High Fructose Corn Syrup

[Higgs Boson]

Anybody notice that the HFCS lobby has come out with a "cute" new marketing program to counteract the bad press that this cheap, unhealthful sweetener has been receiving lately?

Now we're suppose to call it "corn sugar"! The female voice-over says "Sugar is sugar!"

NOT!

Just another way for the corn-growing states to maximize pork .

Anybody remember when the w***es -- pardon, legislators -- from those states got everybody, including the ignorant print/electronic media and the corrupt Bush Administration (maybe back to Clinton?) of, going ape over ethanol (made from subsidized corn, naturally!) as biofuel? Thus raising the price of corn for, say, poor Mexicans whose staple food soared out of sight. So much corn was going into biofuel, I couldn't even find corn oil at my co-op for years, until the corn- ethanol scam bubble burst.

The on-line literature on HFCS is extensive; includes recent study that it may contain mercury.

Many of us label-readers now refuse to buy a product which features heavy use of HFCS.

Persephone

[Dan L]

Yep, we talked about it last week here. I see the commercial on every "Good Eats" cable show. I am now seeing it on cereal box labels also. We also mentioned the exact same phrase. "sugar is sugar"? She also states something like, "The body can't tell the difference"?

Another article that may be of interest by USA today that one in three will have diabetes by 2050.

Two of my favorite science fiction classic books is "The Space Merchants, by Fredrick Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth" a 1952 classic. It's about corporations in the future selling addictive foods and products that are harmful to human health and saying it's good for you and making bigs bucks and enslaving the lower class at the same time. These guys were way ahead of their time. Reading this novel was like reading the current news during bad old cigarette days.

Another favorite is "Under Pressure by Frank Herbert" a 1955 classic novel that is about deep under water oil drilling. Another author way ahead of time.

[David Hare-Scott]

Eat some crunchies which make you thirsty, so you have some popsie soda which triggers a craving for a cigarette, that triggers a craving for some crunchies, so you follow that with a popsie and then ......

David.

[Dan L]

Another fan :) I am about to have breakfast with my cup of Coffiest :)

[Billy]

Since we seem to have jumped the tracks here anyway, let me just observe that the only people left in the industrialized world who don't know about the deleterious health effects of HFCS must be watchers of FOX NEWS (Murdoch & Co.), and, therefore, supporters of Glen Beck, and Sarah Palin.

Probably the best thing we could do for our country, and the planet is to encourage these folks to eat as much HFCS as possible, and refuse any government health care that they may be offered.

We now return to our next OT posting.

[Bill who putters]

Glad you are back missed ya!

[zxcvbob]

HFCS is not significantly worse than cane sugar or beet sugar or honey. All four are made up of approximately the same proportions of glucose and fructose. That doesn't mean HFCS is good for you, quite the opposite; it means sugar and honey are worse for you than ppl think.

The food industry in the USA switched from sugar to HFCS because protective tariffs made the price of sugar too high to use it in products where HFCS could be substituted (an that means just about everything except candy.) The corn->ethanol for fuel craze has raised the cost of HFCS to where sugar (even with the tariff) is almost competitive again, so food companies are starting to switch back.

Americans (myself included) get way too many of our calories from fructose and alcohol. The actual delivery vehicles are not that important except for the ubiquity of the fructose. But reverting from HFCS to sucrose won't really help.

I liked Sarah Palin before she got popular, but I don't watch mainstream media, Fox News or otherwise (and especially not AM radio.)

Best regards, Bob

[David Hare-Scott]

No. Cane sugar and beet sugar are almost 100% sucrose. I can't lay my hands on an analysis for beet sugar (which we don't get much here) but white refined cane sugar is one of the most pure chemical substances that you will find in your kitchen.

There is a body of evidence that suggests that the carbohydrate metabolism of the body reacts differently to HFCS compared to sucrose. The cites have been mentioned here before. This is disputed by corn producers so the matter is not resolved.

David

[zxcvbob]

Yes, but sucrose is fructose + glucose.

Bob

[David Hare-Scott]

True depending on what meaning you give to the "+", in this case it is false. The compound sucrose behaves chemically quite differently to the mixture of the two compounds fructose and glucose. Any chemistry textbook will show you examples of this. The issue being disputed is how human metabolism reacts in the two cases. For that have a look here:

[David Hare-Scott]

"It wusn't me it wus her" he said pointing his finger. :-)

D

[Dan L.]

I do not think that statement is true. One needs to add an acid to sucrose to form fructose + glucose. So for me soda pop is out. However, for other baked foods, like cereal, that extra HIGH fructose corn syrup is not for me. I will take plain non sweetened cereal and add table sugar to it. I doubt skim milk has enough acid to completely change the structure of sucrose.

Also why the need for HIGH fructose corn syrup when plain old regular corn syrup will do? I do use regular corn syrup for candy making.

Also, does the structure of HFCS's have an added fat molecule attached to the fructose molecule that makes it different from a regular fructose molecule?

Corn syrup aids in preventing crystallizatio

[Billy]

I think a peek at would be more enlightening.

(1) Fructose is also seventy-three percent sweeter than sucrose (see 2.1 Relative Sweetness) at room temperature . . .

(2) "Eating fructose instead of glucose results in lower circulating insulin and leptin levels, and higher ghrelin levels after the meal.[58] Since leptin and insulin decrease appetite and ghrelin increases appetite, some researchers suspect that eating large amounts of fructose increases the likelihood of weight gain.[59]"

(3) And then there is

A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain.

[Dan L]

The last line is a trailing thought that did not make it.

Also, which is worse? Pure fructose in beverages or a combination or fructose and glucose from sucrose?

[David Hare-Scott]

No. Fructose is fructose. Fat molecules are quite different in structure to sugars.

D

[zxcvbob]

Your *stomach* provides the acid to hydrolyze the sucrose into its components glucose and fructose, which are then quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. The glucose causes an insulin reaction and the fructose does not. The glucose is then used by your whole body as an energy source or converted into glycogen. The fructose can only be metabolized by the liver.

Bob

[Dan L]

Ok Bob, now if I want to value my liver over my pancreas, would cane sugar put less fructose in my system over HFCS in my foods?

Would there be less work on my liver if I used regular corn syrup over HFCS?

Also does the liver covert fructose to fat? Therefore the structure of fructose is not that far from the structure of a fat molecule. If so then a high fructose diet is a high fat diet.

If you answer yes to any of these questions, it is best to favor cane sugar over HFCS? Therefore NOT the same!

[zxcvbob]

Sucrose is 50% fructose. HFCS is between 45% and 55% fructose, same as honey. (Starch is 100% glucose. That's why white bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar.)

Fructose metabolism is explained about 42 minutes into this video if you want to skip ahead:

point is that excess sugar consumption is bad, and it doesn't matter whether it is sugar or HFCS or honey.

Bob

[Billy]

What I was trying to say was that glucose is intrinsically different from fructose, and before our species became agrarian, both were seasonal additions to the human diet. Now, it is highly processed carbs, day and night, all year long.

I think you will find that historically (hunter gatherers), our main energy source was animal fat.

[David Hare-Scott]

No sucrose is 100% sucrose. Each sucrose molecule can be split into one each of glucose and fructose in which case you don't have sucrose but glucose and fructose. The two do not behave the same.

True

and it doesn't

That is yet to be determined.

David