Is high fructose corn syrup evil?
According to a report at seattlepi.com, some people believe that high fructose corn syrup is so potentially bad for our health that entire grocery store chains are banning it. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/food/341888_fructose01web.html
HFCS has a bad rap,because of early reports that showed an increase in obesity with an increased consumption of HFCS. It's used as a cheap and tasty sweetener in a wide variety of foods, and especially in beverages. But is it the cause of obesity or chronic disease?
Probably not. I think this is just another case of the media and consumers grabbing onto a simple idea - ban all HFCS - when the true remedy is much more complex. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and a top authority on the intersection of nutrition, science, politics and business, suggests that if we ban HFCS, we should just ban all sources of sugar because the body treats them all in a similar way.
She's right. Instead of looking for cookies, sweetened beverages, or breakfast cereal with HFCS, why not look for fresh fruit, drink plain tap water, and eat plain high-fiber cereal? The type of sweetener really isn't as important as the total calories and total sweetening, from whatever source, in the food.
HFCS has a bad rap,because of early reports that showed an increase in obesity with an increased consumption of HFCS. It's used as a cheap and tasty sweetener in a wide variety of foods, and especially in beverages. But is it the cause of obesity or chronic disease?
Probably not. I think this is just another case of the media and consumers grabbing onto a simple idea - ban all HFCS - when the true remedy is much more complex. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University and a top authority on the intersection of nutrition, science, politics and business, suggests that if we ban HFCS, we should just ban all sources of sugar because the body treats them all in a similar way.
She's right. Instead of looking for cookies, sweetened beverages, or breakfast cereal with HFCS, why not look for fresh fruit, drink plain tap water, and eat plain high-fiber cereal? The type of sweetener really isn't as important as the total calories and total sweetening, from whatever source, in the food.
Labels: HFCS, high fructose corn syrup, sugar
posted by Lynn Grieger and Mike Ryan at
7:56 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Lynn,
Unfortunately there are differences between regular sugar(sucrose) and HFCS. The primary difference is that sucrose is a disaccharide (one molecue of fructose bound to one molecule of glucose) that is broken down by the enzyme sucrase in the small
intestine. The industrial sweetener, HFCS, is composed of unbound fructose and glucose. Whenever you have a metabolic process catalyzed by an enzyme, you have regulation at the site of the chemical reaction. So, there
would be a different rate of uptake of the sugars whether you were running a marathon or sleeping. HFCS, is immediately absorbed into the blood stream. Also, the majority of HFCS ingested is HFCS 55 found in all national brands of soda.The
ratio is 55% fructose: 45% glucose.
If you do the math 55/45=12.2% extra fructose is present in every
non-diet soda that you drink. Considering that the average teen
chugs one or two cans daily, that is a lot of extra fructose the body
is forced to assimilate, and it is the fructose moiety that over time
is damaging to our health leading
to obesity, CVD, and Type II diabetes. There is another problem with HFCS. It has invaded our food supply. Courtesy of the Corn Refiners Assoc., go to
www.corn.org/NSFC2006.pdf P29-30
list all the foods and products that contain HFCS. A few surprises even for me: whole wheat bread, soups, cough syrups. A new website, StopHFCS.com lists HFCS-free foods. They welcome additions and suggestions. Finally, I'm not
saying that eating a lot of sugar
is healthy. But, if eating sugar
is a misdemeanor, then eating
HFCS is a felony.
By
Cynthia1770, at 11:40 PM
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