So I've been seeing many TV ads pushing the worth of high fructose corn syrup from SweetSurprise.com

http://www.sweetsurprise.com


Seems legitimate, but I'm out of the loop with all the HFCS hoopla that gets circulated. Who's against HFCS (organizations or individuals)? What does TWW think?

3/7/2009 8:49:37 PM

i just don't see why you would want to consume things that contained hfcs when you can get things that contain actual sucrose.

3/7/2009 9:04:34 PM

^same product? or what? If they are more or less equivalent, then why not? (I havent chosen a side on this argument, btw)

3/7/2009 9:07:02 PM

Corn market has a monopoly, it's cheaper to buy corn than sugar due to federal tax breaks, etc. HFCS is NOT good for the body, a natural product is a million times better.

3/7/2009 9:32:03 PM

^natural vs. man-made doesnt seem to provide much of an argument, as there seems to be arguments for and against both. Interesting tidbit about the govt stuff

3/7/2009 9:37:00 PM

HFCS is a natural product. My problem with HFCS is that it is put in almost everything, from soda (which makes sense) to peanut butter and hotdogs (which doesn't make sense). The other gripe I have with it is that, as said above, it is only really cheap due to corn subsidies and sugar tariffs. Health wise, it isn't unhealthy, it's just a sugar, and if you consume the same amount of sugar from cane/beats that you do HFCS it would have the same effect on your body.

[Edited on March 7, 2009 at 9:39 PM. Reason : .]

3/7/2009 9:39:06 PM

Quote :

"Since its introduction, HFCS has begun to replace sugar in various processed foods in the USA and Canada.[6][7] The main reasons for this switch are:[8] * HFCS is somewhat cheaper in the United States due to a combination of corn subsidies and sugar tariffs.[9] Since the mid-90s US Federal subsidies to corn growers have amounted to $40 billion.[10] * HFCS is easier to blend and transport because it is a liquid.[1"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup#Health_effects

Quote :

"A system of tariffs and sugar quotas imposed in 1977 significantly increased the cost of importing sugar, and producers sought a cheaper alternative. High-fructose corn syrup, derived from corn, is more economical because the American and Canadian prices of sugar are twice the global price[16] and the price of #2 corn is artificially low due to both government subsidies and dumping on the market as farmers produce more corn annually.[17][18] HFCS became an attractive substitute, and is preferred over cane sugar among the vast majority of American food and beverage manufacturers. For instance, soft drink makers like Coca-Cola and Pepsi use sugar in other nations, but switched to HFCS in the U.S. in 1984.[19] Large corporations, such as Archer Daniels Midland, lobby for the continuation of these subsidies.[20]"

The body digests HFCS differently than sugar and it's been shown according to studies to mess up a lot of bodily functions especially when consumed as much as the US takes in.

How natural is it if a genetically altered enzyme needs to be created just to make the stuff??

[Edited on March 7, 2009 at 9:43 PM. Reason : ddd]

3/7/2009 9:43:06 PM

Quote :

"a natural product is a million times better"

Why?

3/7/2009 9:44:50 PM

Your body can digest it better without the risk of putting freaky foreign objects in your body.

3/7/2009 9:48:54 PM

Quote :

"The body digests HFCS differently than sugar and it's been shown according to studies to mess up a lot of bodily functions especially when consumed as much as the US takes in."

since you are more than willing to post lots of info, please share these case studies and their results

3/7/2009 9:48:57 PM

Quote :

" it's just a sugar, and if you consume the same amount of sugar from cane/beats that you do HFCS it would have the same effect on your body."

did you really just say that? wow.

so if you downed 100 grams of sucrose, fructose, HFCS (100 g carb equivalent), LACTOSE, galactose, etc, they would all have the same effect?

that's the same kind of twisted/false logic that is used by people to justify that all fats are bad since they all contain 9 calories/gram.

3/7/2009 9:52:48 PM

Quote :

"Critics of HFCS point out a correlation between increased usage of HFCS in foods and obesity rates in the United States over three decades. Some allege that HFCS is in itself more detrimental to health than table sugar (sucrose); others claim that the low cost of HFCS encourages overconsumption of sugars. The Corn Refiners Association has launched an aggressive advertising campaign to counter these criticisms, claiming that high fructose corn syrup "is natural" and "has the same natural sweeteners as table sugar".[25] Both sides point to studies in peer reviewed journals that allegedly support their point of view. In his recent book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, journalist Michael Pollan claims that the way that the body processes HFCS is different from the way it processes the glucose and fructose found in other sugars. Digesting sucrose requires the production of an enzyme called sucrase, which breaks the bond between the glucose molecule and the fructose molecule. Because the body regulates its production of sucrase, it can only digest sucrose at a certain rate. Because digesting HFCS does not require sucrase, the rate at which it is digested is not similarly regulated by the body.[citation needed] Elliot et al.,[26] implicate increased consumption of fructose (due primarily to the increased consumption of sugars but also partly due to the slightly higher fructose content of HFCS as compared to sucrose) in obesity and insulin resistance. Chi-Tang Ho et al. found that soft drinks sweetened with HFCS are up to 10 times richer in harmful carbonyl compounds, such as methylglyoxal, than a diet soft drink control.[27] Carbonyl compounds are elevated in people with diabetes and are blamed for causing diabetic complications such as foot ulcers and eye and nerve damage;[28][29] A study in mice suggests that fructose increases obesity.[30] Large quantities of fructose stimulate the liver to produce triglycerides, promotes glycation of proteins and induces insulin resistance.[31] According to one study, the average American consumes nearly 70 pounds of HFCS a year, marking HFCS as a major contributor to the rising rates of obesity in the last generation. [32] In a 2007 study, rats were fed a diet high in fat and HFCS and kept them relatively sedentary for 16 weeks in an attempt to emulate the diet and lifestyle of many Americans.[33] The rats were not forced to eat, but were able to eat as much as they wanted; they consumed a large amount of food, suggesting that fructose suppresses the sensation of fullness. Within four weeks, the rats showed early signs of fatty liver disease and type II diabetes. Shapiro et al. fed rats a high-fructose diet for six months and compared them to rats that had been fed a fructose-free diet. Although the rats that had consumed high levels of fructose showed no change in weight, when compared to the rats that had consumed no fructose fat, levels of leptin in the blood indicated the development of leptin resistance. When the rats were switched to a high-fat diet, the leptin-resistant rats gained more weight than those who had not developed the resistance.[34]"

Quote :

""The medical profession thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar," says Dr. Field, "but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic.""

Quote :

"More interesting for me at another message forum 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"

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/events/pastmtg/2007/cehr/docs/metabolicsyndromelustig.pdf

Last link is good.

3/7/2009 10:10:19 PM

That proved... nothing. Look at the studies in that quote. They weren't comparing diets of different types of sugar and the effects. Neither of the three studies were comparing fructose to sucrose.

Quote :

"did you really just say that? wow. so if you downed 100 grams of sucrose, fructose, HFCS (100 g carb equivalent), LACTOSE, galactose, etc, they would all have the same effect?"

Talking about calories not grams, for one. And yeah, I would say that in general there isn't much difference between sucrose in fructose in terms of energy usage and storage by the body. I would love to see any evidence for it. That's the entire point. A lot of research has been done, and most of it leads to the conclusion, don't over consume sugar, regardless of variety. (Look at say, obesity rates in England were they consume sucrose instead of HFCS, and have a somewhat similar diet lifestyle as the US).

Calories are calories. You get 3000 calories from sucrose or 3000 calories from fructose, it's going to have roughly the same effect on the body.

3/7/2009 10:32:39 PM

Not quite.

HFCS is waaaaaaay sweeter than natural (as in, found-in-nature, not heavily-derived-from-things-found-in-nature) sweeteners - it skews your sense of sweet. Don't believe me? Give up all sources of HFCS in your diet for a month. Then re-introduce them.

As far as I'm concerned, a heavily processed additive that feels the need to wage a publicity campaign is suspect. They're not spending on all that money for fun and games.

Something akin to my take on matters like this, but better written.

Quote :

"^natural vs. man-made doesnt seem to provide much of an argument, as there seems to be arguments for and against both."

From a common sense eating standpoint (i.e., not financial), what makes more sense: the stuff that's heavily modified from how we cultivate it/is created by science, or the stuff we grow and eat as is from the source, except for some preservation (like drying, smoking, canning)?

Learn what you can now. Then read The Omnivore's Dilemma. Then approach the issue again.

Quote :

"HFCS is a natural product."

Why do you say this?

[Edited on March 7, 2009 at 10:47 PM. Reason : as]

3/7/2009 10:47:08 PM

http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=541511

3/7/2009 11:19:36 PM

I hate HFCS because I'm against government intervention in the market, including these corn subsidies.

Also, I want to drink coke made with real cane sugar. It's so delicious! But we'll never get it in the US.

3/7/2009 11:31:07 PM

i don't really care what kind of sugar it is as long as it tastes more or less how i expect it to

3/7/2009 11:41:06 PM

Quote :

"Also, I want to drink coke made with real cane sugar. It's so delicious! But we'll never get it in the US. "

If it's not already available for the year, it will be soon.
And there's a CC thread about 'mexican' coke.

message_topic.aspx?topic=556385 - apparently, it's available at costco. Never in the US, indeed.

[Edited on March 8, 2009 at 1:19 AM. Reason : sd]

3/8/2009 1:18:43 AM

you know what's wrong with this thread?

3/8/2009 1:24:33 AM

Quote :

""a natural product is a million times better" Why?"

of course, many natural things are terrible to the human body

but, in general, I'd prefer natural products to synthetic products because:

with natural products it's very likely that in the last few million years, humans (and their ancestors) have encountered those plants sources (or their close relatives) in the environment and adapted to handle them. with synthetic products, I just don't see how that can possibly be true.



[Edited on March 8, 2009 at 9:06 AM. Reason : .]

3/8/2009 8:41:52 AM

Quote :

"As far as I'm concerned, a heavily processed additive that feels the need to wage a publicity campaign is suspect. They're not spending on all that money for fun and games."

You mean, a for profit industry under attack from other groups feels the need to advertise that there is nothing wrong with their product?

3/8/2009 9:38:41 AM

Quote :

"Seems legitimate, but I'm out of the loop with all the HFCS hoopla that gets circulated. Who's against HFCS (organizations or individuals)? What does TWW think? "

Look at the bottom of the page. The site is sponsored by the CORN REFINERS ASSOCIATION if that isn't suspicious I don't know what is.

As far as the difference between HFCS and (sugar cane) sugar they are not the same. I can taste it when I drink a Coke here in Brazil.

[Edited on March 8, 2009 at 9:46 AM. Reason : ^ just because they defend it doesn't make them right. (see Tobacco Companies)]

3/8/2009 9:41:34 AM

your body is designed to digest naturally occurring food sources. it is not, however, designed to digest chemically and genetically altered food substitutes, which is why the folks making those artificial food substitutes have to further alter them, just so you can eat them.

3/8/2009 9:44:39 AM

Quote :

"[Edited on March 8, 2009 at 9:46 AM. Reason : ^ just because they defend it doesn't make them right. (see Tobacco Companies)]"

Nice red herring!

3/8/2009 10:11:03 AM

Red Herrings are points that look good, but lead to nothing.
What ScubaSteve did was an analogy. Back to 8th grade for you!

3/8/2009 1:27:51 PM