Food chemistry
Comprising 75% of the biological world and 80% of all food intake for human consumption, the most common known human carbohydrate is Sucrose. The simplest version of a carbohydrate is a monosaccharide which contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in a 1:2:1 ratio under a general formula of CHO where n is a minimum of 3. Glucose is an example of a monosaccharide as is fructose. Combine them in the picture shown to the right and you have sucrose, one of the more common sugar products around.
Carbohydrate
The term is most common in biochemistry, where it is a synonym of 'saccharide', a group that includes sugars, starch, and cellulose. The saccharides are divided into four chemical groups: monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. Monosaccharides and disaccharides, the smallest (lower molecular weight) carbohydrates, are commonly referred to as sugars. The word "saccharide" comes from the Greek word "σάκχαρον" ("sákkharon"), meaning "sugar". While the scientific nomenclature of carbohydrates is complex, the names of the monosaccharides and disaccharides very often end in the suffix -ose, as in the monosaccharides fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (starch sugar) and the disaccharides sucrose (cane or beet sugar) and lactose (milk sugar).