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Lactose

Lactose is a natural sugar found in milk that gives it a slightly sweet taste.

Think of it this way

Milk holds a natural sugar called lactose spread through it. Picture a glass of milk with tiny sugar dots mixed evenly inside. The dots float through the liquid, just like salt stirred into water. They give the milk a mild, sweet taste.

Explaining lactose by grade level

Milk has a sugar in it called lactose. Some milk has more of this sugar than others. If you dry out milk, you can see tiny crystals form from the lactose inside. Soy milk comes from plants, not cows, so it has much less of this milk sugar.

Projects that explore lactose

Lactose Crystals from Three Kinds of Milk

Lactose is the natural sugar in milk that gives it a slightly sweet taste — but not all milks carry the same amount. One experiment tests this directly by extracting lactose from low-fat milk, powdered milk, and soy milk, then weighing the crystals that form. Fresh and powdered milk yield nearly identical amounts. Soy milk, however, produces almost three times less, confirming that plant-based milks carry far less of this sugar than dairy milks do.

Hard