For those of you upset about the use of HFCS in foods, here’s part of the reason it’s used so much.
(HFCS isn’t a health issue, and doesn’t make people fat. Table sugar is 50% sucrose and 50% fructose. HFCS is 45% sucrose and 55% fructose. If that little bit of fructose is an issue, I suggest you take aim at apples.)
Windy Recycling Day 
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:06 am
Actually, there is a direct correlation between the advent of the corn subsidy, HFCS, and the rise of obesity in the US. HFCS does make you fat, though that’s a horribly simplistic way of explaining a fairly complex problem.
Granted, you make you fat by chowing on processed food. But what’s in 80% of all processed food? HFCS and corn products.
I can provide peer-reviewed science that demonstrates links between HFCS and obesity, depression, heart disease, chronic migraine, and just about everything else the health-conscious person is working to avoid. Let me know if you want it (@mojo650). The problem isn’t the fructose.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a homeopath or holistic type. But as a healthcare professional, I can say without blushing that HFCS is a serious problem that Americans don’t want to own up to.
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:18 am
HFCS is chemically almost the same as table sugar, though, and the only difference is the slightly higher percentage of fructose. So I don’t see how all these problems can be blamed on HFCS.
If all the same products used table sugar, wouldn’t we see the same issues? Seems to me the issue is too much sugar in any form, not HFCS.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
I think we’re singing the same tune in two keys. The primary (though not only) issue I have with HFCS and the corn subsidy is its ubiquity. If I told you to eat nothing with HFCS in it, you’d practically have to go paleo. Anything that ubiquitous has to be subsidized, and that kind of broad subsidy is something I’m very cynical about.
The government should not be sinking our tax dollars into programs that ruin our health, and yet they’ve done it multiple times since the 60s. Corn pricing is just one example. I avoid HFCS as stringently as possible both for avoidance of constant bombardment with sugars and because of my concern over what the government is doing.
As for blaming HFCS for the problems stated, the operative word in your statement is ‘almost’. The science speaks for itself, and we ultimately have no idea what the long-term effects of consumption of heavily processed and highly engineer food products is. But what we empirically see in American society suggests that the final verdict will not be positive. As I said, I’m happy to provide the science both behind HFCS and other disastrous instances of ‘almost the same’.
February 6th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Table sugar is just as refined/processed as HFCS. I’m just not convinced there’s any science that shows a direct link to health problems and HFCS… I think the health problems are linked due to a high simple sugar intake, be it glucose, sucrose, or fructose (or even maltodextrin).
I’m with you on having huge issues with subsidies.
February 4th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Wait a minute. Please do the math.
HFCS-55 used to sweeten all national brands of soda is 55%fructose:45% glucose. The CRA would like you to believe that it is “essentially similar’ to the 50:50 ratio found in table sugar (sucrose). Just a 5% difference from 50:50, right?
However, 55%:45% = 55/45 =1.22
This means that in every can of American Coke there is, compared to glucose, 22% more fructose. What does this mean in every day terms? If you drink 5 Cokes sweetened with
HFCS-55 that is equivalent to drinking 4 1/4 cans of SUCROSE sweetened Coke + 3/4 can of
pure FRUCTOSE sweetened beverage. Considering that the average teen chugs a couple of sodas a day, that is a lot of extra fructose assaulting the liver. If you look at the
CDC graph “Obesity vs. HFCS and sucrose consumption” you will note that obesity started to really climb in 1984-1985. 1984 is the year that the big soda boys, Pepsi and Coke, switched to HFCS-55. And remember, the CRA chose that ratio, not mother nature. I would really like to know why the CRA chose 55:45. Was it simply that 55:45 yielded sucrose-like sweeteness, or did using more fructose (therefore sweeter) allow end manufacturers to use less, or did the chemists at ADM find out that ratio made the beverage a touch addictive? Forgive the conspiracy “overtones”. Ditch HFCS, especially, HFCS-55.
To your health.
February 6th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Fructose ‘assaults’ the liver? Are you serious?
I would think you’d be more concerned about banning apples, pears, and honey, then.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
They aren’t the same — ‘almost’ doesn’t count except horseshoes, hand grenades, and hydrogen bombs:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/index.xml?section=topstories