Dr. Mercola September 23 2008 44,580 views
SweetSurprise.com offers a number of surprising facts about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). For example, the site tells you that, “Research confirms that high fructose corn syrup is safe and no different from other common sweeteners like table sugar and honey. All three sweeteners are nutritionally the same.”
They also claim that “Though the individual sugars are metabolized by different pathways, this is of little consequence since the body sees the same mix of sugars from caloric (nutritive) sweeteners, regardless of source.
Of course, SweetSurprise.com is a site run by the Corn Refiners Association ... so I suspect there’s a chance they may be biased.
There are two types of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS): HFCS-55 and HFCS-42. HFCS-55 is composed of 55 percent fructose, 42 percent glucose and 3 percent higher sugars, and tastes as sweet as table sugar, while HFCS-42 is somewhat less sweet.
When HFCS-55 was developed, it was specifically formulated to provide sweetness equivalent to table sugar so that consumers would not perceive a difference in product sweetness and taste.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that the consumption of high fructose corn syrup was just over 40 pounds per year, per person, as of 2007. It accounts for roughly 41 percent of all caloric sweeteners consumed in the U.S.
SweetSurprise.com is run by The Corn Refiners Association, which recently launched a major advertising and public relations campaign to the tune of $20-30 million, designed to rehabilitate the reputation of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). You might have even seen a few of their commercials on TV recently.
This site is nothing but an extension of their deceptive advertising that claims the product is no worse for you than sugar. One of their ads, which shows two women talking, reads:
“My hairdresser says that sugar is healthier than high fructose corn syrup.” “Wow! You get your hair done by a doctor?”
“My hairdresser says that sugar is healthier than high fructose corn syrup.”
“Wow! You get your hair done by a doctor?”
Not surprisingly, the Corn Refiners Association is running these ads in response to the increasing public perception of the dangers of HFCS. But this “perception” was not instigated by chatty hairdressers with nothing to do but spread their own personal opinions to a captive audience. No. Scientists have linked HFCS to the rampant epidemics of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome in the U.S., and medical researchers have pinpointed various other health dangers associated with the consumption of HFCS compared to regular sugar (which I’ll review below).
The Corn Refiners Association has been trying to counter the seriously bad PR generated by damaging research findings since 2004, but finally realized it could no longer afford to rely on simple grass-roots marketing tactics such as sweet talking nutritionists and doctors.
THAT’S a sign that truthful grass-roots consumer information, such as the information found in this newsletter, is spreading and reaching a much wider audience! Now we just have to maintain the counter-pressure to ensure that people are not deceived AGAIN.
Hopefully we can get the word out about what these ads are really about: money.Declining Consumption Has Turned Industry Sour… and Desperate
Since the 1970s, the consumption of HFCS in the United States has skyrocketed. Consumption of beverages containing fructose alone rose 135 percent between 1977 and 2001. That is until about 2003.
According to the Corn Refiners Association statistics, the per capita consumption in the United States actually went down from more than 45 pounds per year in 1999 to just over 42 pounds annually 2005. The USDA estimates per capita consumption at about 40 pounds per year as of 2007.
That’s a really good sign for the health of the community, but a bad one for the financial health of the companies that sell HFCS. Hence the multi-million dollar media campaign. In June a nearly $5 billion merger of Corn Products International and Bunge Ltd. signaled that corn manufacturers mean business. Revenues are expected to increase 29 percent in 2008 to reach $4 billion.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is the Number One Source of Calories in U.S. Diet
Although the trend is declining, an average intake of 40 pounds of HFCS per person, per year, is still far too much, if you want to obtain or maintain optimal health that is.
In case you forgot, or never knew in the first place, the number one source of calories in the U.S. is high fructose corn syrup. Let me restate that so you can more fully appreciate the impact of this fact. Dietary fat has 250 percent more calories than sugar, but even with this major disadvantage, the food that most people get MOST of their calories from is HFCS, primarily in the form of soft drinks. The good news about this shocking fact is that stopping the pernicious habit of drinking sodas is one of the easiest things you can do. You can radically improve your health just by cutting out soda. I am HIGHLY confident that the health improvement would be FAR more profound than if you quit smoking, because elevated insulin levels are the foundation of nearly every chronic disease, including:
And that’s just naming a few.
But in addition to being an exorbitant source of excess calories for the average American, there are a number of other things SweetSurprise.com fails to tell you the truth about, as it relates to high fructose corn syrup.
High Fructose Corn Syrup Does NOT Metabolize in the Same Way as Sugar
HFCS is a highly processed product that contains similar amounts of unbound fructose and glucose. Sucrose, on the other hand, is a larger sugar molecule that is metabolized into glucose and fructose in your intestine.
Part of what makes HFCS such an unhealthy product is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar, and, because most fructose is consumed in liquid form, its negative metabolic effects are significantly magnified.
Whereas the glucose in other sugars is used by your body, and is converted to blood glucose, fructose is a relatively unregulated source of fuel that your liver converts to fat and cholesterol.
There are over 35 years of hard empirical evidence that refined man-made fructose like high fructose corn syrup metabolizes to triglycerides and adipose tissue, not blood glucose. The downside of this is that fructose does not stimulate your insulin secretion, nor enhance leptin production. (Leptin is a hormone thought to be involved in appetite regulation.)
Because insulin and leptin act as key signals in regulating how much food you eat, as well as your body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased food intake and weight gain.
Additionally, fructose is also known to significantly raise your triglycerides and LDL (bad cholesterol).
Triglycerides, the chemical form of fat found in foods and in your body, are not something you want in excess amounts. Intense research over the past 40 years has confirmed that elevated blood levels of triglycerides, known as hypertriglyceridemia, puts you at an increased risk of heart disease.
New Evidence That HFCS Contributes to Development of Diabetes
Recent research, reported at the 2007 national meeting of the American Chemical Society, found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with HFCS may contribute to the development of diabetes because it contains high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to trigger cell and tissue damage that cause diabetes.
Chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS were found to have ‘astonishingly high’ levels of reactive carbonyls. Reactive carbonyls are undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules, and are believed to cause tissue damage.
By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar because its fructose and glucose components are “bound” and chemically stable.
Reactive carbonyls are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes and are linked to the health complications of diabetes. Based on the study data, the researchers estimate that a single can of soda contains about five times the concentration of reactive carbonyls than the concentration found in the blood of an adult person with diabetes.
Fructose Depletes Your Body of Enzymes, Vitamins or Minerals
Fructose also does not contain any enzymes, vitamins or minerals so it takes these micronutrients from your body while it assimilates itself for use.
Unbound fructose, found in large quantities in HFCS, can interfere with your heart's use of minerals such as magnesium, copper and chromium.
This does not mean you should avoid whole fruit, however, as it contains natural fructose together with the enzymes, vitamins and minerals needed for your body to assimilate the fructose. Eating small amounts of whole fruit also does not provide a tremendous amount of fructose, and is not likely to be a problem for most people unless diabetes or obesity is an issue.
Did You Know? -- Most HFCS is Made From Genetically Modified Corn
Adding insult to injury, HFCS is almost always made from genetically modified corn, which is fraught with its own well documented side effects and health concerns. GMO corn will radically increase your risk of developing corn food allergies. The problem with corn allergies are that once you have a corn allergy from GMO corn you will have an allergy to even healthy organic corn products.
The Bottom Line
Sodas, of course, are not the only source of HFCS (though they represent one of the main ones). This dangerous sweetener is also in many processed foods and fruit juices, so to avoid it you need to focus your diet on whole foods and, if you do purchase packaged foods, become an avid label reader.
But if you want to drastically improve your health, the answer is plain and simple. To lose weight and reduce your risk of developing metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and heart disease, STOP drinking soda and processed fruit juices that are sweetened with about eight teaspoons of fructose per serving!
Switch to pure water as your beverage of choice and you will be well on your way to better health.
However, like most areas in life, when presented with two poisons, choose carefully.
Even though HFCS is clearly something you want to avoid, it is not as bad as artificial sweeteners, which damage your health even more rapidly than HFCS. (I spent several years researching artificial sweeteners for my book Sweet Deception, which goes into these issues in great detail).
So ideally, you’ll want to avoid ALL sodas, but if you have to choose between soda sweetened with HFCS (regular soda) or artificial sweeteners (diet soda), choose HFCS.
The best and safest sweetener (although illegal to use according to the FDA) would be the herb stevia. For a great recipe for homemade Italian Cream Soda using stevia, see this video and article by Luci Lock.
But, healthcare/insurance is not a free market. It is a cartel. The purpose of cartels is to limit competition, fix prices, & screw the customer/consumer. You know who the cartel players are…please aim your guns accordingly….
Idea: Travel agency specializing in “medical vacations”. Off-shore it – starve the beast – do well by doing good…..
As for high & rising healthcare & insurance costs, I really hope you take what I am going to write to heart, & keep coming back for as much but-uncovering (or covering, as the case may be) as necessary to ascend to the derriere summit (I can’t help myself, maybe it’s this nice gewürztraminer I uncorked with dinner, invited to stay for dessert, & is now making prose suggestions, lol…)….
It is not the demand side – all those HFCS/MSG gobblers - that is responsible for healthcare/insurance costs – it is the supply side that is responsible.
Raging demand, in a free market, brings competition, innovation & LOWER PRICES. Think computers/tech, for example. (Btw, deflation – continuously lower prices for everything in relation to a continuously strengthening currency unit – is what was stolen by the central bankers & replaced with its opposite number, inflation….).
Islander…I love rebuttal – covering (sumo wrestlers?) & uncovering (the entertainment at a bachelorette party?) all the buts so as to arrive at aesthetically pleasant truth, lol….
Maybe I wasn’t clear, but my point was that it won’t do to extrapolate the improvements you cite to a “healthier food supply / healthier population”. First, & why I speak of segmentation, not everyone is as interested in these ingredients being absent as you & I are…it is you & I – choir members already – who are being marketed to, not the general population. Further, since the general population is actually indifferent to the presence of these ingredients, if there is any price premium attached to the products (or, in the case of MSG, if the flavor sensation suffers apparent degradation…) – the general population will not buy them. Last, as economic hardship increases (& it will), the segment is likely to shrink, not expand, as there will always be a price premium for healthy foods as vs. “lab-foods”.
I agree with the labels. I read them all the time when I go to the store. They should just take all the junk out of our food so we not worry so much about what we are eating.
Someone was actually patting themselves on the back for msg not being in foods anymore? Sheit modified starch, hydrolyzed protein, yeast extract, natural flavor, and you will find all that at the health food store, though most here are aware of that
Captive audiences?
I'm a hairdresser of many years and a regular reader of this and many other health sources. I am also an energy healer. I use natural products in my salon. I am interested in the health of my clients and not just their beauty.
When I tell a client something about health, I back it up with facts.
More, I might add, than most doctors, who are ready to cover symptoms with pills and no regard to getting back to the basics of good nutrition.
I really resent the caricature and dismissal of hairdressers from may sources as people who have no authority.
I will continue to point my clients toward health on every level.
My dear mysmermaid,
I would not worry about the stereotypical image of hairdressers as women of little education, knowledge, or credibility.
Just keep on doing what you are doing. You take the time and effort to educate yourself. Therefore, you are in a position to inform your clients about matters of diet and health, at least in a general way. You can always keep pushing the point that people need to do their own research and to question prevailing conventional "doublespeak" coming from doctors and the mainstream media.
Advocating critical thinking is the best service you can provide to people.
They don't sell those where I shop.
Point well taken Samurai. Just one thing though, Heroin is NOT natural. Opium is, however, and Heroin is derived from that using a chemical process.
themikeb, i have to agree with you... There is lots of evidence that there is a goal of population reduction, though they appear to have figured out they can make a ton of money by killing us slowly by making us sick. People who have to take meds the rest of their lives and pay big bucks for them make good slaves. But anywho, just google "Georgia Guide Stones" Guidestones may or may not be one word, I don't remember any more :-) Population reduction has been on a vast many people's minds.
The goals of this population control are 2 billion by 2020 and only 1/2 billion by 2027. The only Americans that will be allowed to remain, maybe, are native americans. With all the poisonous drugs they are pushing, and the many more potent ones to come, reaching their goals may not be as difficult as it may seem.
I have seen both commercials and in them they try to make us informers look completely stupid with nothing to actually rebut. But we all know that if somebody really asked us "what is wrong with corn syrup?", they would get an earful, not someone that looking like a dear in the headlights.
Those commercials have actually made my husband and I tell more people how deceptive they are.
I also believe we are part of a population control project, well not my family, but most people in America.
No kidding, I agree with you. I was furious, and at the same time a bit amused, at how these commercials tried paint a picture of those of us anti-HFCS folks, as if we had no reason or rationale for being against HFCS. According to their commercials, why we're just a bunch of uninformed irrational alarmists who are falsly railing against a wonderful natural sweetener. In reality, I don't know a single anti-HFCS person that couldn't absolutely level any pro-HFCS argument with real truth and real facts. I was tempted to email the CRA about these ads, but figured it would be pointless.
And I agree that their ads are targeting the uninformed, and not trying to change the minds of those of us who know the dangers of HFCS. The CRA bugs me on multiple levels. Heck, I personally don't even consider corn a food at all and whenever possible I don't touch the stuff or anything made with it. It's a waste of farmland that could be much better used in my opinion (but that may just be me).