General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Corporations Have Renamed ‘High Fructose Corn Syrup’ [View all]Igel
(35,435 posts)If you don't want to eat fructose, look for "fructose" on the label.
HFCS is about 1/2 fructose, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. The rest is mostly glucose.
If I want to avoid fructose, I'm avoiding it better by looking for "fructose"; HFCS-90 wouldn't help me, but I'd want to avoid HFCS-90 much more than "regular" HFCS.
If it's any consolation, sucrose is broken down fairly quickly in the gut. It yields 50% fructose. The rest is glucose. And, yes, all that fibre in fruit helps avoid a big sugar rush. (Then again, fibre in other foods with added HFCS does the same thing. Strawmen are also reported to be very high in fibre, and are often produced out of cornstalks ... which is, ironicaly, a source of HFCS.)
HFCS is different from corn syrup primarily in that the corn starch is broken down to form more sugars. Corn syrup is about 1/3 glucose. The rest is going to be a mix of sugars, including a decent percentage of fructose. (Look, you just can't get away from the fructose when you break down sucrose or starch. The best you can do is avoid having additional fructose from the intentional conversion of glucose to fructose. This change is done because fructose is a lot sweeter. You need less of it to achieve the same sweetness than the same mass of glucose and certainly of sucrose--meaning less sugar overall. And often less fructose overall.)
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