Are Americas so easily fooled/misled?: HFCS bad, Sugar good

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/dining/21sugar.html?hp

High Fructose Corn Syrup is basically sugar by another name. Now that HFCS has been effectively demonized, people are turning back to sugar. I guess they will turn back to HFCS when they realize that there is almost no difference.


"Sugar, the nutritional pariah that dentists and dietitians have long reviled, is enjoying a second act, dressed up as a natural, healthful ingredient.

From the tomato sauce on a Pizza Hut pie called “The Natural,” to the just-released soda Pepsi Natural, some of the biggest players in the American food business have started, in the last few months, replacing high-fructose corn syrup with old-fashioned sugar.

ConAgra uses only sugar or honey in its new Healthy Choice All Natural frozen entrees. Kraft Foods recently removed the corn sweetener from its salad dressings, and is working on its Lunchables line of portable meals and snacks.

The turnaround comes after three decades during which high-fructose corn syrup had been gaining on sugar in the American diet. Consumption of the two finally drew even in 2003, according to the Department of Agriculture. Recently, though, the trend has reversed. Per capita, American adults ate about 44 pounds of sugar in 2007, compared with about 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup.

“Sugar was the old devil, and high-fructose corn syrup is the new devil,” said Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior analyst at Mintel International, a market-research company."


"Although researchers are looking into the effects of fructose on liver function, insulin production and other possible contributors to excess weight gain, no major studies have made a definitive link between high-fructose corn syrup and poor health. The American Medical Association says that when it comes to obesity, there is no difference between the syrup and sugar."

I don't want to blow out my pancreas or liver.

http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html

Sugar is processed so much that any similarity to food is purely in the mind of the beholder.

However I need my sugar fix, and I use sugar in the raw. Fructose and sucrose are both bad. But the better alternative is sucrose.

When you eat starches, your body turns them into something chemically equivalent to table sugar before digesting them.

HFCS is not naturally occurring.

in your body.

You are not better off eating one than the other, and sugar is so processed it is not a food anymore.

My personal favorite of the WAP hit parade is the recipe for baby formula made from organ meats. Because we all know what every baby needs is a bottle full of pureed liver. http://www.westonaprice.org/children/recipes.html (Scroll down, it's after the recipes for killing your baby with raw milk from cows or goats.)

:shrug:

In the same article



Then again, it looks like I'd better just stick to stevia.

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/nutrition/a/fructosedangers.htm

And, as mentioned in the OP's article, there really isn't any science to prove that HFCS has effects on the body that cane or beet sugars do not, and a lot of studies have looked.

That said, it doesn't taste as good as table sugar. I don't eat much sugar, but I'd rather use turbinado sugar, maple syrup or agave nectar for sweetening when I do, just because they taste better.

there's nothing special about fructose.

MS, RD, done university research. what i wrote above is well-known, not controversial.

nothing special about hfcs, either - its chemistry is almost identical to honey.

people eat too much sugar & too much food. that's why diabetes has risen, & that's pretty uncontroversial, too.

Read that study closely. The levels of fructose being studied are tremendously high. It's way more sugar than i eat in any form.
GAC

How is is synthesized? It's extracted from a natural product. (Corn) Extraction and synthesis are not the same thing. By your definition, cane sugar is synthesized, too.
GAC

"The process by which HFCS is produced was first developed by Richard Off. Marshalle and Earl P. Kooi in 1927."

developing an industrial process isn't the same thing as discovering the reaction.

Specifically, after adding an acid to milk, you add rennet to get the casein proteins to coagulate. Would you argue that the local cheesemaker who makes all of his stuff by hand isn't doing anything naturally either?

But, you're also cherry picking. You provide cites that make it look like corn sugars are exotically extracted without comparing it to nearly identical processes for fully sucrosic plants. If you've ever seen the process in a cane sugar plant, you'd be far less cynical about the corn based product.

BTW: Glutaraldehyde, mentioned as a "fixing agent" in your last cite, is a naturally occurring chemical found in MANY, MANY plants. (Even in corn, while the cob is still small and the oil is still forming.)
GAC

.

Prozac, for instance, is made by reacting a couple of starter chemicals to form a finished product.

Using an enzyme to break down corn starch is no different than what your body does if you eat cornbread or a corn tortilla. It's just done inside of a large stainless steel tank instead of your stomach.

Yes, people ARE easily fooled. Although fructose is unique because you don't really store it in skeletal muscle and the average liver can only store about 50 grams in a 24 hour period.

That might sound like a lot to some people, that is until they look on the back of ONE can of soda and realize that 2 cans in one day is well over 50 grams, not to mention all of the other sources of fructose.

It's more complicated than that, but hey. At any rate, it reminds me of the low fat craze of the 90's. I was young and *I* fell for it too, stuffing my face with refined carbs thinking it was ok because the fat content was low. Live and learn.

some apparently consider a preference for slightly higher-quality food ingredients to be worthy of head-shaking.

And yes, I can tell the difference between HFCS and sugar in a soda in blind tests, and yes, I dislike HFCS for public-health reasons. It isn't particularly bad for you (any more than sugar is), but its cheapness means that food manufacturers can make foods sweeter for cheaper, thus giving the consumer a double whammy: more sugar/calories, and less non-sugar flavoring (since the overbearing sweetness would mask that anyway).

Fructose is far worse than sucrose. Do a side by side comparison of calories. Also fructose is processed by the liver and turned directly into fat.

throw me into a full blown hypoglycemic fit within minutes, while sugar will only give me a few hunger pains in an hour or so. They are not the same and don't have identical effects on the body.

I am glad I discovered the toll it took on my body.
I don't care that everyone says that it is okay...it is not for me.
I can tolerate it in small amounts but too much brings on unpleasant side effects.

Since it is in most breads, cereals, yogurts, sodas, and everything else, I have to make
a concerted effort to limit my intake.

I posted about my HFCS issues downthread. :-(

I thought for years that I had IBS, until I went to Europe on vacation and suddenly didn't have IBS anymore. Until the day after I returned to the States.

I did my own small psuedo-scientific test, and found that yes indeed I had a problem with HFCS. Especially in concentrated form, like in sodas and other sweet stuff.

Now I avoid it entirely, and I don't have any...um....bathroom issues anymore. Amazing!

I know that. I understand that.

But I'd rather take the devil I know humans have ingested for thousands of years and survived, than take the devil that was cooked up by some faceless corporation in a lab three decades ago.

Fructose is cheaper because corn is subsidized by the government.

Allow me...

Shit Pizza Hut and shit Pepsi "natural" to shit Healthy Choice and shit Kraft Foods "salad dressing" and Lunchables.

You know what the AMA NEEDS to say? I'll tell you. If you know what gas pump to pull up to at the station, know what the fuck fuel you need to put in your body, and the bodies of your children.

Seriously America, STOP EATING CRAP! Make it a non-issue.

And why the fuck is Pizza Hut using sugar or HFCS in a pizza anyhow?

I don't know how other people do these things but if I use any sugar at all in making a pizza it's a pinch or two to help proof the yeast when I'm making the crust. That's it- decent tomato sauce shouldn't taste sweet, neither should the crust.

My personal favorite is L-cysteine, which comes from the hair or feathers of slaughtered animals or from human hair. I have yet to find a baguette at a conventional supermarket that doesn't contain it.

:puke:

I'll be on the look-out for that now too.

dg

(wiki) Cysteine is found in most high-protein foods, including:

* Animal sources: pork, sausage meat, chicken, turkey, duck, luncheon meat, eggs, milk, whey protein, ricotta, cottage cheese, yogurt
* Vegan sources: red peppers, garlic, onions, broccoli, brussels sprouts, oats, granola, wheat germ

At the present time, the cheapest source of material from which food-grade L-cysteine may be purified in high yield is by hydrolysis of human hair. Other sources include feathers and pig bristles.The companies producing cysteine by hydrolysis are located mainly in China. There is some debate as to whether or not consuming L-cysteine derived from human hair constitutes cannibalism. Although many other amino acids were accessible via fermentation for some years, L-cysteine was unavailable until 2001 when German company Wacker Chemie introduced a production route via fermentation (non-human, non-animal origin).
--------------

I've started reading and avoiding cochineal since it triggers low allergy stuff. It is "natural red food coloring" made from ground up beetles. Yuk also.

hair is one of the cheapest, but do you really think most industrial cysteine is derived from human hair?

where's the flourishing market in human that's supplying the industry?

l-cysteine = left-rotated molecule.

Any of the above is gross.

My guess would be the human hair is probably leftovers from wig making? There's a thriving market for human hair in a lot of developing countries for that purpose.

they're made from synthetics.

It's not labeled for sourcing on any product I've ever seen. I don't want to consume anything from any of the above, so I don't buy breads with added l-cysteine.

And of course most wigs are synthetics. I wasn't talking about wigs except that you asked why there'd be a human hair market, and I said why.

or from human hair."



You'd better check your ingredient lists for *every* amino acid, because every single one *could* be derived from human hair, human excrement, fingernail scrapings, camel humps, whatever proteinous substrate you can think of.

But typically, they're not.

From what I've read there's a synthetic but it's not economical so it's not in commercial use. If you have a source that says otherwise please let me know.

See post 62.

Who the hell mentioned wikipedia?

How does that taste? And, better yet, is "that" good for you?

genetic engineering is one of the other choices.

i think you'd do well to investigate where the majority of manufactured amino acids, vitamins, & similar food addditives do come from.


"Genetically modified microorganisms are now not only used to produce pharmaceuticals, vaccines, specialty chemicals, and feed additives, they also produce vitamins, additives, and processing agents for the food industry. Here are a few examples:

Vitamin B2
vitamin C
xanthan
citric acid
natamycin

glutamate (E621),
aspartame (E 951)
cysteine (E 921);

Numerous enzymes used in cheeses, bread and baked goods, alcoholic beverages, and juice, as well as in the production of glucose syrup (corn syrup), glucose, and other starch product..."


http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/ingredients_additives/36.gm_microorganisms_taking_place_chemical_factories.html

Cysteine is already synthesized in the body, there's no reason to add it to anything. It's just in bread as a cheap dough conditioner, and frankly I prefer to eat breads that don't have additives sourced from slaughterhouse wastes in them.

But that's a different issue. Yours initially wasn't that cysteine was unnecessary in bread, but that it was sourced from things you didn't like.

However, I'd be willing to bet you've eaten foods sourced from slaughterhouse wastes many, many times.

There *are* legitimate uses for industrial amino acids in food products for human consumption, i.e. in metabolic disorders, nutritional deficiencies, tube feeding & iv feeding products.

Given that fact (& it is *fact*), I personally would prefer products sources from real food than produced by genetically engineered bacteria.

I'm vegan and I know how to read labels. :D

The ones I buy (remembering to take them is another story) are all sourced from plants.

Really, I kinda know what I'm doing here. :shrug:

i think you're misinterpreting my point of view.

You're welcome to play 20 questions if you like, but no, I really don't consume slaughterhouse wastes or their derivatives.

unfortunately, some of my patients reliant on tube & iv feedings, some long-term, don't have that luxury.

This subthread was about l-cysteine as a dough conditioner in supermarket bread, last I checked.

I definitely don't want to ingest anything made from slaughterhouse wastes, human hair, feathers, bristles of slaughtered pigs, or any of the other delightful sources used in the manufacture of l-cysteine. I can't imagine many people would, and I suspect that people were more aware of the origins of food additives there'd be much shorter ingredient lists on most things at the supermarket.

that your line of inquiry might seem sort of insulting to vegans who've spent a lot of years paying attention to sourcing. We know what may or may not be vegan, but we don't generally get the sourcing information we want.

It's pretty easy to understand "cochineal" vs "beet (for color)" on an ingredient list. We don't get that for lots of ingredients, like l-cysteine or taurine. While I can't speak for others, my strategy with unsourced ingredients is to assume the worst and make a different choice.

didn't even know i was speaking to one until well into the conversation. If you can point me to one "insulting" thing i said, i'll be glad to apologize. Debate isn't insulting. Challenging people's ideas & information doesn't need to imply you think they're ignorant.

as you said, sourcing is inadequate, & sometimes fraudulent (e.g. the recent kosher, melamine, peanut scandals). The supplement industry has periodic scandals too. Organic industry not immune. This plays into my doubt that the poster can be 100% certain she doesn't eat products derived from slaughterhouse waste at some point.

I have major problems with the food industry, but I'm not absolutist enough to say "consuming products made from slaughterhouse waste/hair/feathers is disgusting," because I have patients who, for the rest of their lives, will *have to* ingest those very products, or die. and at present, there aren't great substitutes for some of them.

You'd better check your ingredient lists for *every* amino acid, because every single one *could* be derived from human hair, human excrement, fingernail scrapings, camel humps, whatever proteinous substrate you can think of.

Yeah, we do that.


i think you'd do well to investigate where the majority of manufactured amino acids, vitamins, & similar food addditives do come from.

That too.


However, I'd be willing to bet you've eaten foods sourced from slaughterhouse wastes many, many times.

Probably, but we spend a hell of a lot of time and energy trying hard to avoid that.


do you use nutritional supplements?

Why? What would you do with that information?


These are challenges, and while you may not have meant them to be insulting, it's hard for me to take them without challenging back. Regardless of what you see in patients, there's a whole world of folks out here who don't want and go far out of our way to avoid slaughterhouse wastes and products derived from the exploitative use of animals. We know you don't care, but this is serious to us. Sure, you may have "doubt that the poster can be 100% certain she doesn't eat products derived from slaughterhouse waste at some point," but I'd lay odds that she's a heckuva lot more aware of it than you give her credit for.


Sourcing *is* inadequate and sometimes fraudulent. Frankly, it sucks and it seems like there are constant unpleasant revelations. Thing is, we try very hard to avoid all products that are the result of the exploitation of other creatures. Do we fail? Hell, yes, we do, but we know it and then work harder...so it's really frustrating to be told that we haven't done our homework.

Please understand that your experience with patients who need animal-derived products for support does not negate the values held by vegans here on DU (or anywhere). We're not bad people, and we're not judging you. Please consider doing the same for us.

the discussion had nothing to do with vegans, & i made no judgement of vegans.

i can see where this: "you'd do well to investigate" comes off with the wrong tone, but not in reference to vegans particularly, & it wasn't addressed to the poster in question. i don't see the big problem (insult?) with the rest, & certainly there's no slur to vegans.

i was discussing the point, not the poster. i don't automatically assume ill-will if someone challenges some claim *i* make until they start calling names & using the rolly-eye icons.

my initial belief was that the poster was passing off some slight bit of fact as universal truth. i find on further investigation hair, including human hair, is a significant source for cysteine coming out of the prc - via hydrolysis first into cystine - & for arginine & tyrosine, too.

i also learned that there's (circa 2001) a cost-competitive alternative using gmo e coli.

so i learned something, & possibly the poster did too.


oh, why i would want to know if she used supplements? because the industry has a significant fraud quotient, & a lot of folks who are into nutrition use supplements.

You honestly think that BCAA's that you think you've read about and understand should come from slaughterhouse remnants?

Oh, Hannah Bell...you should look up to whom...nothing. Nevermind. I'd rather enjoy this.

I'm going to save the "twice as stupid" phrase for another time.

"twice as stupid"

actually, forget it.

once the other poster starts with the personal denigration, especially in posts about amino acids, i'm not interested in talking to them.

i've not only "read about them."

Have at it, poster. Make your point.

vaccines, specialty chemicals, and feed additives, they also produce vitamins, additives, and processing agents for the food industry. Here are a few examples:

Vitamin B2 (colouring, rivoflavin E 101), vitamin C (preservative, ascorbic acid E 300);
Thickener, xanthan (E 415), acidity regulator, citric acid (E 330);
Preservative, natamycin (E 235), nisin (E 234), lysozyme (E 1105);

Various amino acids used to improve the quality of animal feed - also used in some foods, e.g. the flavour enhancer glutamate (E621), the sweetener aspartame (E 951) or the flour treating agent cysteine (E 921);

http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/grocery_shopping/ingredients_additives/36.gm_microorganisms_taking_place_chemical_factories.html

wonder people are fat and have high blood pressure?

There is no need for 8 tablespoons. Sugar in the crust is food for the yeast, but again, no need for very much.

i haven't bought sauce in a long time. i put a little bit of sugar in my sauce. i know there is a reason having to do with acidity i believe. other than that i stick to some basil, oregano, italian seasoning, parmesan cheese. not hard at all. thanks rachel ray!! pizza dough is water, yeast, b. sugar, salt, olive oil and flour. aided by my handy dandy kitchenaid mixer i have pizza dough in no time.

I've read tomato soup labels that have hfcs listed as an ingredient. why? tomatoes taste fine the way they are. :shrug: I once spent over an hour in the grocery store hunting down stuff with hfcs in it. It's in everything, even bread, so now I make my own.

dg

If you just want a red sauce, add food coloring to a starch solution.

It's in the pizza so you eat more, i.e. buy more. My theory anyway. Much the same reason that bars serve free popcorn, nuts, pretzels, etc.

However, I'm with you, the only real sugar in the pizza is in the crust. Tomato sauce from can + crushed garlic cloves and salt make an excellent pizza sauce.

There are marinara recipes that call for sugar in the sauce, like the one I made for lasagna this weekend.

Since switching to a low-fat, low-sodium, high fiber and basically no processed food diet in december, I have felt GREAT. Processed food blows. Makes me feel like crap. Plus I've lost 22% of my body weight in that time period, too.

how's about Ice-9?

--imm :hi:

He can take HFCS or leave it. :hi:

elevated triglyceride levels and faster blood sugar spiking than other sugars. It appears that more recent studies show this isn't necessarily the case, although some (but not all) of those studies have funded by the industry. This about fructose being stored only in the liver hasn't been addressed all that much, but bears watching.

Truth is, HFCS has the same glycemic index as table sugar, which is lower than even most whole wheat breads, and certainly lower than most artisan breads or hamburger buns, so spiking may not be a big deal in low amounts. But, who eats low amounts of it when it is in everything? The glycemic load (simplistically, the GI times the amount of carb in a food) of common foods is now so high that we're overloaded with carbs of all kinds.

Sugars of one sort or other are added to all sorts of stuff to take the edge off of some unpleasant bitterness and to improve mouth feel. I was surprised to find sugar as an ingredient in hot wings, but it takes the edge off the heat and makes it more pleasant to most people. At least most people who eat hot wings, or so the colonel thinks.

Thanks to our embargo of Cuban sugar while subsidizing corn and maintaining price supports for Florida and Louisiana sugar, HFCS got a legup in the commercial food biz and is now so cheap it's added almost automatically to damn near everything.

Oh, and there are those reports of measurable amounts of mercury in some batches of HFCS, so even if it turns out to be not so bad nutitionally, avoiding it is still good advice.

(No mercury in vaccines, but could be in PB&J? Time for some conspiracy nutters to switch targets?)

than the fake crap. Same for "low fat" & "non fat" foods too.

dg

that's all you need to know about that last quote.

I'd rather make my food choices based on ethical issues--animal cruelty, environmental issues, etc--than whether I'll be able to keep my liver functioning when I'm 105.

But that's me.

They are easily fooled, or they are into denial when it comes to gratifying their craving for sweets, or both.

nt

All the Monsanto spin in this thread is making me dizzy. It's like a Tasmanian Devil on meth.

chief among them being that it consists of empty calories, which is the last thing most of us need right now, for me personally it's a far better choice than HFCS.

I have some kind of intolerance to HFCS, and it makes me sick. Literally, physically sick. I don't want to get into descriptives (TMI), but let's just say the bathroom and I are close friends when I eat too much HFCS.

And it's been in every-freakin'-thing for the last 15 years, which makes my life a bit difficult. Count me in as someone who is *THRILLED* that food manufacturers are finally moving away from HFCS.

I like sugar. I eat both. I'm healthy. Fuck it.

How about the "food" makers stop injecting sweet empty calories, by whatever name, into every teaspoon of the crap they process and package?

And this is absurd:

"no major studies have made a definitive link between high-fructose corn syrup and poor health."

Does this mean that calories aren't related to obesity, or that being fat is now healthy?

I remember when Coke used to be made from cane sugar. Sodas made from HFCS taste almost too sweet.

Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831.html

Secondly, there is a direct link between the use of HFCS and the rise in type II diabetes.

Introduced in the 1970s as an abundant and cheap sweetening agent, high-fructose corn syrup has become so popular that every American now consumes about sixty pounds a year. For that reason, the sweetener has become a source of concern to doctors and scientists who treat metabolic disorders. Because the liver more readily metabolizes fructose into fat than it does glucose, high fructose consumption can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disorder, often a precursor to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.

http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2009/03/10/6113/link-seen-between-high-fructose-corn-syrup-consumption-and-insulin-resistance/

you know foie gras? it's eaten by humans, & it's a duck's fatty liver, gotten by force-feeding ducks.

excess consumption of *food* causes fatty liver, in humans as well as ducks. excess consumption of *any* sugar causes fatty liver.

there is no body of scientific work that *directly* links fructose consumption per se to fatty liver. the study you cite fed *very high* levels. similar results would be obtained from *very high* levels of *any* sugar.

overweight people are more likely to have fatty livers, diabetes, & heart disease. the higher risk is *not* caused by consuming *one* thing, e.g. fructose. it's caused from over-consumption generally & the global metabolic changes that result.

to smoking and cancer.

The problem with the studies is who funds them.

I went hfcs free in 2005 and lost 30 pounds. That was the only change I made. Actually for accuracy, it meant eliminating prepackaged food which could have contained other elements that also might have contributed to normalizing my weight.

like nothing else, even more then candy. It all depends on how your body reacts to it.

Eating nuts tends to lower it, even without doing insulin. Weird.

Seems like we prove it every day.

Americans can do anything!

frankly, when it comes to sugar and high fructose corn syrup, it's not THAT it is in food.... it is that it is in ALL of the food. just like salt. You can hardly buy anything at the store without there being something in it that alone is not bad, but in everything you eat turns out to be very bad. sugar is refined, which i believe ends up bad in the end. high fructose corn syrup is somehow manufactured, which also makes it end up bad for you. our bodies are probably not meant for this man meddled with stuff. which is probably why it ends up being bad for us.

A public service announcement from the beef and pork producers.

They just want easy answers without limiting their enjoyment.

I'd rather eat sugar than HFCS, but that's because I try to cut out all processed foods and use sugar sparingly. I do agree that if we eat equal amts. of sugar as we do HFCS, we'll weigh the same. There might be a chemical structure to HFCS that might add to the unhealthiness of it, but that needs to be studied further before proven. Regardless, too much sugar or too much HFCS = BAD for you! Moderation is key!