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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"?
I'm selling something called sprite. It's actually a glass of diethylmercury, but of course I wouldn't want you to know about that, so I renamed it.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
I've submitted several other names for the FDA's consideration. Healing Corn Make Sweeter, Corn Taste Better, and Yummy definitely not unhealthy Corn product.
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
Why can't these guys do the right thing and stop making this evil stuff? Playing a shell game with the facts does not change reality.
Kinda off topic, but is anyone else enjoying the "real-sugar" sodas that are in supermarkets? Man so delicious, I stocked up on it. I wish this was sold all the time.
...and won't be the last. "Confectioners' glaze" (common candy coating) sounds so much better than "lac bug secretion". "Gelatin" sounds so much better than "pig skin extract". "Carmine" (used for red coloring) sounds better than "cochineal insect secretion".
Sugar companys have vowed to protest this change to prevent their name being draged to the ground.
Still makes us all fat.
I don't see what the problem is. They should be able to change the name...
High Fructose Corn Sugar.
Now if they want to drop the "High Fructose" part, then that's going to be a problem.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
In response to [successful] bad press, the HFCS crowd is pushing for the rebranding the horrid syrup as "corn sugar". A waste of time and money, I wager, in the end. Ignoring the fact that it is reasonably well established that HFCS is not good for you, it tastes like crap. Compare yellow-capped Coke (yellow=kosher) with the "regular" sold in the US...there is no comparison (inexplicably, Coke only inflicts HFCS on the US market).
PETA recently attempted the same campaign to rebrand FISH as SEA KITTENS...apparently they felt that people wouldn't be so willing to eat something with a cuddly persona. Completely backfired with me...I had never thought of it before, but have you tried Kitten & Chips??? A new personal favorite. Kitten, the other, other white meat.
Who knows, maybe kitten tastes better in a nice HFCS glaze...
I'm pretty sure in Newspeak, it would be referred to as HiCorn.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Ask a doctor about corn syrup some time.
Every time I mention it, I get a response along the lines of..."Interesting.", or "I hadn't heard that.". The reason I bring it up is because it makes me sick, literally.
For many years I had severe heartburn. The doctors prescribed everything, none of it worked. In short, I received no relief by going to a doctor. Later, after deciding to experiment myself, I altered my diet. The first thing I focused on was the ingredient that was most pervasive--corn syrup.
I now avoid it like the plague. Within a month of removing it from my diet (as much as possible, the shit is in everything), the heartburn stopped entirely.
Since then, I have brought it up with every single doctor I have seen and they all react with the same indifferent, ambiguous reply. They all seem to know nothing about it, nor do they appear interested in the results I've experienced. And every time I see that response I have to ask myself why they aren't more interested--why? I've literally spent thousands of dollars trying to find a solution to a medical problem and they refuse to discuss a possible cause, casually dismissing my findings? Why?
The only logical conclusion I can come to, considering the stuff (corn syrup) has been in HEAVY use for decades now, is that the medical "industry" knows, but cannot monetize the solution--removing corn syrup from ones diet. Telling people to stop eating it would actually cut into their business. Corn syrup makes them money in the form of direct medical symptoms that need to be treated and the inherent medical problems associated with obesity. LOTS of money.
Try it next time you're at the doctors. Just say something like "Hey, a friend told me that corn syrup causes heartburn." and see what sort of response you get. Do a Google search. Notice how the vast majority of the sites that mention it are "alternative" medicine sources and bloggers? Where is the industry standpoint on the issue?
This entire experience has been enlightening for me, in a sad way. I now see doctors as humans with the same fallible nature as the rest of us--some are just greedy fucks that have not a care in the world for my actual health.
Per Amazon:
Corn Sugar is the common name for dextrose.
and per Wise Geek
Corn sugar is a natural sweetener that is made utilizing starch that is extracted from kernels of corn. The extracted cornstarch is then refined to create a solid sugar or to make another popular sweetening agent known as corn syrup...
The process for making corn sugar begins with the removal of starchy elements from the corn. The extracted elements are actually glucose, although the refining process will transform them into another form of sugar known as dextrose. With the production of syrup, the corn sugar becomes a high fructose corn syrup...
It sounds like "corn sugar" is already used to refer to a separate product. If they don't want to continue using "HFCS," then come up with another word, the same way they did with "Tilapia."
But I think they're shooting themselves in the foot. I mean, are they trying to give ammunition to the healthier foods? First, the other projects can continue to claim that they don't contain HFCS, and they can also make fun of the other brands for trying to hide what's in their foods.
I mean, it's going to be like a fucking field day for the health foods.
coding is life
One problem is that corn sugar is a synonym for dextrose, which is used as an adjunct in brewing. I don't think fructose is as fermentable, which would result in a very different product.
It's an accurate name. It's called high-fructose corn syrup because it has a lot more fructose than regular corn syrup, which is what HFCS is made from.
To be fair, "corn sugar" is slightly deceptive, in that it's renaming an existing product to make it sound similar to a different, more-desired product, but it's entirely accurate. Glucose, fructose, and sucrose, along with many others, are all sugars.
It's pretty amazing. Do the experiment yourself - get some "mexican coke" or Pepsi Throwback (with sugar), and some regular soda.
Over the course of 15 minutes, drink 2 cans of regular soda. No big deal, right? Later on or the next day, drink sugar-based soda, and after drinking under 12 ounces of it, you will likely feel full, and like you don't want to drink anymore, in a way thats very different from HFCS-soda. I'd be surpised if you can even finish 24oz of sugar soda in 15 min (without forcing yourself).
The difference is, with HFCS the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound.
Nicotine injection devices (formally known as cigarettes aka deathsticks).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
The Texas Rancher's Association has applied to their board of regents in hopes of changing the name of "Cow Patties" to "Cow Flowers" in hopes that people will think their bovine droppings smells good. No input yet from the manure retail industry but word is they're gearing up to put pictures of flowers on their bags to help enhance the new aroma.
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
To be fair, "corn sugar" is slightly deceptive, in that it's renaming an existing product to make it sound similar to a different, more-desired product, but it's entirely accurate. Glucose, fructose, and sucrose, along with many others, are all sugars.
Right, but glucose is the one that your body treats differently and which is, ironically, the problem with high *fructose* corn syrup. And isn't calling it sugar which it is, more accurate than calling it syrup? Does it have more in common with sugar or my bottle of cough syrup?
It seems like the original name was more deceptive than this change. Like I said, "high glucose sugar" would be the most accurate, since by the time they are done with it, it has little to do with corn.
Not quite, Corn syrup starts out as 100% glucose after being converted into either 55% fructose Corn Syrup or 42% fructose Corn Syrup, the most commonly used types, the products do certainly have higher levels of fructose than unmodified Corn Syrup hence the "High Fructose" descriptor. Cane sugar on the other hand starts out as sucrose. If we start taking about carbonated beverages when the sucrose is put into solution with water and carbonic acid(from CO2) and in most cases with phosphoric acid or citric acid you have a low pH environment. Under these conditions sucrose splits into its constituents glucose and fructose. At this point, a 50% free glucose and 50% free fructose solution has shown no medically significant difference with HFCS. Better yet, something that affects both HFCS soda and cane sugar soda is that the glucose will start to convert into fructose under abnormally high, usually improper storage temperatures (90F), making this entire 5% part meaningless. So yes, one can end up with cane sugar sodas that for whatever reason have higher percentages of fructose than HFCS sodas.
Also, anyone ever look at the ratio of glucose to fructose on fruits, they are all over the map. Apples, for instance, have 90% of their sugar as fructose.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
Or doubleplusgood sugar?
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
I don't know, but maybe it was made by Altria Group.
(Hint to editors: Altria Group changed their name because of the negative connotations of their previous name, Philip Morris.)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Unicorn sweetener.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
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!
You mean even if you *tattoo* lipstick on it, right? :)
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
This reminds me of when the Nuclear Power Industry, specifically Detroit Edison, referred to radiation as "Sunshine Units" at their cuddly exhibit at the Michigan State Fair back in the early 60s.
Syrup is entirely accurate; it's a viscous aqueous solution. Just like maple syrup or simple syrup. It seems conventional to call crystalline sugars "sugar" and sugars in solution "syrup".
Corn-Sugar is already in use, it means dextrose. Ask anyone who homebrews.
... but force every product containing it to show cigarette-like warning labels
Cane sugar has more fructose than high-fructose corn syrup.
Only if you're using hfcs-42.
Syrup is entirely accurate; it's a viscous aqueous solution. Just like maple syrup or simple syrup. It seems conventional to call crystalline sugars "sugar" and sugars in solution "syrup".
Perhaps. I would just rather educate people over the long-term than stick with known but somewhat inaccurate labels. I would like people to understand the dangers of glucose and all sugars, rather than just looking at a label, seeing HFCS isn't there, and guzzling their way to diabetes.
Refined sugar is bad for you. Period.
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.
HFCS-55 is 55% fructose. Cane sugar is sucrose, which is one quick reaction (which happens in the stomach before absorption of the sugar into the bloodstream) away from being 50% fructose. If the enemy is fructose, cane sugar is almost as bad as HFCS.
The enemy is our high-sugar diet in general. We should have switched over to Sweetleaf / Stevia 30 years ago, as it would have let us continue with our current taste in foods, only healthier.
But someone (corn or sugar lobby is the obvious culprit, but don't count out the artificial sugar guys, most of them are made by huge chem companies) had a friend in high places place a ban on the stuff back in the early 90s.
No doubt because you can replace sugar (and all artificial sugar) with processed Stevia at something like a 30 to 1 ratio -- I use 1/4th a teaspoon to make an entire pitcher of KoolAid, as opposed to a cup or whatnot of sugar. In other words, if we had switched to Stevia, all three of the HFCS, the Cane Sugar, and the cancer causing alternatives would have been rendered obsolete, incredibly rapidly. There's an interesting dynamic going on -- the sweetener industry uses something that's incredibly unhealthy but dirt cheap, and when that starts to go south they also sell us (equally if not worse) alternatives under the guise of "health food". All while ignoring an actual healthy alternative cause they can't control it.
The complaint was that "we just don't know if this Stevia thing is OK", and after banning they... promptly refused to study it to see if it WAS ok. It's a really common tactic, really.
Meanwhile, Japan's been using the stuff for 30 years with no ill effects. At all.
Oh, and they recently unbanned it (Maybe. They might have just "unbanned" the fake-but-patentable alternatives. See the Owndoc link above), but only after huge chemical company Cargil and artificial sweetener company Merisant -- aka the GM seed jerks and makers of Roundup, Monsanto -- found a way to make cancer-causing, but patentable, alternatives -- Truvia (Coke/Cargil) and Purvia (Pepsi/Monsanto).
Since Stevia's an incredibly easy to grow herb (you almost definitely can find a powdered or liquid version at your local store in the health food section, or a live plant the gardening section when it's that time of year), well, they couldn't compete with THAT.
Meanwhile, if you do grow it yourself, tossing a leaf or two in with one's tea sweetens it up quite perfectly. Enjoy.
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.
Great, now i have to avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup And "Corn Sugar" I don't see what the point is. Boy cot this shit. Vote with your dollars is the only way to really make change happen.
newspeak=doubleplusungood
FTFY
What ? Me, worry ?
Cane sugar has essentially no free-form fructose. Refined cane sugar is nearly pure sucrose, a disaccharide. Admittedly, it is composed glucose and fructose structures, they are chemically bonded and is not metabolised the same way as either one of the monosaccharides (glucose and fructose).
HFCS is an engineered product that takes regular corn syrup (essential pure glucose) and turns it into a mixture of free form glucose and fructose in order to produce a substance that tastes the same (sweetness-wise) as table/cane sugar.
"Corn Sugar" would actually be distinctly incorrect if used to refer to HFCS, as that term is already used to refer to crystalline glucose (Commonly known in the food world as dextrose).
Search for stevia, it is very sweet but contains no sugar. It's a shame producers are so stubborn about pushing unhealty food when perfectly good alternatives exists.
Tomorrow is another day...
You forgot to add that if you use to sweeten things to a high level it tastes like crap. I use it in small amounts for tea and it works OK, but my wife likes things very sweet and the aftertaste is worst than any of the "artificial" sweeteners out there.
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;
***I'm pretty sure in Newspeak, it would be referred to as HiCorn.***
More likely - 'synthetic honey' -- which wouldn't be all that inaccurate for the most common form of HFCS - HFCS-55. I doubt the stuff is good for you but the cancer and diabetes stuff is probably -- like most all pop-culture medical stuff and entirely too much "serious" medical advice -- pretty much unmitigated bullshit. Obesity? Well, yeah a six pack a day of drinks loaded with honey or its equivalent mix of fructose and dextrose(glucose) will probably put some pounds on the addicts.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
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.
I'm propose a new ad campaign along the lines of "Got Milk!?". In this case it would be "Get fruct!!!!"
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The most commonly used HFCS has 55% fructose and 42% glucose. Table sugar, broken down, is 50% fructose and 50% glucose.
HFCS is evil. Causes obesity, cancers, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases. Why? Because it raises blood sugar levels, which raises insulin levels.
What else raises your blood sugar?
Whole wheat bread? Check.
Orange juice? Check.
Oatmeal? Check.
The problem at this point is that only HFCS is blamed, when in fact, any consumption of any object that raises your blood sugar levels is going to lead to chronic disease. The problem, of course, is that many of these things have been touted as "healthy" for the past 40 years.
And you wonder why we've had an obesity epidemic since the 70s....
The problem is, HFCS-55 fails to trigger the satiety reflex properly. And the vast majority of items it's put into are items that already aren't so great for you.
Soda/pop is particularly bad because it combines multiple known agents: caffeine (diuretic), carbonic acid (makes the tissues of mouth and throat feel dry), sodium chloride (ever drink salt water? Notice how it doesn't help you quench thirst?), and HFCS-55 rather than actual sugar to bypass satiety reflex. "Diet" sodas are even worse; nutrasweet dries out the mouth tissues in an action very similar to the carbonic acid, for a "double whammy."
The end result being that you can guzzle a 64-ounce Big Gulp down, feel yourself needing to pee, and at the same time still feel thirsty right after you finish the damn thing. Or in other words: go ahead. Drink your weight in nectar, lardo.
Its possible to get from cornstarch to simple sugars without all the sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. They wouldn't have as tight a control on the exact percentages of glucose and fructose, but I still don't get how all that extra work pays off. The steps leading up to the conversion to fructose are all fairly "natural", using types of fungus and what not. I for one don't consume sugar unless it has been processed by the pet yeast I keep in the fridge. Right now they are working on some apple juice and honey.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Carbon dioxide is a major component of vinegar.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Actually the diabetes is for-real and not "pop-culture" medicine. Go reading up on the research. It causes major insulin spikes (because it goes into the bloodstream and doesn't respond to insulin (glucose does that)- and it is processed only by your liver.
Drinking a corn-syrup sweetened soda is very much like drinking a beer without the drunk- with the same impact on your system.
HCFS is NOT the same as sucrose, contrary to anything the industry has said on the subject. It's two monosaccarides instead of a disaccaride just for starters- it metabolizes completely differently with differing metabolic effects on you.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Uh... Cancer causing? Do you even KNOW what's in Truvia/Purevia?
Stevia Rubandia A extract and Erythritol...
If what they're making is cancer-causing, then you're plugging cancer-causing. The only reason they pressured the FDA to allow it, had nothing to do with "cancer-causing" stuff, but rather that they found a patentable way to make big piles of cash cleanly producing sweetener out of an unpatentable plant.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
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
Heh... Depends on if you're using "SweetLeaf" or if you're using Truvia/Purevia. If you're using pure stevia, yeah, it's got this "nifty" licorice aftertaste if you've gotten carried away. The aftertaste isn't QUITE as bad with Stevia blended with Xylitol or Erythritol- and it's actually not as bad as most of the other stuff. Your mileage may vary, but I've had less issues with Stevia than with the other stuff- and I can't do anything with Nutrasweet, so much of the stuff out there is not available to me.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
the "health food" industry will sell you fructose telling people that it is a "more natural and healthy" sweetener.
Very true. Ever see Agave Nectar in health food stores? It can be up to 90% fructose. Which can't possibly be good for people with fructose malabsorption syndrome .
According to this video, HFCS causes a similar amount of harm to the liver per unit as Ethanol, without the fun of being drunk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM Can anyone rebuke this gentleman's claims? Because at the moment I'm simply taking anything i see with HFCS in the ingredients list out of my shopping cart.
Go ahead and search, you will never find it all, I am baking muffins as I speak. - ComicBook Guy
The Corn Refiners Association calls itself a "trade group". Basically it is a propaganda and lobbying machine. Increasingly and accurately people are realizing that corn syrup, specifically high fructose corn syrup, isn't exactly the healthiest thing you can feed yourself and your children. It's in damn near everything that, Americans at least, eat today. It's cheap to produce and appealing to the taste buds. The CRA seems to think that if they change the name of the product they represent, we'll all forget that it's making us fat.
I commend the CRA for tackling the issue so directly. It's widely known that the side-effects associated to high fructose corn syrup are nothing but a placebo effect triggered by (1) a gibberish chemical sounding name and (2) the bad reputation the product has gotten through the years.
Changing its name is a reliable way to improve consumers' health.
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.
in the realm of obesity. I haven't found any mainstream medical articles claiming one is worse than the other, but to lay the blame on corn syrup only is not right. Obesity isn't the property of one ingredient in food, it is from over eating any number of foods. Over eating being taking in more calories than you burn.
As with everything else these days people need someone else to blame for their condition. So we blame the products or the ingredients of those products or even the producer instead of ourselves. It is like the alcoholic who blames the beer manufacturers for his woes. It is, in a sense, what has been wrong with the current generation or two. Blame someone else, someone else will take care of it, etc.
In other words, unless an ingredient is outright harmful it all comes down to how we use it. Want to lick obesity, stop eating so much. Take responsibility for yourself, your family. Don't look for someone else to blame for you woes. Guess what, that same idea works wonders for most aspects of life
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Gelatin might sound better then horse bone jelly but we all know that is what it really is. So there is no hiding going on. Anymore then "eggs" is hiding "unborn children pooped out by a maggot eating flightless bird".
But this is RENAMING a product that has a bad name, to try to hide it. It is like BP renaming itself to "American Petroleum" to avoid the bad publishity.
There is nothing unhealthy about the products you mention (as far as I know), it is just labelling that has always been there. Honestly in labeling doesn't mean companies have to use the worsed description possible for their products. Even an apple (the fruit, not the company) would sound bad. Dying plant embroyo covered with (insect foot prints and drool/pesticide). Yummy!
And honey sales would just dry up completly.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'd be happy to allow the name change if the corn subsidies were discontinued. How about that?
If fructose is so much worse than sucrose, then why is it frequently used as an alternative sweetener to sucrose for diabetics? (See, for example, manufacturers such as Fifty 50)
Fructose causes blood glucose levels to rise more slowly than glucose (duh...) or sucrose. As a result, it is a better sweetener for diabetics. Sucrose needs to be split into its components (glucose and sucrose) followed by chemical reactions that convert fructose to glucose. Fructose needs to be converted in its entirety.
However HFCS is pretty bad news, due to that 45% glucose which can be immediately absorbed into the bloodstream (even through the cheeks!) without any processing by the body, it's actually worse than sucrose for diabetics. (It took me a while to get used to "High fructose corn syrup != fructose".)
(I've been a Type I diabetic for over 15 years.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"You don't want to sell me deathsticks. You want to go home and rethink your life."
Irony? Yea, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron!
No, sucrose is split immediately into glucose and fructose, which from that point is metabolized exactly the same as that in HFCS. There is reasonable evidence that fructose may be bad for you, but you get about the same amount of fructose from typically used HFCS as you do from sucrose. HFCS contains slightly more fructose relative to glucose than does sucrose, but it is also sweeter, so less of it is used. It ends up being pretty much a wash. Details and references to primary scientific literature can be found here.
(inexplicably, Coke only inflicts HFCS on the US market).
There is actually a simple explanation for this. HFCS is so pervasive in the US because of tariffs and import quotas. Prices for sugar in the US are far higher than the rest of the world to protect US sugar growers (why they are so influential, I have no idea- I couldn't even tell you where in the US they grow sugar). We could happily be importing sugar from the Caribbean and Mexico at a fraction of the cost, but the gov't has not yet reduced the tariffs on sugar. At this point, it is probably because the corn syrup market is gigantic, and the corn lobby is likely actively working against touching those tariffs.
Congress reduced the amount of sugar that can be imported into the US in the early 80's. Coke switched to corn syrup shortly after, and well you know the rest... you can't even eat bread these days without ingesting HFCS.
I think the underlying problem here is how we regulate and define "natural" additives to our food products. I'd have to say that if there is not a metabolic pathway that has regulatory mechanisms to control uptake of said molecule, then it is NOT natural. Sure it came from nature, but that doesnt mean that we'd eat it in nature. 50% or more of the health problems in modern society come from the fact that we don't eat what we've been eating for the past 100,000+ years (the rest probably come from sleep disturbance). Natural has been defined as "not made in a petrochemical factory" for waaaaayyyy too long, for it to have any relevance to human beings it needs to be defined in human terms and take into account many facts about what we (and with respect to food how our body breaks down and converts food into energy). Good luck getting a meaningful definition of natural though, it would cost the agroindustrial complex billions.
Jesus, I hate the HFCS debate. Look, HFCS is bad. You know why?
Because it's fucking sugar. Sugar makes you fat, no matter where it's from. If you use more, it makes you more fat.
HFCS is an economic problem, not a chemical problem. People like things that are sweet, and HFCS is a very cheap way to make things sweet. Take away the HFCS, and you'll just get a more expensive product with the same amount of sugar, or a product that isn't as tasty.
If you want people to get less fat, try putting less sugar, of any kind, into your products. First you'll have to get them to agree to buy those products, which don't taste as good. GLWT.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Reminds me of when Windscale power plant suddenly changed its name to Sellafield. The populace is so dumb, they'll never figure it out! They could call it maize sugar and that would really throw the discerning consumer off the scent.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
>>>It must be that 50% sweeter than traditional sugar that has a lower GI and so you both need less and get less hungry and burn more calories digesting it. Maybe that 50% extra sweetness means that they only have to go down the shop 10 times a week to buy a kilo of sugar instead of the 15 times they did with cane sugar,
>>>
I have no idea what you just said, or your intended point.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Too made there is NO good study the backs your uninformed opinion.
"HCFS is NOT the same as sucrose"
That statement makes exactly no sense. ou think Sugar is just sucrose? or do you think there isn't any sucrose in HFCS?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Here, read this:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4157
people will site 'studies' about HFCS. usually this one:
http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/HFCS_Rats_10.pdf
HINT: it's not really a good study.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So much of the discussion seems to be a "Battle of the Sweeteners".
My beef (and other meat) with corn is how much there is in our diets. Start your day off with a bowl of corn-sweetened, puffed or flaked corn cereal moistened with the milk from corn-fed beef. For lunch, some corn-fed meat and HFCS-based condiment, a bag of crunchy corn chips, washed down with some carbonated HFCS. Repeat for dinner.
Cattle are supposed to eat grasses, not corn. Much energy (drive an e-85 vehicle to the fast food drive-thru?) is used to convert corn into something cattle can digest (with the help of antibiotics and growth hormones).
Of course this isn't just any corn, it's an industrial monoculture created and patented by Monsanto.
The corn I grew in the garden was great this year, but I couldn't help being reminded how much corn is already in our diets. At least the stuff in the garden still had some bran fiber left. It seems like a filler, added to everything because the corn producers need to turn inventory into profit.
Corn. It's what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
Plus ca change, plus c'est les memes choses.
If HFCS gets renamed to "sugar", then regular sugar should be renamed to "sucrose". HFCS and regular sugar are not the same chemical compound, so they need to be called differently.
is that you have no clue why Corn subsidies exist. either that or you hate the idea of a stable food supply.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Incorrect. Altria Group changed their name to reflect their conglomerate status where Phillip Morris was less than 50% of the company. Shortly after changing their name to Altria they spun off Phillip Morris and Kraft as separate companies that are no longer owned by Altria.
Choose a better example next time as the name Change by Phillip Morris was done with the knowledge that the real Phillip Morris (the part of the company that actually produced cig's) would be spun out as quickly as the SEC would allow Altria to split the company into 3 parts.
I wonder if it would be better to sweeten with glucose instead of sucrose or HFCS. It's not a simple question, even if fructose is harmful, because it would probably lead to people consuming more calories, as glucose is not as sweet as sucrose or HFCS.
Sucrose == fructose and glucose. There's no difference chemically, or in how it's absorbed by the body.
That's simply not true. Sucrose is a disaccharide. The fructose and glucose components are covalently bonded. It's the same kind of bond that forms starches, chitin or cellulose out of simple sugars.
Granted, the body readily converts sucrose into glucose and fructose -- but that this process must take place means that sucrose and HFCS are not exactly the same.
Both are equally bad for you.
That *may* be true. It is even *probably* true. But it is not *necessarily* true. The arguments that the body (for most people) breaks down sucrose into fructose and glucose is *plausible*, but it too crude to be convincing.
As yet, I have heard no news that there is any observed empirical difference on things like postprandial blood chemistry between sucrose and HFCS. This is not surprising. But these studies are relatively recent, and focus on research populations that are well chosen for this phase of research, but which may not tell the whole story (e.g. young, healthy, non-obese women).
We know there is at least one subset of people for whom the two sweeteners are definitely not the same -- sucrose intolerant people. Whether they are the only exception it is too early to tell.
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So, it's guilt by association?
I agree that it's not unreasonable to suspect. But it seems to me that a suspicion should lead to investigation rather than directly to a crusade.
It's easy to trot out examples where something was suspected of having bad effects which turned out to be true. But how many foods were blamed for ulcers before we discovered that they were largely bacterial? And, of course, everyone knew they are caused by stress. Except that they aren't. (Probably.)
When a problem arises, be it widespread lung cancer or obesity, it's tempting to find a correlation and lay the blame on some industry's feet. This is bound to be right sometimes. (Correlation doen't imply causation . . . but it always accompanies causation!) It's hard to be circumspect, reserve judgement, and come up with the right solution without leaving a trail of failed scapegoats behind.
So, I'm absolutely willing to listen to evidence that HFCS more problematic than sucrose, because I absolutely acknowledge the possibility that it is. But possibility and certainty are worlds apart.
-Peter
fructose is 50% sweeter than normal sugar, and has a lower GI (that is it takes longer for your body to absorb it[you don't get so hungry] and more energy to break it down).
My point being, people who eat lots of ketchup and fizzy drinks seem to like to say that it's a very healthy form of sugar (the sugar that's in fruit) causing the problems, not the burgers and pizza they have with the ketchup and fizzy drinks.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
apples and pears are both fruit (which contain fructose) and the names given to the two key distributions of fat deposits on people.
the other point was that they are ordering their food over the internet and the only exercise they get is collecting the bag/s of sugar that get delivered at the door.
Fructose being 50% sweeter, you'll need 50% less. So, you'll be carrying 2/3 the weight of normal sugar from the door, to the spot next to the sofa where you keep the sugar for easy access. Hence, 50% less exercise and a reason for health problems.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.