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.'"

Comments

What the hell?

[ScrewMaster]

"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.

Re:What the hell?

[sjames]

Evaporated cane syrup is not the same as sugar. It's not cooked and doesn't have the molasses spun out. The name is fairly descriptive. It could be argued that evaporated sugarcane syrup might be even clearer, but there doesn't appear to be an intent to deceive.

On the other hand, renaming HFCS which is descriptive and is well known by consumers to some other name seems more deceptive in intent. It's fairly clear the intent is to create confusion so that people consume something they have consciously decided to avoid. If they want to come up with a substantially different product and call that corn sugar, that would be another matter.

Re:What the hell?

[sjames]

I guess you're not a big fan of fresh fruits then?

Re:What the hell?

[dgatwood]

The problem is, regular corn syrup more rightfully deserves the name "corn sugar". However, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup are completely different animals.

Taking the word "fructose" out suggests that HFCS is somehow a natural sugar obtained from corn, then processed into granular form, much as sugar is formed by filtering out everything but the sucrose from sugar cane syrup and leaving the remaining granular sucrose. Such an implication would be an outright deception. Corn syrup, as it comes out of the plant, does not contain significant amounts of fructose. It is basically glucose syrup. High fructose corn syrup, by contrast, is corn syrup in which much of the glucose has been enzymatically converted into fructose. It resembles corn syrup about as closely as a plastic toy resembles its original form after you soak it in gasoline for a few hours.

Having the word "fructose" in the name of this ingredient is key to explaining how this differs from corn syrup. Eliminating the word "fructose" would have the potential to cause significant confusion, and any such proposal should be soundly rejected. I'd be okay with them calling it "high fructose corn sugar" if they would prefer, or maybe even "fructose-enhanced corn sugar", but if they think they can get away with concealing fructose as an ingredient, they have another thing coming. Either way, you know something is very wrong when an industry attempts to conceal its activities through name changes. That's tantamount to admitting guilt.

Re:What the hell?

[ScrewMaster]

Maybe that's because the corn syrup soda tastes better? Even if it were possible to have cravings for soda, that doesn't mean cancer is growing in you.

You must not have been around before the switch to corn syrup. Coca Cola was awesome back then.

Secondly, cancer is growing in all of us, all the time. Out of the trillions of cells that comprise the human body, some number of them are going to be malfunctioning at any given time. The reason we don't all die of tumors shortly after birth is because the immune system identifies them and eliminates them.

Any food product which has the capacity to make cancer cells divide even more quickly than they already do (which, according to that study I linked, is an attribute of corn syrup but not regular sugar) is certainly worth avoiding.

Re:What the hell?

[pete-classic]

Ah-ha! You found me out!

Oh, wait, no you didn't. Sucrose is not an alternative to fructose and glucose, it is a combination of them. From the linked article:

In sucrose, the component glucose and fructose are linked via an ether bond between C1 on the glucosyl subunit and C2 on the fructosyl unit. The bond is called a glycosidic linkage.

The rest of your post is 99% pure nonsense. Transfats are chemically altered forms of vegetable oil. It isn't the processing, per se, it is -- objectively, demonstrably, and verifiably -- the altered chemical composition that causes the deleterious effects to health.

As for fructose being natural, this is quite irrelevant. All objections to HFCS that I've heard that even begin to be credible cite processing of fructose in the liver as origin of the supposed problem. If fructose is perfectly safe, then HFCS is 10% BETTER than sucrose, since it contains that much less glucose, the only other molecule found in either compound. But that can't be right, either, since (by your logic) glucose occurs in nature and, (more convincingly) it's the only form of energy the body can directly use.

To address the 1% of your post that isn't twaddle, it seems to me that there is one possible way that HFCS can cause appetite to malfunction. I suggested that sucrose and HFCS are practically identical from a metabolic point of view by the time they hit the bloodstream, to which you made no counter-argument. But, to the extent that appetite is tied to the interaction of the molecules with the body before digestion -- in the mouth, or even in the stomach -- it is possible that some "evil" lurks. But I'm unconvinced.

I'm sorry if I've been flippant in this post. While I do sincerely want correction where I'm wrong, I am quite disinterested in poorly researched, poorly thought-out, and flatly wrong-on-their-face counter-arguments.

-Peter

Re:What the hell?

[sjames]

Bottom line is, how about we all quit complaining about what it is they put in food, and just choose what you eat carefully.

If they will kindly not hide what they put in the food (including the use of newspeak), we can make a rational informed decision about what and how much to eat.

Re:What the hell?

[sribe]

What's in a name? High-fructose corn syrup by any other name would taste as sweet ... and still make your cancer cells multiply.

All-natural agave syrup anyone??? Seriously, it boggles the mind that people who are suspicious of high-fructose syrup refined from corn embrace the new fad, high-fructose syrup refined from cactus, because some marketer slapped a "natural" label on it...

Re:What the hell?

[Reziac]

"...in exactly the same way that baking soda (NaHCO3) is 50% lye (NaOH)"

Oh man, you made me spit carbonated lye and medium fructose bee barf all over my monitor :D

Based on the chemistry expertise of the average poster, I think it's time to resurrect the campaign against DHMO. Except this time, rather than trying to convince people of its toxicity in its natural state, we should concentrate on the dangerously explosive traits of uncontrolled hydrogen, once it's been chemically separated from the DHMO. ;)

Re:What the hell?

[ultranova]

If they will kindly not hide what they put in the food (including the use of newspeak), we can make a rational informed decision about what and how much to eat.

But then you might make the rational informed decision to not eat high fructose corn syrup, or "corn sugar" or whatever it's called, which would affect the bottom lines of corn producers. Since they care more about their bottom line than your health or life, they have made the rational informed decision of trying to hide the fact that foods which include said semi-poison include it.

Basically, if you want businesses to play nice, you have to use government and the law to force them.

Re:What the hell?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I doubt bees use the same refining process that is used to produce most HFCS.

Can you link to this decline in HFCS use?

Um, no.

[jra]

When manufacturers start *printing "No HFCS!" on packaging*, your ship has pretty much sailed, folks.

So....

[quantumghost]

...can we start calling cigarettes, "All natural inhaled plant extracts"?

Re:So....

[nschubach]

Hand rolled cigars. They are still bad for you.

With apologies to The Bard

[peacefinder]

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.

A rose by any other name

[Dracos]

Still makes us all fat.

Re:Evil stuff

[Mikkeles]

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 .

Re:In other news

[Bigjeff5]

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.

Dear Neckbeards

[anarkhos]

It's not the HFCS, it's your ass, in that chair, 12 hours a day

Re:newspeak

[dakameleon]

Or doubleplusgood sugar?

STOP CORN SUBSIDIES

[Trip6]

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?

Re:STOP CORN SUBSIDIES

[flanders123]

You are forgetting about the other "great" corn product: Ethanol. Here we have a fuel that takes 29 percent more fossil fuel energy to produce than the end product generates. Do you think the harvesters and grain trucks run on ethanol?

Also, it doesn't make sense for consumers. My family rents land to farmers. All have ethanol-compatible pickups, but won't fill up with ethanol. Why? Because the mileage they get is so horrible, that the non-competitive price doesn't make sense. But they love the corn prices and subsities though!

What a joke.

Re:STOP CORN SUBSIDIES

[Jon Abbott]

What I wonder is if "Universal Health Care" (which only provides for 94% of the country) would even be necessary if we didn't have corn subsidies which have made so many people obese and unhealthy. Seems like we are paying twice for a reality that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Corn-Sugar is already in use

[h4rr4r]

Corn-Sugar is already in use, it means dextrose. Ask anyone who homebrews.

Re:This is exactly right

[larry bagina]

A lot of candy manufacturers have moved out of the US, relocating to Canada or Mexico where they have access to cheap sugar. I'll bet the jobs lost from sugar tariffs exceeds the jobs saved (or "touched", as it's now measured) by sugar tariffs.

It does not matter what you call it

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Going Down Like Tobacco

[Doc Ruby]

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.

Re:newspeak

[gilesjuk]

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.

Re:The problem is anything that raises blood sugar

[Datamonstar]

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.