The lesson "Sugar and Starch-Rich Crops" focuses on crops with high sugar and starch content, their significance in agriculture, and their role as feedstocks for biofuel production, particularly for the production of bioethanol.

Sugar

• Sugar is the common name for soluble carbohydrates with a sweet taste.
• Carbohydrates, also called saccharides, are made up of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen and are produced directly in plant tissues by photosynthesis.
• Saccharides can occur in simple or more complex molecular structures.
• Simple saccharides, like fructose or glucose, are called monosaccharides.
• Double sugars, like sucrose or lactose, called disaccharides, are composed of two monosaccharides (e.g., glucose and fructose) linked by a glycosidic bond.
• Sugars can be directly converted into ethanol through biological processes, which makes them interesting for biofuel production (see Chapter Bioethanol).