High fructose corn syrup and your health
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is everywhere—salad dressings, catsup, carbonated beverages. Fructose is sweeter, per unit mass, than cane sugar (sucrose), and apparently keeps better, so is a favored sweetener by the food industry. Unlike glucose, fructose in converted to free fatty acid in the liver and thus can contribute to hyperlipidemia, diabetes and heart disease.
I’ve avoided high fructose corn syrup mostly because ever since I stopped eating desserts, my taste for sweet flavor has become more acute and I favor savory foods over sweet foods. But is my aversion to HFCS-containing foods also healthier?
“. . . is HFCS more of a health risk than other sweeteners? Many of the sources that demonize HFCS list alternative sweeteners — cane sugar, honey, agave syrup, etc. — that they claim are healthier than HFCS, but those claims usually rest primarily on the fact that these alternatives to HFCS are “natural” rather than any actual data showing that they are safer than HFCS.”
One thing that’s always puzzled me about the HFCS-cane sugar dichotomy is that sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Once you consume it, sucrose is broken down into its constituent monosaccharides, so if you’re eating sucrose instead of HFCS, you’re still eating 50% fructose. HFCS may have a slightly higher fructose content, but not much. So the benefits seem small.
“For people who are worried about their health or their children’s health — and who isn’t, these days — the data suggest that the best choice is to reduce intake of all sweeteners containing fructose. That includes not only the evil HFCS, but also natural cane sugar, molasses (which is just impure cane sugar), brown sugar (ditto) and honey. Even “unsweetened” (no added sugar) fruit juices need to be considered when limiting your family’s fructose intake.
“Finally, the best nutritional advice is to eat everything in moderation — and that includes sweets. While a diet high in fructose may increase your risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease — maybe — a fructose-free diet is not guaranteed to prevent those diseases. Eat a variety of foods, including a small amount of sweets, get enough exercise, watch your (and your children’s) weight and see your doctor for regular health check-ups.
“And stop worrying that HFCS is poisoning you and your children.”
The real answer is to just reduce your sugar intake.
high fructose corn syrup vs. cane sugar
The problem with HFCS isn’t that it is particularly dangerous, though it does contain more fructose per gram than cane sugar. The problem is that it’s used in just about every damned food product, sweet or savory. Unless you avoid processed foods, odds are you are eating a lot more HFCS than you expect. Worse, the sugar (and salt) levels in processed foods have been creeping up over the years as consumers grow inured to them.
If you talk to older food scientists, they remember the transition that started in the 1970s. Before then, even prepared foods were cooked much the way home or restaurant cooked food was, save at a different scale. In the 1970s, food science took over to tweak food flavors and textures. Sugar and salt content went up, and the ingredient list grew with more flavor and texture adjusters. It wasn’t about a bit of sugar to cut bitterness or salt to bring out savory notes, it was about satisfying focus groups and winning in taste tests.
In many ways, it paralleled what the tobacco companies were doing to adjust and intensify cigarettes. In both cases, it led to increased demand for the enhanced product. Ordinary leaf tobacco and cooked food lacked the kick of the industrial product.
In my Econ 101 class we were told that the deciding factor for the recipe for new coke was not whether which one tasted better, but which one would make the focus group participant say yes to another. Actually quenching the thirst would be a defect.
@Arne,
Gatorade already owned the thirst quenching niche.