Fructose is a kind of sugar that plants make. You meet it in fruit, in honey, and in many sweet drinks. It is one of the simple sugars: in the same family as glucose, but the body handles it a little differently, mostly in the liver. Table sugar (sucrose) is a pair — one part glucose, one part fructose — joined together. Food makers also use a syrup heavy in fructose because it tastes very sweet. Scientists and food labels use the word; ordinary talk just says sugar, or fruit sugar. Though actually, ‘fruit sugar’ can mislead: a banana has fructose, but it has glucose too, and a biscuit may have more fructose than an apple if the recipe used that syrup.