I think the junkfood biz just hit a new low. And the American Medical Associate as well for additional, reprehensible actions.
According to Marion at What to Eat, they are producing a full color, full page ad touting high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as just as safe as conventional sugar and even honey!
This is one of the best quotes from their site:
You can even compare sweeteners side-by-side and see the “benefits” of HFCS and just now “natural” it is.
I’ll give them that HFCS is made from a natural product, corn, but the extraction process requires so much chemical and enzymatic manipulation that the end product in no way resembles its parent product. High fructose corn syrup just doesn’t exist in nature.
And this is fully admitted on their site!
The enzyme alpha-amylase is added to a slurry of starch and water to liquefy or reduce the particle size of the starch to produce glucose polymers. Enzymes are nature’s catalysts to get things done. This step is followed by saccharification with the enzyme glucoamylase, which breaks the glucose polymers down to their basic building blocks. The resulting glucose mixture is filtered and clarified by centrifugation, carbon filtration and ion exchange.
Essentially, they pre-digest the corn for us. Yum, ABC-corn.
When your body doesn’t have to digest something, doesn’t have to burn the calories to break it down, it tends to just store it.
So while HFCS may not have a direct link with obesity, it does end up in products (i.e. most junk foods) that feed a sedentary lifestyle which doesn’t see much of the inside of a gym.
This is partly addressed on the site’s FAQ where it is said that HFCS is not metabolized any differently than any other form of sucrose, quoting a study done in 2007. The part that is so conveniently left out is that the study was performed on lean women who metabolize differently than other people. This IS admitted in the study here:
Oh yes, I should mention that the study was only performed over two days. I wouldn’t exactly call that conclusive regarding the long-term consumption of HFCS. Yet I’d bet that this is the same study that led the AMA to claim that it doesn’t have any more health risks than sugar.
Even if we leave out the fact that HFCS is a corn product, one of those crops that is getting more expensive because of food shortages, is one of the top GMO crops, AND still requires large amounts of chemicals when produced by Big Farms, this propaganda is still highly offensive.
The worst part of all of this for me and my family is the further damage this is going to cause to children. We just finished banning HFCS from all products from our house because I noticed that ESon was getting uncharacteristically bad behaviored. He had gone from being a sweet, charming child to one that was getting extremely frustrated with his toys, throwing increasingly vehement tantrums, and sleeping like a coked-up squirrel.
Within 10 or so days of cutting out the major offenders of HFCS, his behavior did a near 180 turn. Most people would likely have just written off his new actions as “the terrible twos” but my mommy-gut told me something was causing this.*
It turns out the junk is in everything.
We found it in his cereal bars, fig bars, bread (even whole wheat!), and the most boggling was how many crackers had the goo in them. Why does a salty, crunchy cracker need corn syrup? I can understand its presence in things that need to be soft, but not that.
I’m proud and happy to say that it’s not in one product left in this house, and with everyone’s efforts, it won’t enter again.
As in so many other propaganda-like campaigns as this, it’s disturbing to see how much of the real research they’ve left out, research that their carefully selected research did not refute.
High fructose intake may be hepatotoxic, animal studies indicate
Effects of a High Fructose Diet on Lipogenic Enzyme Activities in Some Organs of Rats Fed ad libitum (PDF)
Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity
*That’s not to say that every terrible-two-toddler can be “fixed” by removing the one ingredient; it just happened to work with our kid.
Ah… I need your discipline. I just finished a huge bowl of ice cream that I’m SURE had lots of corn syrup in it. Sigh. I know I feel better when I don’t eat it. :) I just don’t have the will power, and my husband doesn’t think it matters!
Very important information, by the way! With the partially hydrogenated oils and the HF corn syrup, there aren’t many packaged snacks we feel comfortable buying anymore when we are being smart… Triscuits and corn chips are the two safe ones, I think!
Also, though HFCS technically comes from corn, it is not corn as we know it — the corn which HFCS is made from is an inedible, hybridized, very often genetically modified crop that our ancestors never knew.
If you’re interested in all this corn stuff, I highly recommend the documentary ‘King Corn’, in which two young men plant an acre of corn and then strive to follow corn through it’s entire life cycle.
Geez… who knew I could get so worked up about ‘corn’? :)
it’s reminding me of how poorly our meat industry is also regulated. I just read Fast Food Nation and basically came away with the realization that the people who produce our meat kind of make their own rules about what is safe and what is not…and the public, for the most part is grossly underinformed.
You grinders just hate it when yet another scientific study (you know, the kind you rabidly attempt to discredit if it doesn’t completely support your nut-job ideology) shows how full of crap you actually are, don’t you…
Jennifer -
Oh believe me, it’s not easy! Especially since I’ve hit a stride in this pregnancy where I want to eat loads of junk food. Fortunately, and surprisingly, fruit has been a decent substitute. I’ve probably eaten 3 pounds of strawberries and raspberries in the last two weeks lol
Jen (Modern Beet) -
I haven’t seen that documentary, although we watched one on GMOs over the weekend that slightly touched on HFCS. I’ve also been reading Harvest for Hope and learning even more about the chemical cocktail that ends up in most commercial food. It makes me feel a little ill.
Melissa -
Most of this country seems to be grossly misinformed and/or underinformed about, well, everything! Granted, I only started really reading labels about two years ago and even more so since having my first child, but the amount of unpronounceable hooey in most food is really staggering.
BadKarma -
Congratulations on being my first troll! :)
It’s obviously you didn’t really read the post, or any of the links I added, or you would have seen the other studies that discredit this study. I didn’t have to.
And I’ve never seen a more appropriate troll-name.
There may be other studies or stories out there that support your argument better, but I intend to comment just on what you have posted, here.
It appears that the studies you are citing point to fructose as the problem, not HFCS, specifically. Granted, fructose is a part of HFCS (hence, the ‘F’ in the acronym). However, the consumption of fructose isn’t really the problem. The problem is the lack of hunger satisfaction from fructose that leads one to eat/drink more. If that is your problem, it is a valid complaint, but that isn’t the fault of HFCS, it’s the fault of weak will power (or instinct, for lack of a better word, in children). That may be reason enough to keep it away from kids, but that’s up the parent to decide (I am not a parent, by the way, so I grant that I may be overstepping my bounds by commenting on parenting). That doesn’t make HFCS a toxic chemical, like so many make it out to be. The third article doesn’t present any science to support the conclusion. It sounds like the conclusion that HFCS is bad is conjecture drawn from other research, but a hypothesis that wasn’t directly tested.
The “abc” corn comment is my next target. Technically, it’s not completely wrong to say that, but it is a simplistic view. Those enzymes are only accomplishing what the body would do naturally. I don’t know if that has any effect on the metabolism of the glucose it produces, but in general, glucose is glucose. The body breaks down whatever it can into glucose, because that is the natural fuel of respiration (I’m referring to the biological process of converting fuel to energy, not just breathing; plants respire with photosynthesized food as fuel). Yes, you are saving some energy that would otherwise be used to break the polysacharides into glucose in the first place, but that’s splitting hairs.
To Jen: I’m okay with making progress from what my ancestors had. People aren’t perfect and not every “good” idea remains good after being put into practice; but the last time I checked, life expectancy has only gone up for years. Please don’t cite the bogus report that came out saying “this generation is the first that is going to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.” The head of that study came out sometime later to say that conclusion was not a conclusion of the report and was only an assumption/conjecture of the team after the fact. The way I heard it, the actual study denied the hypothesis, or, at best, did not support it in a compelling way.
Brad: On the lack of willpower with respect to fructose it may be worth considering that fructose will make the blood glucose control worse over time. This is a medium long term effect. The short term effect of fructose is the lowering of the blood glucose level and this makes you hungry and your body is objectivly in need of glucose. It messes up the natural control loops in your body.
And yes, the over consumption of fructose is exactly the problem and HFCS is a major contributor. The “natural” (pre sugar industry, pre HFCS industry) consumption levels were much lower. Check out the basic facts about blood triglycerid levels and fructose and come back.
This is really great stuff here. I’ve been looking and looking for some real hard data over the past few days and really can’t find anything.
What I would really like to see is blood and plasma samples before and after with raw sugar, refined sugar and HCFS.
That will be the defining test in my mind. (hmmm I see an experiment with white mice in my back yard coming on)
Look, HFCS may be just as good a sweetner as regular refined sugar. But as those new ads by the Corn Refiners of America state, HFCS is fine when eaten in moderation.
The thing is, people cannot eat HFCS in moderation, because it is in almost all food products!!!
The problem today is people take it for granted that the food and liquids they buy and consume are safe since they are bought in a store.
But the sad fact is that with all the preservatives, and chemicals added that we have to be very cautious as to what we consume.
They said cigarettes didn’t cause cancer for years, so whom are you going to trust?
People say they don’t have the will power to eat right. This is mainly because the foods they buy are designed to be addictive, just like cigarettes.
We have become a very obese society, with a lot of medical problems that are directly related to the foods and liquids we consume.
If you want to live a long and healthy life it’s imperative that you eat a healthy diet, and stay away from preservatives, chemicals, and toxins hidden in our food.
This is why I stated my blog site to help keep people informed stop by and visit if you want to know more http://kieferscorner.com