[tptacek]

Again, worth pointing out that none of this fructose stuff is really operable, because there isn't a mainstream "low-fructose" sugar that anyone uses as a sweetener†. As you acknowledged across the thread: HFCS is (if not chemically identical) bioavailably the same thing as cane sugar.

† Other sugars get used for functional reasons other than sweetening, of course.

[angiosperm]

You can buy straight glucose, sold as "corn sugar", from brewery suppliers. In the US they would like to sell you a 50-pound bag for $100, but a 10-pound bag for $20 should last you a long time. It all comes, ultimately, from Tate and Lyle. It may also be labeled "dextrose"; same stuff. They will let you pay as much as you like. (Some claim to offer "organic", but there is really no way to tell and, by the evidence, they are probably just re-bagging it with a new label, and lying. Enforcement is nonexistent.)

There are other sugars, maltose, maltodextrin, [not lactose] with varying numbers of glucose molecules stitched end on end, collectively amyloses. With enough, it becomes starch.

There is also left-handed enantiomeric glucose, zero calories, expensive, and racemic glucose, 50% calories. The latter is made from raw chemicals. Guessing they make the former by feeding the latter to bugs and selling what is left over, although there are crystallization tricks.

I bake with corn sugar, and it works fine. I have found that hot chocolate made with it is unsatisfying without a half-teaspoon of table sugar added. Or a marshmallow.

[hollerith]

>lactose, etc. Those are just varying numbers of glucose molecules stitched end on end.

Not so: lactose is a glucose stitched to a galactose molecule.

[angiosperm]

I am corrected. Chemistry offers a limitless supply of complications.