High Fructose Corn Syrup – why it is bad
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing the starch into corn syrup, which is almost entirely glucose (which isn’t so bad). They then add enzymes that change some of the glucose into fructose (which is very bad).
Regular cane sugar is made of two sugar molecules bound tightly together – 50/50 glucose and fructose. Your body must first break down the sucrose into glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the body. There is still fructose to deal with, it’s still bad, but it’s not quite as bad as its cheaper replacement — HFCS.
HFCS also consists of glucose and fructose, but they are most often in a 55-45 fructose to glucose ratio, and they are not bound together. With no chemical bond to be broken apart, they are more rapidly absorbed into your blood stream. Fructose goes right to the liver and triggers lipogenesis, the production of fats (including triglycerides and cholesterol). HFCS is blamed for metabolic disturbances, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia and more.
It gets a lot more complicated than I can explain here, in a nutshell, besides the liver damage, the insulin resistance (precursor to diabetes), the fats it creates that lead to cardiac problems… it also depletes stuff it shouldn’t during the digestive process, and in a long chain reaction involving several body systems it eventually triggers the immune system and inflammation throughout the body. Eating sugar in the quantities we eat HFCS would do the same, in some ways the “sugar is sugar” statement in the propaganda is true, but in some ways it isn’t. If they said, “sugar is sugar, eating it in excess quantities will make you sick and eventually kill you in whatever form you eat it”, it would be a bit more truthful.
HFCS is sweeter than processed sugar, and thanks to the government subsidies, HFCS is cheaper than sugar – around half the price or sometimes less than half the price. Coke was sold in 8 oz bottles in the 20′s, now it’s sold in 20 ounce bottles. HFCS has allowed that to happen.
If you are interested in the science behind it, and have an hour and a half to watch this video, then this will break down the specifics. He doesn’t talk about the differences in HFCS and sugar, he lumps them both into pretty much the same category. In my opinion, he’s trying to avoid the current political rhetoric of HFCS vs sugar debate and just talk about the effects of fructose on the body. He’s trying to get laws passed, and he knows he’ll never get a law passed against HFCS by itself, but that by attacking all readily available fructose he’s got a better chance. So he says they are the same and avoids talking about the molecular differences. However, he does explain the difference in how different carbs are processed in the body, and that’s really the important part here. If you don’t have an hour and a half to watch it, or just want a synopsis, jump below the video.
If you just want me to tell you what he says:
- Obesity, hypertension, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, etc. all drastically increased when the government told us to start eating a low fat diet. He shows how the logic that created that advice was flawed. A low fat diet translated into a high fructose diet, and that’s the problem.
- Fructose metabolizes in the body like alcohol, except none of it reaches the brain, so we don’t get the buzz. It does pretty much the same thing in the liver, though. This is why kids have what looks like a beer belly now – it’s a “soda belly”.
- Fructose, like alcohol, is a toxin that causes all kinds of problems in the liver and pancreas.
- Fructose is metabolized more like a fat than a carbohydrate, and in fact ends up being stored as fat. A high fructose diet is pretty much a high fat diet.
- Fructose sets up a long chain of reactions in the body that make it pretty easy to classify it as a poison. But one can of Coke won’t do it, it’s only in quantity that it is a poison, and so the FDA won’t do anything. And the USDA certainly isn’t going to do anything, either.
- Fructose and processed sugar are both bad, but HFCS is in almost everything, and that’s what makes it so hard to avoid.
He talks about how he is seeing six month old babies who are obese, and then shows the amount of fructose in baby formula — about the same percentage that’s in a soda. He says he has three things he has parents do when they come in with an obese child:
- Cut out all drinks except water and milk. He later shows the fructose levels in chocolate milk, and points out you shouldn’t do that, either.
- Eat only high fiber carbohydrates. No fast foods, as they are carbs with no fiber.
- Must “buy” screen time with exercise – thirty minutes of play time for 30 minutes of TV or computer or video time.
And he says this works. I can see how it would. It’s so simple, and doesn’t teach the child to starve themselves, it just gets them away from the whole fructose mess so their bodies can start to regulate themselves naturally again. There is a hormone, leptin, that is supposed to tell you when you are full, so you’ll stop eating. Fructose suppresses leptin, so we are never told when we are full. If you drink a soda with your meal, you’ll never get the cues from your body telling you that you’re full. I mentioned this in the comments the other day so I won’t go into this one too deep, but there is another doctor out there who talks more about why HFCS is bad – you can read some of what he says here.
And finally, a Princeton study showed that rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same. In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. To quote them: “When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they’re becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don’t see this; they don’t all gain extra weight.”
High Fructose Corn Syrup is in most of the items at a normal grocery store. We are told the average American eats over forty pounds per year of High Fructose Corn Syrup. It is impossible to completely eliminate it from the American diet unless you are eating only whole fruits and vegetables and absolutely nothing else. It’s in almost every single bread you will find in your bread aisle, it’s in most ketchup (Hunts did take the HFCS out, but they replaced it with sugar — the ketchup we buy has no sugar added at all and it tastes fine without it). It’s in pickles, yogurt, soft drinks, almost all processed cereals (even the the adult supposedly healthy stuff), peanut butter crackers, wheat crackers, salad dressings…. seriously, it’s everywhere.
There do not appear to be any commercial sweet pickles without HFCS. I’ve found a local brand without it, but it’s not available year round. There are cereals without it, Kashi
If you want to reduce the amount your family ingests, start out by looking through your kitchen. Read the ingredients, and when you find a product with HFCS, do some research online to find a substitute that other people say is good. Most of the Kashi cereal is good, but a few flavors taste like shredded cardboard – so do your research.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is also called glucose-fructose syrup, glucose/fructose, and high-fructose maize syrup. The Corn Refiners Association is lobbying to have the name changed to Corn Sugar and occasionally you’ll see it listed as an ingredient as Corn Sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I’m also told that some companies are just calling it corn syrup in the ingredients instead of by the longer name. There are three main formulas used, HFCS 55 is most used in soft drinks and is about 55% fructose and 42% glucose. HFCS 42 is used mostly in cereals and baked goods, and is about 42% fructose and 53% glucose. HFCS-90 is around 90% fructose and 5% glucose. Manufacturers are not required to specify which HFCS they are using when they list it in the ingredients.
We have not eliminated HFCS entirely from our life, but we probably consume about 10% of what the average American consumes. Both of our girls are quite thin, and so I don’t worry about sugar with them. Neither of them has much of a sweet tooth, give them a cupcake at a birthday party and both will eat less than half of it. Unless the cake is chocolate, GG won’t get a piece at all, but even with the chocolate she won’t eat that much. I allow them to gorge on Halloween candy the weekend after Halloween – my theory is that it’s better to let it hit the body all at once and then get it out of the house. I’ve tried to downplay the candy they get on Valentines day, but I’ve finally just ended up doing the same thing there – gorge on it the weekend after Valentines day and get it out of here so we don’t have to deal with it anymore.
My goal is not to eliminate it entirely, but to reduce it dramatically.
January 30th, 2012 at 8:56 am
This is fantastic! Thank, RQ! I’m going to read it again when I have more time tonight. Our son struggles with behavior. We’ve cut down on all sugar, but especially corn syrup, food dyes, and we try organic as much as possible etc. – it helps. I’m in a hippy-ish state, so thankfully even our main grocery chains carry a lot of organic. I was so happy to find Skippy has peanut butter with sugar instead of corn syrup. We also found an organic wheat bread there that the kids like. I miss Jamie Oliver’s show. Our son watched with interest and now never asks to go to a McDonald’s. Food Inc (documentary) changed the way we eat. I like their point that “money talks” and if we continued to support and buy organic and better food, more will be provided. Great post!
January 30th, 2012 at 9:34 am
Another video to watch is King Corn
. I probably should have mentioned that one in the main article. They start out the movie by learning that a hair analysis of most Americans shows that they eat more corn than any other food. That’s in part because you can’t get away from HFCS, but also because all of the meat that most Americans eat is being fed a diet of corn.
January 30th, 2012 at 10:21 am
What really drives me nuts is that it’s in EVERYTHHING! Salad “dressings”, bread, cereals, just about anything processed has some amount of HFCS. Often people think they are buying something healthy, but it’s loaded with HFCS. It’s actually the reason we’ve all but eliminated processed foods from our house. I used to think a can of soup and a few crackers was a fine lunch. It wasn’t. It’s basically a bowl of HFCS. Look at the label. Often people try to feed their family a healthy salad. Sounds good right? Add that ranch dressing, and you might as well have gone to Mc Donald’s.
I feel bad for people who really don’t understand. IMO, they’ve been lied to.
January 30th, 2012 at 10:26 am
Natures Own breads are all HFCS free and it’s in all the grocery stores in my area, and tastes good too.
January 30th, 2012 at 10:33 am
I’ll check Netflix for that. We don’t do soda, but the kids love “The Switch” soda when we have gatherings for a treat. It’s juice/seltzer and tastes just as sweet as soda to me. Then there’s GMO food, school lunches, getting safe meat/fish, can linings, plastic, teflon… we can’t seem to manage “never” either, but ugh… it’s hard to keep up. Our town started a summer farmer’s market, which is so great. Our school seem to be trying more homemade lunches, too. There is hope! Thanks again!
January 30th, 2012 at 10:39 am
We try to eat a diet with a low glycemic index. My husband and I both go to a wellness center and our doctors recommend this diet to keep blood sugar on an even keel. Works for me as I will suffer from low blood sugar, as will my kids if we don’t eat a lot of small meals that don’t cause our blood sugar to spike. If I eat something high in sugar, whether real sugar or junky sugar, I will soon become almost shaky… not good. I try to replace sugar in things I make with Agave or other natural sugars. The good thing with agave is that it has a low glycemic index, so you don’t get the spikes in blood sugar. My doctor also said whole grain bread over whole wheat for the glycemic index. I managed to find a brand that my kids will eat because it looks white… so funny how kids are with brown bread.
Special K and Cheerios don’t have HFCS. I also buy organic products, but these two all three of my kids like. We have a Whole Foods close to where I live, so I love shopping there, which certainly makes it easier to choose healthier foods.
I agree with the movement back towards unprocessed foods. Thanks to your recommendation RQ, I bought my husband the juicer and am personally loving it. I juice all different vegetables. Now just need to convince the kids!! I also just picked up a new cookbook, “How to Cook everything Vegetarian” by James Bitman. I love the simplicity of his recipes and hope to make healthier meals for my family.
Thanks for the information!
January 30th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
I watched “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead” b/c of your recommendation. After that, I purchased Dr. Furhman’s (the doctor featured in the movie) book “Disease Proof your child: feeding kids right”. Have you read it? It made a lot of good points on the value of “nutritional excellence” in kids…mainly that what you feed young children will determine their health later on. I disagree with some of his recommendations, but I feel it opened my eyes to scrutinize everything we eat to a degree that I had not before. Also, he emphasizes in utero nutrition and 1st couple of years nutrition…in my case with my kids, I cant change any of that. But, DH and I have greatly changed our nutrition status in the last couple of weeks. We both feel that we should pay more attention to what they eat, becaue we do not know if they had optimal nutrition for the first 2 years.
Thank you for the kick in the butt we needed!
I am allergic to corn. Yes, it is difficult, but it can be done to eliminate 100% of all corn products in our home. I couldnt believe how much better I felt after eliminating all corn products!
January 30th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Also, has anyone read about “Green Smoothies”? We didnt like the idea of not consuming all the juice pulp…so we started making smoothies with raw greens instead. We started those after watching Fat Sick And Nearly Dead. The kids love them and are now happily drinking lots of raw leafy greens with each meal!
January 30th, 2012 at 1:42 pm
GREAT POST.
I think it is so tough for people because it seems so complicated. They see a little article on yahoo and they start reading. Well, within 4 lines their eyes glaze over and they check out. We eat organic. We have cut back HUGELY on processed foods, although I don’t think we are quite at the 10% level yet. We LOVE our Nature’s Own bread – no fructose. We use the honey wheat – not white, not wheat in between and the kids love it. I do need to be more vigilant with the canned goods. I do not check labels as often as I should…
Also, I think I will post this as a link only my blog in a “healthy eating” post this week. It is a quick and easy read and I think would alert people to the truths about sugar in general and HFCS in particular.
January 30th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Thanks so much for the post. We struggle to get HFCS out of our diet, but we live in a very rural area with limited grocery options, so it’s really tough. The one tip I do follow is “shop the perimeter.” All the fresh foods, fruits and vegetables, meats, deli counter, dairy, etc, are around the walls of every grocery store. We are constantly reading labels and buy non HFCS products whenever we can. DD only gets milk and water to drink, no processed sweets or juices except on weekends, and almost no fast food–and she doesn’t miss them at all. We also try very hard to make home-cooked meals every night and are mostly successful.
January 30th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Always looking to ditch the HFCS
Add fiber.
My peanut gets plenty of exercise, but I am looking to reduce media. Busy plotting out our schedule and getting a plan together.
But it does include earning media time. I had already decided. Whatever was to be done to earn it would be double what she was getting in media minutes.
January 30th, 2012 at 7:02 pm
I’m not convinced that Agave syrup is any better than HFCS. It is heavily processed, and even has to go through an enzyme process, just like HFCS. Some of it is reported to have 90% fructose, some of it supposedly has around 30% fructose. Either way, it’s not bound together like sugar, and it seems to have a whole lot in common with HFCS.
There is so much information out there about it that conflicts, I’m not really convinced either way at this point. I think the plant itself is probably low glycemic, but I’m not convinced the syrup is. I’m not totally convinced it isn’t… but at this point I’m waiting for more data.
January 30th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Also remember for any food or sweeteners the glycogenic load is more important than the gycemic index. One of the reasons the juice fast works so well .. We all need carbs but how your body reacts to carbs is the key to optimal health.
Bottom line minimze processed foods.
January 30th, 2012 at 7:09 pm
here is an article citing a recent study about HFCS.
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Science/HFCS-and-sugar-Can-your-body-tell-the-difference-after-all?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright
First of all, let’s not completely demonize fructose. Fructose is fruit sugar – it is the sugar in apples, peaches, honey. It is not inherently bad for you – it has a significant role in metabolism.
The problem is the overconsumption of fructose – be it in juices, or in the consumption of sucrose, or via HFCS. The problem is that HFCS is a cheap sweetener, sweet foods sell, and the addition of sugar (HFCS) has become endemic to processed foods.
That the body absorbs fructose faster when it is delivered in HFCS vs. sucrose is NOT proven.
If you consumed a huge amount of fructose from naturally occurring sources, say you ate a bushel of pears, you would sustain the same negative effects as if you drank the same amount in soda. BUT – we are rather self limiting on fruit consumption – one would be physically unable to consume that amount of fresh fruit. The magic of HFCS is it is a delivery source that bypasses our digestive regulatory system (the bulk and fiber of fresh foods, the chewing that signals digestive hormones, the full stomach that signals us to stop eating).
As much as I agree that HFCS is a problem, it is really more a matter of quantity – perhaps there will be solid evidence of metabolic effects, but as I understand it, unfortunately that evidence does not yet exist.
Now, demonizing it as an environmental and economic hazard (King Corn) – I totally agree with that.
January 30th, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Fructose when eaten in fruit, when you’re getting the fiber and the nutrients with it, is a far cry from what happens in your body when you consume processed fiberless food with HFCS in them. And an even farther cry from what happens to your body when you drink sodas.
Did you check out the Princeton study? HFCS does react differently in the body than table sugar. Calorie for calorie, there was a difference.
I didn’t even touch on the fact that HFCS comes from genetically modified corn.
January 30th, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Actually, RQ, fructose is fructose is fructose. It’s metabolic activity does not change based on where it comes from. Chemical structure is constant.
It really is a matter of quantity, not quality.
Drinking massive quantities of juice, with its high fructose content, would be just as detrimental as drinking soda. But people do not usually consume 64oz of orange juice at a sitting (for a variety of reasons, cost being a big one), and the fructose is also absorbed differently when it is the only sugar present in the GI tract.
As the study I linked also noted, it may very well be that the 5% difference in the proportion of the fructose molecule in HFCS vs sucrose adds up to significant absorption differences, and it may be that sucrose is more slowly or less efficiently absorbed due to enzyme activity in the small intestine….but that still leads to a quantity situation. You get more fructose in your liver.
the wikipedia page on fructose is quite good (written by one of my profs and his grad students).
Not a fan of HFCS at all! Would love to see definitive research showing HFCS is , metabolically, the root of all evil….but there is no such research at this point. A study here, a study there – but not solid evidence.
Until then….moderation, conscious shopping, real foods, and moderation.
January 30th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Technically sugar in any of its processed form is not necessary.
There is no nutritional requirement for any of it.
Try to limit it on all levels. Not as successful as I would like to be.
January 31st, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Love this post! Thank you. May I please share it with the principal of my daughter’s school? I am trying (against alot of resistance) to get the school to disallow sugar products. They don’t sell much in the cafeteria, but allow (or encourage) parents to bring in junk food for every possible reason. Thanks, again. Great post topic.
January 31st, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Waiting for GiGi – share it with whoever you like :)
February 1st, 2012 at 5:37 pm
It truly amazes me how many people come to our home and are floored at the organic products we eat. I get the impression some people think we are food snobs and ask why I buy the expensive organic products. I explain about the HFCS, pesticides and nutrition and most think I am overreacting to the situation. I rechecked out cupboards when I read this and the only two things I could find with HFCS were grape jelly my dh likes and bbq sauce. It is possible to eat without the HFCS added. I also get looks from friends and family when I refuse to allow dd to have anything with artificial sugars in it. It is hard to watch her not get the “treat” the other kids are eating but I substitute something else instead. Honestly it drives me nuts when parents encourage their children drink diet coke, sugar free candy and Popsicle. I have heard over and over that they feel it is healthier because there is no sugar in it. It is always walking that fine line between explaining my position on these things and not lecturing. One of our friends has an issue with her toddler daughters weight but has allowed her to have regular soda, little Debbie’s snacks and Mc Donalds since she was an infant. She strictly limits her daughter intake of food in general to the point of yelling at her and fighting with her but they eat mostly processed foods.
February 14th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
RQ,
Wow it has been a long time since I checked in here and I am so glad I did. This is a fantastic series of posts!!!
I just wanted to share that we buy Arnold bread, at Walmart, and it does not have HFCS.
Thanks again, I am going to share these with my family.