Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

A little poison in moderation never killed anyone, right?

lol

Gimme a break...

Table sugar (sucrose) contains 50% fructose and 50% glucose. HFCS contains 55% fructose and 45% glucose. So, chemically they are pretty much the same.

Glucose is the preferred energy source of the body, so it rapidly enters the blood stream for use by cells. This elevates your blood sugar levels, and causes insulin to be secreted (among other hormonal changes). Insulin also stimulates the manufacture of LDL ("bad" cholesterol), thus increasing your blood levels and prompting your doctor to Rx some lipitor.

Fructose takes a different biochemical pathway and is stored directly as body fat, contributing to weight gain.

This is why eating tons of sugar - be it sucrose or HFCS - is evil and contributes to obesity through weight gain, diabetes (through weight gain and decreased insulin sensitivity) and heart disease (weight gain, increased LDL production).

Chemistry aside, there are environmental and political differences between eating cane sugar and HFCS, but I'll let Michael Pollan go on about that one. ;)

BTW I do need to add... Yes, this is America and everyone is entitled to their say - evil corporate corn mongers included.

With that said, the above ad really bothers me for it implies that doctors are reliable sources of nutrition information. In general, doctors only receive about 30 hours of nutrition education in medical school - this is less than 1 undergraduate course (~45 hours). A dietitian must complete 550 hours of nutrition specific education, in addition to 350+ hours of medical-related science courses. Furthermore, to be licensed we also must complete 1200 practice hours of nutrition-related work (medical nutrition therapy, counseling, etc).

Having a doctor dole out nutrition advice is about as appropriate as a dietitician doling out surgical advice.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these commercials!!!! someone deserves a raise on Madison avenue for coming up with this one!! (sorry... I've been watching too much mad men).

I just think it is hilarious because it is so true that the general public has no idea about food. everyone is ready to rise up with fists over food issues but has no idea about the facts behind them. I've overheard so many conversations around the office where I have to hold my tongue and just listen to people drone on about the evils of this and that. whatever the hot new evil food is. I think this commercial gets it right. does this mean I will eat more HFCS? no, I will continue eating the same amount and that is not much.

The picture that you put up, about the health factor of HFCS versus the "informative" url you posted... they are misleading.

A little googling tells us that if it's based on health factors (how our body breaks down sugar vs. HFCS), then you have to go with what ilovebutter said.

But that 'informative' link spends paragraphs upon paragraphs expounding how HFCS is made. Then it talks as if HFCS is all fructose and real sugar contains none of it. In fact I think it's more of a PROPAGANDA link.

HFCS is junk. It is crap and it is something I avoid. I am not surprised they had to do an ad campaign to sell this crap to the American public. That is how they sell everything that is crap. If it were so very natural and good it would not have a commercial. Things that are "good" for you never have a commercial.
There is no martini commericial. There you go.

How does it introduce diabetes? unless the internets is wrong about these ratios, what's the difference between 50% fructose and 50% glucose versus 55% fructose and 45% glucose?

If there are scientific breakdowns of purely the health factors related to the 5% diff in fructose, then I'd love to see it.

@ilovebutter,

I completely agree with you. That's why I asked the question. Brownie said it introduces diabetes. Jerzee calls it junk.

Chemically, they seem to be the same, aside from the fact that you can actually make HFCS to have different ratio of fructose vs glucose.

Politically, I am 100% against corn subsidies. They are stupid. But I'm just tired of all this talk about health issues when no one can show me anything.

The only thing that bothers me about these ads is the line "It's healthy in moderation."

It's kind of hard to eat something in moderation that is in nearly 90% of foods.

(I know that a lot of organic/all natural foods don't have it, but I'm talking about the average american.)

ilovebutter - Thank you so much for all of that useful information!! Feels good to put that degree to use, huh!? It all totally makes sense and makes me feel good that I may not be completely crazy.

It just tastes bad to me. And I can always tell when HFCS is substituted for cane sugar in a product. Case in point: Heinz ketchup added HFCS - it tasted vile after that. I discovered Heinz organic ketchup - no HFCS and it tastes like it used to/should.

@Cookieeater: Don't even get me started on why butter is better... :)

They kind of remind me of old cigarette ads. Notice that none of the people in HFCS ads are overwieght, and no one in a cigarette ad has yellow teeth. Both appear to be the picture of health--but what lies beneath...

@disbelief11--I lost 10 lbs and have kept it off for 4 years by avoiding HFCS. I have not changed any other diet or exercise habits. I also lost inches from my middle (where I tend to carry my glorious fat cells).

After the other HFCS thread, I went on a hunt for it in my kitchen, and I found it in exactly two items -- ketchup and sweet pickle relish. It may be hiding in something else that I didn't check, but if it is, it's something I'm not likely to use much of, or use often. So the claim that it's in 90% of the food supply or that it's impossible to consume a moderate amount seem a bit overboard. And before the thread, I hadn't been reading labels to eliminate it, it just doesn't seem to be in the foods I have on hand. And believe me, I'm not a saint when it comes to food. I like to eat.

For people who consume vast amounts of soda, I can see that it might be an issue, but it's not that hard to stay away from the stuff if I did it by accident. Unless someone can point to something in the kitchen I didn't think of looking at, I'm pretty sure that there's not much more HFCS than the stuff I already found.

I think two things to note about HFCS are

1) if it is in your food, that food is probably heavily processed and bears little resemblance ingredient-wise to the substance it is meant to represent in your diet (a great example of this is sliced bread or hamburger and hot dog buns, many of which are often made with HFCS and a host of other things that are harder pronounce.)

2) it can be lurking in places where most non-foodie people don't think to look for it. I have a diabetic relative who basically avoids sugars and is trying to eat a lot of salads. Some salad dressings have HFCS as the second ingredient (and I found one in her pantry where it was the FIRST ingredient.)

I just saw a HFCS ad that I found disturbing - maybe you all have already seen it, so forgive me, I don't watch much TV.

Some soccer moms are at a picnic table and the African-American soccer mom offers the Caucasian mom, who is marginally but noticeably less attractive and more uptight, a cup of punch from the 2 gallon jug she is holding. The Caucasian mother demurs on account of the HFCS and says to the other soccer mom, haven't you heard about HFCS? And the African American soccer mom very sweetly but sternly says, Yes, that it's as sweet as sugar, that it's totally natural, bla bla bla. And totally shames the Caucasian woman into accepting a cup of punch!

I think a LOT of market research went into producing that ad.

Personally, I have seen an easy reduction in my weight since eliminating as much HFCS as possible. I also think that - at this point in the price of gasoline - it could be useful to start a movement demanding that HFCS be removed from food products so that more corn can be refined as ethanol. The greediness of the corporations could go into overdrive thinking about the profits to be gained from adding HFCGA - that is, High Fructose Corn Gasoline Additive - to our cars rather than adding HFCS to our bodies.

Just a thought.

These commercials have actually RAISED awareness of high fructose corn syrup. Is that what they intended? The month that the campaign started, people googled "high fructose corn syrup" roughly 6 times more often than they had been in the last few years.

They brought this to the attention of millions of people who didn't even realize there was a problem! Check out my analysis: http://www.thereluctanteater.com/2008/10/proof-sweet-surprise-high-fructose-corn.html

HCFS Contails mercury:

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=59203968973&h=7n6QC&u=Dk3qX

It is Fructose. Baad: Fructose requires a different metabolic pathway than other carbohydrates because it basically skips glycolysis (normal carbohydrate metabolism). Because of this, fructose is an unregulated source of “acetyl CoA,” or the starting material for fatty acid synthesis. This, coupled with unstimulated leptin levels, is like opening the flood gates of fat deposition.

Linked to Diabetes:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823094819.htm

Diabetes is a KILLER. People with HIV live longer.

HCFS is bad for the economy:

orn farmers get the majority of the funding given to farmers each year from Congress, mostly because they are horribly organized and hire lobbyists to bribe politicians into voting for pro-corn bills and spending. Imagine if all of that money was being spent giving children food education, or education in general. With all of the money going into these factory farms, very little of it is going to your local farmers and thus, very little of it is going into your local economy. Even if you buy it at your neighborhood grocery store, the dollar gets passed away from you, and toward people who don’t even need more money to begin with.

HCFS is bad for the environment: after cotton, the most pesticides in the US are used on corn. All of those pesticides get passed along to you through soda, candy, peanut butter, and even some crackers and salad dressings! Yum… Plus they get passed along as run-off into oceans and water systems that people use for drinking and bathing.

HCFS sucks, and the people that made those ads are evil asshats, like those Corporate Terrorists from Monsanto that sued the guy who put "No growth hormones!" on his milk cartons.

First, mad props to ilovebutter for breaking it down in such an accessible way. 3.9 GPA for good reason!! *applause*

Anyway, I would feel better if I knew what happens to the corn to make it HF... is it born that way (even through genetic engineering, which, in the olden days they called hybridization), as in are the actual kernels grown sweeter compared to other corn, or... is there some kind of toxic chemical added during refining to bust up the molecules and tip the balance to bump up that 5% of additional fructose? It would make a difference to me.

But, barring the scary artificial intervention above, based on the apparent chemistry of it, I don't see a huge problem. And, before I get lynched for that, yes -- there IS too much sugar everywhere. Duh. Extra caution in every way is totally advisable. That said, I can see the industrial appeal for soda makers wanting a smooth consistent syrup that stays dissolved when the drink is cold. I can also see why it's in baked goods... because... sweeter sugar means more excited yeast, no? Resulting in fluffier bakery?

And using corn is cool! Go USA! We know corn, we brought corn to the world! Sugarcane, a little trickier, but we do have dibs on Hawaii, so, I suppose we have a friend there. I suppose we could also squeeze beets or carrots for it, but... that seems like it would be more difficult (involving even bigger nastier factories). If we weren't doing it, surely there would be someone selling us high-fructose rice syrup at a huge markup. Everyone acts like trying to make money is evil. I'm sure that all but the top 5% of the people who work for those companies are people with families, who care what happens to them. Until we can switch to socialism, it has to be that way.

Anyway, I'm not going to bring my own organic ketchup and home-baked buns to an Indians game. And if I'm somewhere where we shouldn't be drinking the water, I'd now feel better off picking a soda with HFCS over a diet soda with artificial sweeteners, which I couldn't have said BEFORE I read this article. (...and ILB's insights.)

check out these anti-HFSC and pepsi spoof advertisements, hilarious!!!

http://trevorbittinger.com/?p=95