Clearing the reputation of high fructose corn syrup

By: Memo Sanchez

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:15 AM

memosanchez5 Psst, hey you. Yeah, you. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Despite what you may have heard, high fructose corn syrup, HFCS for short, is not the sole culprit for obesity in America and not nearly as bad for you as you might think.

Scientists have never deemed HFCS detrimental to your health. Its chemical structure is nearly identical to every other caloric sweetener in use today -usually a combination of sucrose, fructose, or glucose â€“ all deemed safe by food safety experts.

Before HFCS came around, sucrose from sugar cane was the main ingredient in all things sweet. However, the problem with sucrose at the time was that large-scale production was limited to tropical climates where stable governments and consistent weather were in short supply.

HFCS was a cheaper, longer-lasting and readily available alternative that revolutionized the American diet following its wide scale introduction into the food industry in the late 1960s.

So what’s all the hype about? A number of studies in recent years have pointed the finger at widespread use of HFCS in our food as a factor in the rise of obesity and it has received more than its fair share of media attention.

Overnight, HFCS went from being a subtle omnipresent ingredient in things we eat to the prime focal point and scapegoat of the American obesity epidemic.

Nowadays, you’ll find that health-conscious folks avoid HFCS like it’s the reincarnation of the bubonic plague, as if one can of HFCS sweetened soda will mean the difference between a healthy, fit lifestyle and a lifelong damnation to a quagmire of elevated cholesterol, soaring triglyceride levels, high blood pressure and certain social ostracism.

But you see, the truth about HFCS is that a caloric sweetener by any other name will make you just as fat.

Sure, cheaper sweeteners allow manufacturers to make larger portions for the same price if they had used sucrose or honey, but this doesn’t mean HFCS is the perpetrator.

That would make as much sense as admonishing Amazon.com for selling your physics textbook for half the price you paid at the ASUN Bookstore. Ultimately the product is the same, the effect is identical, and from a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense to go with the option that is less expensive.

Surely we frugal Saver’s-shopping collegegoers can understand that.

In the end, however, it’s our decision to buy the books we buy and to eat the foods we eat, HFCS or not.

It seems as if we as a society were so eager to place the blame somewhere else besides ourselves for our expanding waistlines. We lost sight of what we may be missing in our lives that we seem to be compensating with all of this food.

We can’t just simply blame a food ingredient for our poor lifestyle choices as Americans. Instead, we need to pick ourselves up off the ground, wipe the dirt off our big butts, and get ourselves moving toward healthier and more fruitful lifestyles.

Memo Sanchez can be reached at perspectives@nevadasagebrush.com.

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Posted under: Opinion

3 Responses to “Clearing the reputation of high fructose corn syrup”

cynthia1770 says: February 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm

Hi,
My google alert picked up your article. You’re right, gram for gram all sugars are the same, but that is where the similarity ends. Let’s look at HFCS-55. This industrial sweetener is used for all national brands of soda, many flavored teas, fruit punches, and ironically, many sports quenchers. The composition is 55%fructose:45% glucose.
While that may appear to be just 5% different from sucrose (50:50), it really isn’t. 55/45=1.22. That means that everytime you chug a soda (bottled in the US) your liver is reaping the benefits of 22% extra fructose, compared to glucose. It is the fructose moiety that leads to long term health hazards. Dr. Dana Flavin has written an exccellent summary of the metabolic dangers of fructose.
Ms. Audrae Erickson and her pals at the CRA have been blitzing us with an ad campaign that portrays their
industrial sweetener to be “similar” to sugar. If I, a midwestern piano teacher who likes math, can do these calculations, you know that the wizards at Cargill and ADM have these numbers. Ditch HFCS, especially HFCS-55.

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Sam says: February 18th, 2009 at 12:52 am

Hey Memo,
Have I got a diet for you! Try these..
Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup
Nutri?Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars
Manwich Bold Sloppy Joe
Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup
Coca?Cola Classic
Nesquik Chocolate Milk
Smucker’s Strawberry Jelly
and there are many many other tasty items I could add for your diet..but why these items? Oh ya…they all are made with HFCS contaminated with Mercury (very poisonous to mind and body). Do you read the news? I thought not. Never mind, go eat your HCFS and leave the rest of us alone.

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Mark Richards says: February 18th, 2009 at 11:09 am

Psst, hey you. Yeah, you- I have a better question for you: Why are we using HFCS at all? Everywhere else you go in the world- Coke is made with sugar. Everywhere else you go in the world sugar is cheaper than HFCS. The only reason HFCS is common in the US is because we subsidize the heck out of our corn growers.

If we let the free market work then sugar (both imported and domestic) would be cheaper than HFCS and we wouldn’t be using it at all. Why should we use an artifically concocted sweetener when the natural stuff would be just as cheap if our government didn’t interfere?

Several studies have also shown that HFCS is not, in fact, absorbed by the body in the same way as natural sugar. That the excess Fructose causes all sorts of odd health issues including insulin suppression and larger and more immediate blood sugar swings.

Have you even tried Coke made with real sugar? (Get Coke with the yellow caps during passover)- it even tastes better. It’s a little less sweet and a whole lot easier to drink.

I spent about 5 minutes cutting 90% of the HFCS out of my diet- it wasn’t difficult and the foods I’m eating now are a whole lot healthier anyway. Why does grape jelly need HFCS? Why does bread need HFCS? They don’t. It’s nothing but politics.

To the previous poster- Nesquick Chocolate Syrup is made with sugar not HFCS- I’m not sure about the chocolate milk itself. Hershey’s and UBet syrup are both made with HFCS.

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