of existing scientific evidence indicates that aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption as a non-nutritive sweetener".
The safety of aspartame has been the subject of several political and medical controversies, Congressional Hearings and internet hoaxes since its initial approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1974.

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Fructose (also levulose or laevulose) is a simple monosaccharide found in many foods and is one of the three important dietary monosaccharides along with glucose and galactose. The organic fructose molecule was first discovered by Augustin-Pierre Dubrunfaut in 1847. Fructose is a white solid that dissolves in water – it is the most water-soluble of all the sugars. Honey, tree fruits, berries, melons, and some root vegetables contain significant amounts of molecular fructose, usually in combination with glucose, stored in the form of sucrose. About 240,000 tonnes of crystalline fructose are produced annually.
Fructose is a component of sucrose. Sucrose is a disaccharide derived from the condensation of glucose and fructose. Fructose is derived from the digestion of table sugar (sucrose).
Crystalline fructose and high-fructose corn syrup are often confused as the same product. Crystalline fructose, which is often produced from a fructose-enriched corn syrup, is indeed the monosaccharide. High-fructose corn syrup, however, refers to a family of mixtures of varying amounts of fructose and glucose.

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Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.), a member of the Chenopodiaceae family, is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production.
The sugar comes from the bulb of the beetroot plant, chard and fodder beet, all descended by cultivation from the sea beet.
The European Union, the United States, and Russia are the world's three largest sugar beet producers, although only the European Union and Ukraine are significant exporters of sugar from beets. The U.S. harvested 1,004,600 acres (4 065 km²) of sugarbeets in 2008 alone. Beet sugar accounts for 30% of the world's sugar production.
In the United States, genetically modified sugar beets resistant to glyphosate (marketed by Monsanto Company as Roundup), a herbicide, were planted for the first time in the spring of 2008. Sugar from the biotechnology-enhanced sugarbeet has been approved for human and animal consumption in the European Union. This action by the EU executive body allows unrestricted imports of food and feed products made from (H7-1) glyphosate-tolerant (Roundup Ready) sugarbeets. On September 21, 2009, a federal court ruled that the USDA had violated federal law in deregulating Roundup Ready sugar beets without adequately evaluating the environmental and socio-economic impacts of allowing commercial production, and will be considering an appropriate injunction.

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