26 of 30 - Isoglucose

[aggienaut]

   High Fructose Corn Syrup. Good? Bad? Evil? Many people take it as a safe assumption that HFCS is an inferior substance with dubious merits. Somewhere in the background one might hear the HFCS industry protesting that no one can name exactly what is wrong with it. I didn't plan on weighing in on this epic debate today but I got to reading about it (yeah that's what I do in my free time) and thought it would be worth addressing.


Why We Use It
   Interesting, the use of HFCS as a sugar replacement in the United States has less to do with nutritional value* or even cost of production than it does with international politics.
   As you may have noticed, through such mechanisms as the World Trade Organization, the countries of the world have been eliminating tariffs and quotas on most traded goods. However, agriculture in general has been largely shielded from deregulation, and, for unclear reasons, sugar beet/cane production specifically has been allowed to remain heavily regulated.
   Sugar beets and cane are both tropical plants right? So it follows that Brazil is the largest producer of these. The second largest? Thanks to intense subsidies, quotas and tariffs, The European Union!
   Why is this relevant to this discussion? Because everywhere else in the world sugar is cheaper than HFCS -- ie, sugar IS more efficient to produce. However due to America's own sugar subsidies and tariffs, sugar costs on average twice as much in the United States as it does anywhere else in the world. As such, cocoa-cola, pepsi-cola and everyone else uses natural sugar everywhere else in the world.
   More efficient to produce is better for the world because then there's more of everything to go around, so one point for naturally occurring sugar.

* though it probably helps that it probably won't kill you


The PR Battle
   Despite popular belief, as far as I can tell research does not support the argument that HFCS is actually bad for you (ref). However, many major companies are switching over to natural sugar due simply to the negative sentiment toward HFCS.

   A quote from this article:

Even though there is no proof that high-fructose corn syrup is more harmful than sugar, [Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. Chief Operating Officer Ken] Romanzi said the maker of juices and other products "didn't want any negative implication that there was something bad for people in our Ocean Spray products."

"The problem," Romanzi said, "is that perception is reality in the minds of consumers."

   On the opposite side of things, the PR departments of HFCS producers, such as the company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), make it sound like the HFCS industry is the innocent victim of unfounded misleading attacks. However, I'd like to point out that it wouldn't even be practical to use HFCS if this industry wasn't so busy lobbying to keep up the sugar tariffs (and believe me they are).


Scienceyness
   Always distrustful of second-hand reports, I decided to look into the science of the matter myself. As far as I can tell, "natural sugar," ie sugar from sugar beets or sugar cane, ie sucrose, is made up of fructose and glucose bound together as one molecule. High fructose corn syrup is made by, through a convoluted process, turning corn syrup into glucose, and then turning some of it entirely into fructose, and then mixing them together. This is relevant because the human stomach can regulate the breakdown of sucrose during digestion through the use of an enzyme which separates sucrose into its component parts -- but because HFCS is already broken down, the body has less control over its digestion rate.


In Conclusion
   Anyway, so there you have it. "It" being.. probably still totally unclear. But after looking into it I'm going to go ahead and say that it appears that one can't really say HFCS is worse for you than sugar, health-wise. Flavour-wise, there may be a difference. I know my favourite beverages use real sugar but it might be just that all the OTHER ingredients they use are the best.
   So, sugar versus high fructose corn syrup? I say... use honey. I was going to say that anywaay at least as a joke but this article actually does say in one of its conclusionary paragraphs "as for tabletop sweeteners, the most Earth-friendly options are locally produced organic honey and real maple syrup"


Bibliography (yes this entry has a bibliography -- in case you wanted to check out the articles yourself, because I know _I_ would always rather cut out as many middlemen as I can for my information)
Natural Sugar Versus High Fructose Corn Syrup - Chicago Tribune.com
High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Not So Sweet for the Planet - The Washington Post - (though I don't know if I buy their thesis that HFCS is evil because CORN is evil because of the environmental impact of corn farming)
A Speculation About Why ADM’s HFCS Business is Booming. - Grist.org - (about how the use of cane sugar for ethanol, through a chain reaction, raises the market price for HFCS. It seems like ethanol use could short-cut this chain of competing substitute goods with the fact that CORN farmers are faced with a choice between making ethanol or making HFCS)
and of course the wikipedia entries on HFCS & sugar (relevant portion of the latter being comments on subsidies)

Comments

[drcuriosity]

There's very definitely a taste difference between HFCS and cane sugar. We get soft drinks here with sugar in, and a number of them taste quite different (to me, at least) from their U.S. counterparts.

The sugar hit seems to hit me in a different way, too - I think there's more initial hit from the HFCS, but for some reason I seem to feel drowsier afterwards. Granted, this wasn't in controlled circumstances and some of it may have been about acclimatising as much as the dietary change, but my body was still very definitely used to sucrose, and it felt like it was having difficulty adjusting. Subjective, I know, but given I pretty much hadn't heard of HFCS before I got there, I didn't have any pre-existing biases other than being a life-long cane sugar user.

If me and my fiancée do find a small bit of farm to live on, we're considering the possibility of growing some of our own sugar beets. Keeping a hive is also on the cards, though I'm more allergic than most. I'm definitely going to miss manuka honey when I emigrate, though...

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think both things you say make sense: that there is a taste difference and that it hits you different. I'm kind of curious now what pure high fructose corn syrup would taste like.

Growing one's own sugar beets would be neat! And I of course recommend getting a bee hive (:

Very Interesting Article

[gythiawulfie.livejournal.com]

I am actuall a big proponent of keeping some local honey in my diet because it is supposed to help you if you have pollen allergies. Supposed to.

I love good local honey.. it's sweeter.

As for HFCS... sorry I just don't like things that have to be altered from their natural state. Even if it isn't bad for you.

But, I am like you, my favorite stuff has regualar sugar in it.

[3libras.livejournal.com]

The problem I have with HFCS (aside from simply preferring my food to be as natural as possible) is that apparently many products with HFCS in them have been found to also contain mercury! I have a huge problem with that, especially since I'm pregnant. :( It's so hard to get around HFCS though.

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those who have jumped on the anti-HFCS bandwagon. One of the things that interests/concerns me is the part about how the body doesn't metabolize it the same way as regular sugar. There's also a part of me that wonders if the exploding diabetes/obesity epidemic in the US is tied to HFCS and some research leads me to believe it is. It's in a helluva lot of stuff and outside of an occasional Coke, I am now pretty much able to avoid it.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

I just wish they wouldn't put gallons of it in freaking everything, basically. Same with excess sodium in processed foods.

[mortimer-ford.livejournal.com]

Bee vomit, for the win.

/like fuckin Remo Williams

[gomezticator.livejournal.com]

I think the big issue with HFCS is that a) the rapid digestion leads the consumer to feel hungry again quickly, leading to more food consumed which ups calorie intake and, ultimately, weight and b) the accelerated digestion of sugars leads the body to turn much of what is consumed into fat. This never minds the possibilities of diabetes and other ailments, which as you mentioned have yet to be scientifically linked.

I could be wrong. But those are the two main arguments I've heard.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmm yeah that makes sense. I noted the more rapid digestion, and those are plausible effects of it. Also I think someone needs to do a side by side taste test study because there seems to be ample anecdotal reports of people liking things with real sugar better. ...but that could be biased by people thinking they want to like sugar better! If I could get my hands on a good supply of something in both HFCS and real sucrose versions I'd totally administer a blind taste test upon my friends..