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High Fructose Corn Syrup To Get a Makeover
An anonymous reader writes "With its sweetener linked to obesity, some cancers and diabetes, the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) doesn't want you to think 'fructose' when you see high fructose corn syrup in your soda, ketchup or pickles. Instead, the AP reports, the CRA submitted an application to the FDA, hoping to change the name of their top-selling product to 'corn sugar.'"
"With its sweetener linked to obesity, some cancers and diabetes, the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) doesn't want you to think 'fructose' when you see high fructose corn syrup in your soda, ketchup or pickles. Instead, the AP reports, the CRA submitted an application to the FDA, hoping to change the name of their top-selling product to 'corn sugar.'"
What's in a name? High-fructose corn syrup by any other name would taste as sweet ... and still make your cancer cells multiply.
And here thought that fraud and false advertising was illegal in this country. If the Feds go for this then they're not doing their jobs.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
When manufacturers start *printing "No HFCS!" on packaging*, your ship has pretty much sailed, folks.
...can we start calling cigarettes, "All natural inhaled plant extracts"?
What's in a name? that which we call an industrial chemical
By any other name would taste as sweet;
So HFCS would, were it not HFCS call'd,
Retain that cloying mouthfeel which it owes
Without that title. HFCS, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all my pancreas.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Corn lobbyists.
Massive subsidies for corn farming (also in the form of biofuel kickbacks) combined with tariffs on imported sugar to protect certain agricultural sectors make corn syrup an incredibly inexpensive and profitable sweetening agent.
This is the big reason why most sodas in the US use corn syrup whereas foreign recipes usually rely on ordinary sugar.
In short, no politician wants to risk losing support in the midwest or the southeast. Advocating reform on either of these policies is political suicide in those regions.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Still makes us all fat.
Well, the candidates could do what politicians do best: lie through their teeth. Then eliminate the tariffs as would be appropriate for a country seeking to participate in the GLOBAL ECONOMY .
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Sucrose is not good for you, the reason HFCS gets all the attention because fructose is noticeably worse. Sugar refiners deserve to have their names dragged through the mud almost as much as corn refiners have been.
Frankly, I think the CRA should be sued for attempting to defraud the American public by selling a product known to be harmful under a new name for the sole purpose of deceiving said public into buying a product they do not wish to buy.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Can you explain your assertion that HFCS is "evil"?
As I've stated elsewhere in this story, HFCS is only 10% more "evil" than table sugar, and that's if we presuppose that fructose is evil. (You know, fructose, the principal form of sugar found in those well-known health-wreckers, apples.)
I'm not saying that you're wrong, by any means. But, while I hear that HFCS is bad all the time, I've never heard any sort of convincing explanation how it's worse than sucrose.
Corn subsidies, on the other hand . . .
-Peter
It's not the HFCS, it's your ass, in that chair, 12 hours a day
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
What you cite is "anecdotal evidence" and what works for you, may not work for anyone else...and in fact, you probably ended up removing a number of food sources that contribute to heartburn such as caffeine.
The reason your physicians don't see to care is that they can't generalize the information....so they would be remiss to pass this information on.
Someone could set up a project to research this... but that takes time and money...so who would pay for the study? The corn growers? The makers of proton-pump inhibitors? Neither one cares, and would actually discourage such a study as it would hurt their bottom-line...so the federal government might fund it...but then there are those lovely folk known as lobbyists...I'm sure they would love to push for funding for said research....
Guess I'd have to say, it's just not a hot-button issue.
And for the record, I'm a physician. (But certainly not a primary care physician).
--- From WebMD: (http://www.webmd.com/heartburn-gerd/guide/understanding-heartburn-basics)
What Causes It?
The basic cause of heartburn is an underactive lower esophageal sphincter, or LES, that doesn't tighten as it should. Two excesses often contribute to this problem: too much food in the stomach (overeating) or too much pressure on the stomach (frequently from obesity or pregnancy). Certain foods commonly relax the LES, including tomatoes, citrus fruits, garlic, onions, chocolate, coffee, alcohol, caffeinated products, and peppermint. Dishes high in fats and oils (animal or vegetable) often lead to heartburn, as do certain medications. Stress increases acid production and can cause heartburn. And smoking, which relaxes the LES and stimulates stomach acid, is a major contributor.
Tortured Baby Cow Parmesan just doesn't have the same ring to it. But I'm sure it'd be equally as delicious.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Or doubleplusgood sugar?
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
The government is paying farmers to make a product that is killing the populace. And they are borrowing the money from China to do it. What's wrong with THIS picture?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Corn-Sugar is already in use, it means dextrose. Ask anyone who homebrews.
It's the sugar lobby who caused this whole mess.
I believe Coke was one of the first to make the switch. In a free market, sugar would be much cheaper and that's what would be used.
I'm also pretty sure this causes problems for candy and other food manufacturers. It makes their products more expensive.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
This is a repost of a repost, but here's an enlightening presentation on the pathways involved in fructose metabolism by an endocrinologist at UCSF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
It's ~1h30m long, but you can skip ahead to about 42:00 for the interesting part.
Believe it or not people are not that stupid when it comes to labels. You could call it unicorn spit and after a lag period the same baggage and public reaction will eventually be restored.
It happened with trans fats where manufacturers would just adjust the serving size such that each serving contained less than .5 grams just to get away with legally claiming their product contained 0g trans fat. How the govt allowed such rank nonsense to occur in the first place is beyond comphrension.. At the end of the day it didn't matter.
The end result was that the "*0g trans fat" advertisement became meaningless and people started looking for the word "partially hydrogenated" in the ingredients to make their purchasing decision.
O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
your cane sugar is cheaper than our hfcs because we have tariffs on the sugar and you don't. then the price of hfcs can be raised above what the market would otherwise pay for it, if sugar weren't being propped up. It's a friggin' cabal is what it is.
Sometime in the future, the corn syrup industry (which includes the entire beverage industry, and much of the food industry) is going to see revealed the evidence that its scientists and execs all knew that their corn syrup products were increasing people's cancer, diabetes and other disease rates, and was habit forming. Even as they worked to cover up those evil facts with cheerful, healthy marketing. Exactly like the tobacco industry. Then there'll be hell to pay.
--
make install -not war
Sorry, but this is unmitigated bullshit. The disaccharide sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose in the stomach within minutes of ingestion, and your small intestine can't tell the difference between sucrose and HFCS.
There is no difference in how they are metabolized. The only difference is that when ingesting HFCS, some glycoside hydrolase in your stomach goes unused. Thanks for playing, have a nice day!
In the US, all of the products you mentioned are usually loaded with added sugar, most likely HFCS. You can thank the corn lobby for that.
In other parts of the world, whole wheat bread is made without sugar, orange juice has no added sugar and can actually be deliciously slightly sour and outmeal contains nothing but whole oats, possibly steamed and rolled.
Added sugars of all kinds are problematic, but HFCS is the worst.
Eat the rich.
They started using Fructose as it was a little better for diabetics to process over the usual glucose it replaced.
But the problem is that Fructose is only metabolised by the liver and so it can cause liver damage.
Every cell in your body can metabolise glucose.
Exactly. My wife is from Mexico and she and her brother often complain about how damned sweet everything in the US has to be. The same trend follows with people from other countries. They don't use it in products from overseas for a reason. It tastes and behaves completely different from real sugar. I can't for the life of me think of why it's used in damn near everything, even products that are not traditionally though of as "sweet" other than it being so cheap in comparison to real sugar.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.