Eco Food Friday: Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup

High fructose corn syrup, sugar, and several fruit juices are all nutritionally the same.

High fructose corn syrup has the same number of calories as sugar and is handled similarly by the body.

The FDA recently stated, referring to a process commonly used by the HFCS industry, that it “would not object to the use of the term ‘natural’ on a product containing HFCS produced by [that] manufacturing process....” (June GA. (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition) Letter to: Erickson A. (Corn Refiners Association) July 3, 2008. Available at http://www.corn.org/FDAdecision7-7-08.pdf.)

In 1983, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally listed high fructose corn syrup as safe for use in food and reaffirmed that decision in 1996.

The American Medical Association in June 2008 helped put to rest misunderstandings about this sweetener and obesity, stating that “high fructose corn syrup does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners.”

Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at www.HFCSfacts.com and www.SweetSurprise.com.

Audrae Erickson
President
Corn Refiners Association

I've been surfing the blogs about high fructose corn syrup the last few days to encourage people to sign on to a campaign to ask cola companies to start using cane sugar and beet sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup [see http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/dear-high-fructose-corn-syrup-please-get-out-of-us-colas-thanks-america]

From my unscientific research, I see about two blogs from dietitians, nutritionists, or doctors in favor of HCFS for every blog that I see against it.

More interesting for me at another message forum [tudiabetes.com] for diabetics, one guy tried HCFS. Measured his blood sugar. Then he tried cane sugar. Measured his blood sugar. His blood sugar with HCFS was twice as high as his blood sugar with cane sugar. His comment is just above here http://tudiabetes.com/forum/topics/583967:Topic:261850?page=1&commentId=583967%3AComment%3A327678&x=1#583967Comment327678 {I couldn't figure out a direct link - sorry}

I'm at a point where I'd like to simply see HCFS removed from our diets. A personal test I've been using is if HCFS is so good, why aren't other countries using it as rampantly as we do. My initial suspicion is that the FDA screening process and several of the pro-HCFS studies are funded by the industry and are not using rigorous enough methods.