High Fructose Corn Syrup To Get a Makeover 646
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.'"
What the hell? (Score:3, Insightful)
"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? (Score:4, Funny)
What's in a name?
Well, would you be inclined buy something accurately labelled as "soy juice", or would you buy "soy milk" instead? Personally, I prefer moo cow fuck milk [youtube.com] for both the honesty and the wholesome goodness, with the added benefit of not spending my time reading manufacturer labels.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Needs a new ad campaign (Score:4, Funny)
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!!!!"
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
This is much like the news from earlier this year about Aspartame being renamed as AminoSweet, by its manufacturer Ajinomoto. There has been a growing awareness of the dangers of Aspartame, so renaming their product is presumably an attempt to confuse the public.
So now the same thing is being done by renaming high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar," also presumably because of its bad reputation. I will be sure to watch for either of those new names when shopping, so that I can avoid products that contain either "corn sugar" or AminoSweet.
Here are a couple of articles about the renaming a Aspartame as AminoSweet:
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's what I think I know about HFCS:
The human body is not geared to consume it and results in stress and even damage to internal organs.
That's about all I think I know. I have heard nothing about making cancer cells multiply. When you say this, do you mean to say that it causes cancer cells to increase their rate of growth over control groups without HFCS present? Rather than implying, I would rather see such statements made clearly. Also, while I am not doubting, do you have any references to cite?
I think what we are seeing is a similar sort of public rejection that was witnessed with "Nutrasweet." When people learned the harm it could do, they started avoiding anything with Nutrasweet on the label. So what was the industry's response? They took it off the label... not out of the products though. It's still in there. Look for "aspartame" in the ingredients.
And it's not like there isn't a better alternative. There is in sweetleaf. It's just that the various industries like making money the way they are -- especially the corn farmers.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny thing is, it's not as if high-fructose corn syrup is actually worse for you than a similar amount of cane sugar. The problem is not HFCS as much as it is "foods loaded with sugar."
That's not necessarily true [reuters.com].
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
And not according to these guys either:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/ [princeton.edu]
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
I also noticed that when I stopped eating crap that had HFCS in it, I no longer got drowsy in the afternoon. In fact I can tell right away when I've eaten something with HFCS in it, as I inevitably get drowsy not long afterwards. Needless to say I avoid it like the plague now, and so far have lost 40lbs since I stopped eating it.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Only the higher percentage HFCS is sweeter ... so either they use HFCS-90 or it has just as many calories.
The exact type of HFCS is rarely mentioned and wikipedia's justification for saying HFCS-90 is rarely used is a single article by an industry shill. Are there any independent tests of glucose/fructose ratios in soft drinks?
Agreed (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Re:Agreed (Score:4, Informative)
HFCS is used in virtually every sweetened store-bought product in the US, except for organic and some high-end foods. Most American processed foods are very sweet, and even products that wouldn't traditionally have much or any sweetening are sweetened with HFCS, such as bread and pasta sauce.
Foods and drinks sweetened without HFCS are available, but generally these are more expensive or organic items.
HFCS is only used because corn syrup is significantly cheaper than cane/beet sugar in the US (pretty much uniquely in the world). This is because corn is highly subsidized and because there are relatively few domestic sugar producers and there are prohibitive tariffs on imported sugar, plus the fact that there is an embargo on the closest large sugar-producing country, Cuba
Generally, HFCS is considered to have an identical or worse taste compared to real sugar, though it would be hard to actually measure this. Anecdotally I do find imported Coke from Mexico (with real sugar) to taste somewhat better than domestic HFCS Coke, though I don't drink either enough to really compare.
Re:Agreed (Score:4, Informative)
HFCS is generally used in everything here, thanks to corn subsidies. It actually costs more (pre-subsidy) to make HFCS than it does to use real sugar, but thanks to subsidies it is actually cheaper to use HFCS. As a result EVERYTHING has HFCS, and real sugar is vanishingly rare outside of niche products (organic labels, etc...) that cost around twice as much.
Judging from the Buzz surrounding Mexican and Passover Coke (which use cane sugar, instead of HFCS), I would say a large portion of the population, or at least a vocal population, prefer the real sugar variety over the HFCS variety. Though this might have something to do with age, since older people grew up with sugar sweetened beverages, while the younger generation (sometime in the mid-80s) grew up with the HFCS types.
I'm personally more annoyed with people adding sweeteners to EVERYTHING. I feel like I might be one of the few people in the world who lack a sweet tooth. I'm especially annoyed with them ruining tomatoes and sweet corn, both are now so sweet that they make my jaw hurt.
Americans have the palette of a two year old. The sweeter the better.
It does help explain why we are so damn fat, though.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
You must not have been around before the switch to corn syrup. Coca Cola was awesome back then.
And Pepsi Throwback and Heritage Dr Pepper are awesome today. It's unfortunate that they only make them in occasional limited batches.
I don't much care for Mt Dew Throwback, though. The HFCS version is my favorite soft drink and the real sugar I guess just doesn't taste artificial enough.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if it were possible to have cravings for soda
wtf?
You honestly don't believe you can have cravings for soda?
Do a google search for things like soda craving, caffeine addiction, or even soda addiction. Caffeine is an addictive substance, and you will even have withdrawal symptoms from it if you give it up quickly. What do most sodas contain? The ones that dont are things like some root beers, and some lemon lime sodas (Sprite and 7-up). You dont see many people who drink those continuously, like you do the caffeine addicts with the Coke and the Mt.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not HFCS vs Sugar. It's Sugars vs Stevia. (Score:4, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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 [owndoc.com] 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 [wikipedia.org] and artificial sweetener company Merisant [wikipedia.org] -- 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.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm neither a Chemist nor a nutritionist, so corrections are welcome!
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
As soon as I saw your comment, I knew something was wrong with that. Table sugar is pure sucrose, for all intent and purpose. Fructose is also very different than High Fructose Corn Syrup, which itself is around 55% fructose. The fructose isn't the problem (it occurs in nature) its the process that is used that creates products that are NOT found in nature. Just as hydrogenation turns good old fashioned corn oil into artery clogging transfats. There is some credible evidence that it screws up your appetite and makes you crave even more, which isn't good.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah-ha! You found me out!
Oh, wait, no you didn't. Sucrose [wikipedia.org] is not an alternative to fructose and glucose, it is a combination of them. From the linked article:
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? (Score:4, Informative)
My college biochemistry texts caught on fire while I was reading this thread... yours is the only even nearly-correct post.
Fructose is just fruit sugar, or half of a sucrose (table sugar) molecule. Fructose takes an extra step to get broken down down to glucose so is not as efficiently used by the body, but this is nothing different from the fructose half of sucrose.
If you think fructose is bad, stop eating fruit, cuz it's the sugar you'll find therein. You could just as well call it "fruit sugar" as "corn sugar" -- both are correct.
Honey is chemically indistinguisable from HFCS-55. In fact HFCS is sometimes used to illegally "stretch" honey, and the only way to tell HFCS from honey is by the pollen-protein contaminants found in honey. Amazingly, the people who are first to condemn HFCS are usually also the first to tout honey as a "natural replacement" for sugar... when in fact it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. (Where DID you think the bees got the sugars in honey, anyway??)
HFCS is only "high fructose" in comparsion to regular corn syrup.
HFCS use in foods has been declining, yet obesity continues to rise ... kinda kills that as a direct correlation, eh?
Most of the other, uh, fructose-cake arguments are so biochemically nonsensical that I don't even know where to start.
My own objection to HFCS is that food doesn't taste quite right when fructose is used as a substitute for sucrose, and this irritates my supertaster senses. However, corn syrup is perfectly good for use in certain candies, where its flavour is expected.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt bees use the same refining process that is used to produce most HFCS.
Can you link to this decline in HFCS use?
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
If you only focus on the biochemistry part of the process, you are missing out on the biological ones. The fact that two molecules can be nearly indistinguishable from a chemistry point of view does not mean that their biological impact can not be radically different. For a simple example:
Lactic acid comes is present in two stereo-isomer configurations. Chemically, they are identical during an oxidation process. However, the body metabolizes both differently.
That extra step that you mention to break down Fructose can have an impact on where in the body the molecule is being processed. Also, don't forget that before the fructose and glucose enter the metabolic cycle, a large number of processes have already taken place in the body, and those processes might have a different effect on the body. (Reaction to insulin, etc)
So, just because fructose might be (bio)chemically similar, this doesn't mean that biologically it is similar.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
People do call fructose "fruit sugar", but the FDA does not allow HFCS to be called "fructose", since (as you point out) it isn't. Nor can it be labeled "sugar", which it is, due to the chemical processes involved (much like how you have to specify that fat is hydrogenated, even though it's still just fat).
Citation needed, and here it is: HFCS use in food has declined about about 20% per capita, since the high point in 2002 (source, table 50) [usda.gov]. In fact, the use of caloric sweeteners has fallen by 15%, while obesity has increased by 15% in the same time period (source) [ama-assn.org].
Of course, HFCS consumption still correlates positively with obesity on the individual level – just not directly. More HFCS generally implies more junk food.
Oh, if only logic worked... The obsession with HFCS vs. fructose vs. cane sugar vs. honey is the same old fantasy of being able to eat all the crap you want as long as it's the right kind of crap.
Obesity as a biological problem was solved ages ago: consume less energy and/or expend more. Science will eventually solve the psychological problem that you can't eat that donut even though you really want to, but until then, wishing really hard won't make it come true. And trying does not help.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
The argument against fructose has to do with the way the GLUT transporters are regulated. Glucose uptake into the liver is regulated by insulin mediated GLUT4 translocation and GK etc preventing too much of it from going into the liver and getting converted to FA/VLDL and so forth. Fructose can only be metabolised in the liver (unlike glucose) and its uptake into the liver is not insulin mediated as it is transported in by GLUT2.
On the other hand, you could make the argument that sucrose is at least half as bad as fructose since it has about half amount of fructose by weight but fructose is sweeter than sucrose by weight so if one uses the proper proportion it isn't that much worse..
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Cane sugar is 50% fructose, in exactly the same way that baking soda (NaHCO3) is 50% lye (NaOH).
PROTIP: if you want to retry this troll, replace "sugar" with "honey". Honey is ~40% fructose, ~30% glucose. Bonus credit if you start calling honey "medium fructose bee syrup".
HTH.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Insightful)
"...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? (Score:4, Informative)
The stigma was so bad that the famous cereal Sugar Pops [google.com] dropped the word from its name and was renamed to the Corn Pops that we enjoyed with our Thundercats and G.I. Joe. Another example is Sugar Smacks, [google.com] which was renamed to Honey Smacks.
Also: Kentucky Fried Chicken successfully pushed to be known as just "KFC" because of the stigma surrounding the word "fried."
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
The ratio of Fructose to Glucose generated by our digestive system while digesting Sucrose is almost identical to the contents of HFCS.
Table sugar is not a syrup; syrup is created through hydrolysis. Hydrolysis of cane sugar produces cane syrup. Eating any kind of syrup is different from eating granulated sugar. When cane sugar is used in a drink it's hydrolyzed into syrup, or the product wouldn't be commercially viable - the sugar would crystalize in the bottle while on the shelf and add a granular texture to the drink. It's only the lemonade or whatever you whip up at home for instant consumption that actually contains sucrose. While some hydrolysis occurs in the gut after eating granular sugar, it's a limited process. The presence of syrups in the blood produces an insulin response, but fat cells are unable to store it. So they absorb all other glucose from the bloodstream, lowering blood sugar. It's not until the liver has metabolised the syrup that fat cells can absorb it and insulin levels return to normal. As a result the insulin response is longer and the non-syrup blood sugar drops lower than if you ate plain sugar. Apart from making you fatter this also has the effect of reducing insulin sensitivity and inducing fatigue. Over time you get fat, lazy, and diabetic.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Informative)
Funny thing is, it's not as if high-fructose corn syrup is actually worse for you than a similar amount of cane sugar. The problem is not HFCS as much as it is "foods loaded with sugar."
Maybe, maybe not. While your essential point is sound, from TFA:
When glucose (contained in sugar) enters the bloodstream, it stimulates production of insulin and of a hormone called leptin, which signals to the brain that the body has eaten enough. By contrast, the fructose contained in high fructose corn syrup doesn’t stimulate the production of leptin. Studies also show that fructose is processed into fat more quickly than is glucose.
A friend of mine made a related point, though. These days you see a lot of things like so-called "natural" sodas which claim to be sweetened with "evaporated cane syrup." I defy anybody to give me a scientific explanation why this is not merely sugar with another name. If sugar is too scary for "health" foods, it stands to reason that "high fructose corn syrup" should be too scary a name for junk food. Why should junk food makers be left out? (More to the point, why should the companies who sell their sodas at Whole Foods get away with it?)
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody has a legitimate legally protected interest in deception. Unless they are willing to let us pay for the food with "dollurs", I say they should use the non-confusing name people already recognize.
They're required to call it high fructose because it is NOT unadulterated corn syrup (glucose and dextrose). It tastes different and works differently in food. Evidence suggests it behaves differently in the body as well. In commonly used formulations, it's not even mostly corn syrup (In soft drinks they use 55% fructose 45% corn syrup).
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
There is no doubt that ingesting sugar could lead to a "sugar spike" in the bloodstream, but it's unlikely to cause any harm in a healthy individual. Your post implies sugar spikes cause Type II Diabetes. While sugar spikes can be a symptom of Type II Diabetes, there is no evidence that they are a cause of the disease. In fact, there is quite a lot of evidence suggesting sugars do not contribute directly in any way. They do, however, contribute to obesity which is a considerable factor. One could ingest large quantities of fruits for a quick fructose rush immediately followed by sucking down pixie stix for their sucrose topped off with several spoonfuls of honey (which is similar to HFCS) daily and not develop diabetes from it.... unless they got fat from it & lack of exercise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus_type_2 [wikipedia.org]
It's a bit odd that you attribute Type II Diabetes as being caused by a sugar spike b/c the body couldn't produce enough insulin -- when type II diabetes is generally caused by insulin resistance. The pancreas pumps out enough insulin just fine -- just not enough relatively b/c the body resists using it. It's the body's cells that resist absorbing the sugar with the help of the insulin that is the culprit.
The most prescribed treatment for type II diabetics is to avoid fatty foods and start exercising regularly b/c more than half the cases are caused, at least in part, by being overweight. People generally know that diabetes is a sugar-related disorder, so it's easy for people to get confused and mistakenly link the intake of sugar with being one of the many contributing factors that causes the disorder.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you're not a big fan of fresh fruits then?
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Funny)
I say we petition the government to outlaw glucose as well. ;)
And while you are at it, outlaw livers (glucose pushers) as well.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not fraud, technically it is sugar. Anyone who actually cares about it (apparently you think it gives you cancer) will realize the change.
I point-blank did not say that corn syrup causes cancer: nor, I might add, did the article I linked. Guess you didn't bother to read it.
... I really try hard to avoid the stuff.) Unsweetened foods are hard to find and often more expensive, but I know what they can do to me. Maybe I'm more aware of the risks than most, because my father died of complications from diabetes. But, if that study is correct and fructose does cause certain cancer cells to divide more rapidly, well that could (for example) be something for cancer patients to be aware of when planning their menu. It wouldn't surprise me to find that increased use of corn syrup in the past few decades has increased the prevalence of certain kinds of cancer, and we may very well find other significant differences between cane sugar and corn syrup: more research is needed.
I just said the two aren't the same. Yes, chemically they are all "sugars" but that doesn't mean we can't be specific, nor does it mean that all compounds in that family have the same effect on the human body. Considering that just about everything we eat in this country is over-sweetened with either "real" sugar or corn syrup, it would be nice to have some idea if one is worse than the other, and why.
I avoid all kinds of sugar on general principle (I use unsweetened ketchup, unsweetened fruit juices
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
High fructose corn syrup != fructose.
HFC doesn't exist in nature, fructose does. Just as hydrogenated shortening (transfats) don't exist in nature but butter and lard does. And look it up your self, there is plenty out there with a simple Googling.
Re:newspeak (Score:5, Insightful)
Or doubleplusgood sugar?
Re:newspeak (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:newspeak (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:newspeak (Score:4, Interesting)
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.)
Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
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 [sciencebasedmedicine.org].
Re:newspeak (Score:4, Insightful)
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:What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
HCFS is, by design, essentially liquid table sugar. 50% of it is fructose. Just like table sugar.
Umm .... NO!
It's not. "Table Sugar" is sucrose. HFCS is a mix of fructose and glucose.
Yes, sucrose is a disaccharide made up of glucose and fructose. No, that doesn't make them the same. You understand the difference between a mixture and a compound, don't you? And that these compounds can have radically different properties to the elements they're made up from?
I mean, that was something we learned in chemistry class at the age of about 10.
Re:What the hell? (Score:5, Informative)
On another note, I'm from Europe and find the US debate over HFCS somewhat fascinating. Here, the "health food" industry will sell you fructose telling people that it is a "more natural and healthy" sweetener. My conclusion is nonetheless that if you want to eat something sweet and stay healthy, eat fruit or something such - don't screw around with candy.
Re:What the hell? (Score:4, Informative)
Um, no. (Score:5, Insightful)
When manufacturers start *printing "No HFCS!" on packaging*, your ship has pretty much sailed, folks.
So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense, from now on, cigarettes will have pictures of balloons on the brightly colored packages and they'll be known as FunStix. PCBs will be yum-yums and DDT will be freedom spray. Melamine shall be known as "Baby Formula"...OH Wait!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Can we start calling cigarettes, "All natural inhaled plant extracts"?
Probably not, since there's a lot of crap in there in addition to the tobacco that's probably not all that natural.
Re:So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hand rolled cigars. They are still bad for you.
With apologies to The Bard (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Real sugar soda (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Real sugar soda (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Very much on-topic. I grew up on Coca Cola as a kid long before the switch to corn syrup, and I don't care what anyone says, high-fructose corn syrup is not the same as cane sugar. There was nothing quite like a tall glass bottle of Coke, ice-cold, on a hot summer's day. So yes, I have tried the "real-sugar" sodas (just for old time's sake) and yeah, it was good. Sad to say, thanks to the switch to corn-based sweetener, Coca Cola hasn't been "it" for some time now.
Not the first time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not the first time (Score:5, Funny)
Shellac, what can't it do? It really IS a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Well, gelatin can have many sources, not just pig and not just skin.
Re:Not the first time (Score:4, Informative)
Penny Arcade had a great comic describing this very thing.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/4/7/ [penny-arcade.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tortured Baby Cow Parmesan just doesn't have the same ring to it. But I'm sure it'd be equally as delicious.
A rose by any other name (Score:4, Insightful)
Still makes us all fat.
"Corn Sugar" & "Sea Kittens" -- stupid rebran (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [peta.org]...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...
Name already taken? (Score:5, Informative)
Per Amazon [amazon.com]:
Corn Sugar is the common name for dextrose.
and per Wise Geek [wisegeek.com]
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.
In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Dear Neckbeards (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the HFCS, it's your ass, in that chair, 12 hours a day
my vote for renaming HFCS (Score:5, Funny)
STOP CORN SUBSIDIES (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:STOP CORN SUBSIDIES (Score:5, Interesting)
You still need the healthcare. If you don't die of one thing, you'll die of another.
You might be much better able to PAY for the healthcare - obesity and its accompanying diseases occur in relatively young people. Here in the UK where our healthcare is universal, we actually have people arguing that we should be more widely offering stomach stapling surgery, especially for younger recipients, because the benefits outweigh the costs - what the state pays in surgical costs will be more than made up for by the patient getting thinner, getting back to work, and paying their taxes again.
I was recently watching a documentary on wartime rationing - as a nation we had never been fed better. Our kids were taller and stronger than they ever had been, at a time of adversity and privation, because we were actually educated on what was good to eat - not so we could get thinner, but so we could be strong enough to carry on even though our supplies were limited. We grew vegetables. We ATE the vegetables.
Re:STOP CORN SUBSIDIES (Score:5, Interesting)
The only reason there is cheap high fructose corn syrup is because the massive corn subsides make the process cheap and profitable. If there were none, sweetener would be pure sugar from beats or cane. Falsely cheap corn because of subsidies causes uses for it that would normally not be economical nor profitable.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Corn-Sugar is already in use (Score:5, Insightful)
Corn-Sugar is already in use, it means dextrose. Ask anyone who homebrews.
Give them that... (Score:3, Interesting)
It does not matter what you call it (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 reg
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You want the "Corn Refiners" to stop refining corn?
Re:Evil stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Yes, well, you can thank a company called UOP for pioneering the process of making this stuff on an industrial scale (that was actually back in the sixties.) And you can also thank Congress for so fucking over the countries that used to grow cane sugar and sell it to us, which is why we even needed a substitute in the first place. Now, of course, those growers have switched to cocaine, cannabis, and other much more profitable crops.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Because Iowa hold their caucuses early in the presidential election cycle and a lot of candidates like to use that as a chance to get their campaign's momentum going. Many areas of public policy, particularly anything affecting corn farming, are dictated by the feelings of the corn farmers of Iowa.
Re:Evil stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you explain your assertion that HFCS is "evil"?
As I've stated elsewhere [slashdot.org] 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 . . .
-Pete
Re:Evil stuff (Score:5, Informative)
No, its sugar lobbyists as much, if not more, than corn lobbyists. The US has import tariffs on foreign cane sugar to prop up the price of the domestic stuff, which makes it too expensive to use in wide-scale production here. That's why foreign versions of Coke and Pepsi products are made with real sugar, where as we get the cheap corn shit.
I was a lobbyist myself for a non-profit social organization in a past career. I was at a luncheon fundraiser in DC for a congressman from a midwestern, corn-raising state and was seated across from a sugar lobbyist, and in between a guy from Raytheon and a guy from Microsoft. The sugar lobbyist was the biggest asshole of the three, too.
Re:This is exactly right (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Evil stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
You are wrong. Very wrong. "AFAIK" is an insufficient fig leaf for your level of wrongness, which seems nearly malicious in its degree.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's actually "High Fructose Corn Syrup" currently. This is because it is a liquid sugar (sugar + water).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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
You have things backwards. (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Re:In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:That'll help (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know, but maybe it was made by Altria Group [wikipedia.org].
(Hint to editors: Altria Group changed their name because of the negative connotations of their previous name, Philip Morris.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This sounds crazy, but I had this exact conversation with my daughter's doctor yesterday, and she really didn't have much to say about HFCS either (nothing beyond "sugar is bad" anyway). Though based on various research studies that I've seen recently, and the number of food companies dropping HFCS in their products, I expect this to hit the news in a huge way sometime soon.
Re:The problem is anything that raises blood sugar (Score:5, Informative)
Whole Wheat Bread will raise your blood sugar but lesser & slower than White Bread or HFCS or regular sugar because of
the difference between complex & simple carbohydrates.
Eating an Orange will raise your sugar less than drinking Orange Juice because the Orange has more fibre in it.
Consuming any carb will raise your blood sugar, but complex carbs & carbs with fibre are a little better.
Re:The problem is anything that raises blood sugar (Score:4, Insightful)