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The Death of High Fructose Corn Syrup
The back-to-back, double whammy announcements that PepsiCo (PEP) is ditching high fructose corn syrup in Gatorade along with the results of a scathing new study from researchers at Princeton make it official — allies of the controversial sweetener have lost the war. For years, the Corn Refiners Association, a trade group consisting of companies like Cargill and ADM (ADM), has been hammering away at the bad press gushing out about high fructose corn syrup. In ads, in the press and online, they argue that the sweetener is a perfectly natural product and that it is no worse for you than regular old sugar.
To which consumers have responded with a collective “Yeah, right.” Con Agra (CAG) is taking HFCS out of its Hunt’s ketchup, Kraft (KFT) is banishing it from Wheat Thins and you will no longer find it in Snapple drinks. It’s all in response to what food companies say is overwhelming consumer demand. “We know moms don’t like it, and they don’t want to feed it to their kids,” supermarket expert Phil Lempert told Ad Age. Last month, outraged San Francisco parents forced high fructose corn syrup out of chocolate milk in the school system. More products are sure to follow.
Rightly or wrongly, HFCS is deeply entrenched as the most popular symbol of the growing consumer distrust of a food system that churns out nutritionally empty, overprocessed foods with a long list of strange, unpronounceable ingredients.
And now the Princeton study gives HFCS foes the scientific bombshell they’ve been looking for, since actual evidence that eating lots of HFCS is going makes you fatter and unhealthier than simply eating lots of sugar is scant. The university reports that rats that ate HFCS gained significantly more weight than those that ate table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same. The fact that the results of this study may be based on inconclusive results and thus not really offer convincing evidence, as NYU nutrition expert and no fan of HFCS Marion Nestle, points out, will likely get lost in the shuffle.
If only the Corn Refiners Association had changed the name of their beleaguered product, things might have worked out differently. Despite its name, high fructose corn syrup is only marginally higher in fructose, which has been clearly linked to obesity and metabolic syndrome, than regular sugar. (The fructose however is not chemically bonded to glucose as it is in sugar and thus more freely available to the body, so that could actually make a difference, though it’s never been proven).
But when you’re trying to tell people that your product doesn’t have a lot of fructose, but it’s called high fructose corn syrup, it’s a bit like naming your new butter alternative Extra Trans Fat Margarine. No one’s going to buy it.
http://industry.bnet.com/food/10001771/the-death-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup/
I, for one, would like to see Princeton add organic HFCS to the study and see if there is a difference between the 2 in outcome. Organic HFCS would not be genetically modified and roundup ready. Does this make a difference?????? I am not a proponent of HFCS but DO want more studies done of genetically modified “food” to determine if this is also contributing to obesity and other health issues such as diabetes, etc.
Great article! It’s about time the food industry started listening to the consumer, who after all, provides their paycheck! I’m happy to see parents finally standing up and refusing the junk foods and drinks that are making us and our kids unhealthy. And, thanks to articles like this, that is keeping us parents, grandparents, etc., informed!
Hallelujah! Now, if they’ll only take it out of *all* Pepsi products, I’ll be thrilled beyond belief!
I’ve stopped buying everything possible that contains high fructose corn syrup and taking the time and effort to grow and preserve my own food. It’s soooo much better.
I really don’t trust our food chain anymore. Sad.
Sandy
I’ve been trying to get people to listen to this for years: No HFCS. Glad to see some progress against that low-cost, fattening junk. Folks, Trader Joe’s has always had a huge selection of delicious fruit juices -all without any HFCS.
hooray…………finally.
Thank you, thank you for standing up against High Fructose Syrup. It is definitely poison to our system; espcially junk food. I quit buying any kind of pop, fruit juice that contains fructose.
Janet, I find your question interesting too but I’ll add another question on top of it. Can you even get organic HFCS? Or is it so chemically processed that it would no longer be organic?
HFCS is not, nor can it be Organic or natural. it is a manufactured, processed derivative of a food stuff.
Gabriel Cousens, M.D., homeopath, and live food expert, cites evidence in “There Is a Cure for Diabetes” that one of the problems with HFCS is that it never leads to feelings of satiety. If one doesn’t feel full, one continues eating and drinking. Apart from that, there is heavy metal contamination of HFCS from its processing.
Finally! I’m thrilled! Now we need to get rid of ASPARTAME!
Now we need to get rid of ASPARTAME!
OK, here’s the key to getting your supermarket store to change it’s bad habits: Stop and read the label. In every supermarket and superstore, there are cameras. Those cameras are for observing shopper behavior.
When the “market researchers” watch us stop and read the ingredients on a crap product, then watch us put back the offending item, they know they have to carry a better product.
Of course, the Crap Refiners Association is hoping the American Republic remains uneducated about their garbage mongering. Uneducated people DO NOT bother stopping to read the list of ingredients. When they’ve been poisoned by toxic food products, this keeps them from understanding which ingredients are offending; it’s very sad.
We can also take advantage of their improper frontal lobe activity; they tend to play “monkey see, monkey do,” so when you stop and read the label, they tend to do the same.
The best healthcare alternative I can think of is to ban all nonfood items from food shelves. Make it illegal to sell nonfood items (including overprocessed foodstuffs like HFCS) as food.
Vote with your dollars folks… I spend the time reading labels and cut HFCS out a long time ago… it was AMAZING how hard it was to find products WITHOUT HFCS in it…. I’m happy to see it getting easier. Trader Joes has some good products as does “Fresh & Easy” if you live in their service area
Except all those delicious fruit juices are pasturized, killing the enzyme activity, and making them no better for you than any other processed food…
Please explain…what is the difference between HFCS and fructose alone?
I am so happy to read this article. I just recently wrote to Kraft about using HFCS in their products and the response I recieved was weak at best. They use it because it is cheaper.
The only thing that this article was missing is the fact the HFCS is processed with scant amounts of mercury, which gets into the HFCS. So we are injesting mercury as well as hurting our livers. I now read labels and if it has HFCS in it, I don’t buy it.
Good news at last!
Linda
IMO the important thing about ALL sugar is the amount of free or unbound fructose in the product.
Pure fructose is the worst, crystal fructose is HFCS that contains 99% pure free fructose.
HFCS contains at least 55% and may contain as much as 70% free fructose.
Table sugar contains about 50% glucose and 50% fructose but they are bound together. This bond must be metabolized in digesting the sugar so it MAY somewhat ameliorate the proven destructive effects of the fructose. I still treat table sugar as a poison with IMO good reason.
So they are all poison, some are only worse than others.
Refined Sugar is 50% Fructose
Refined sugar, table sugar, sucrose, is half glucose and half fructose. The glucose half is bad but not as bad as fructose as your body can handle glucose. But unbound, free, fructose is a toxin in all but trace amounts. The fructose found in fruit is mostly bound. Watch Doctor Robert H. Lustig MD UCSF excellent video on the dangers of fructose and I guarantee you will view both sugar and HFCS as poisons to be avoided at all costs.
http://healthyprotocols.com/2_sugar.htm
I am concerned about aspartame. Now that sugary drinks and foods are discouraged in the public schools, the soda companies are filling dispensers with sugarless drinks, sweetened with aspartime. This is worse than before. Are there any protests about this change that you know of?
As bad as HFCS is aspartame may just be WORSE IMO. IMO reject all fake sugar AND sugar.
Drink WATER.
As a person ALLERGIC to HFCS, nothing would make me happier than to see it disappear altogether !
But, it is “hidden” in so many products, especially those pre-cooked
foods sold a supermarkets. I am a serious label-reader, and always immediately return any product to the shelf if it contains HFCS.
BUT – try getting a restaurant to indicate on their menu whether there is any corn syrup in their selections …. good luck !
“BUT – try getting a restaurant to indicate on their menu whether there is any corn syrup in their selections”
Well you may have answered your own question. I look for mom and pop Asian restaurants. They often cook from scratch with natural foods. Often they do not speak English. Just take a piece of paper and write “HFCS” and “MSG” if they violently shake their heads NO you may have found a home.
Other than that I trust NO restaurants.
I am forever greatful for this news. I read labels and if any of the ingriedents are offensive to me, it goes right back on the shelf.
Ok, so they get rid of HFCS, what will it be replaced with? Regular sugar or another chemical?? Does anyone have a clue on this one?
Fewer chemical, please!!!
Part of a sentence in the article reads …”the results of this study may be based on inconclusive results and thus not really offer convincing evidence”…. What does it mean to say that results are based on results? If the results are, in fact, inconclusive, I’d like to know why they’re inconclusive (small population? poorly controlled?) or why, in the very least, I should be interested in inconclusive results that are not convincing.
I was thinking the same thing. When you cook sugars, it becomes unhealthy to consume them. The only healthy sugars are those found in raw*, natural, organic, fresh, ripe fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, the most likely place you are going to get all of that is if you make it yourself.
*by RAW I mean uncooked, unpasteurized.
I ALWAYS read the labels – have put MANY items back based on HFCS content, so if “they” are watching me – “they” KNOW!
Not I don’t know. I received e-mails from Health Freedom Alliance so something can probably be started through them to finally stop Monsanto from using aspartame. I don’t know if you know but it has a new name: Aminosweet! Tell your friend and family members as word of mouth can be very successfull too!
What thrills me about this, is that people are getting educated and they are making big changes occur with their pocketbooks… It’s the only language the food manufacturers understand. They really don’t care two hoots about our health or the health of our children..only the bottom line.. cash.. When we get smart and stop buying the nasty products they put on our grocery shelves, they’ll stop producing them. The Europeans seem to be more protected by their government than we are.. we have to protect ourselves by learning what’s good and what’s not and spend our money accordingly.
I was about to purchase some salmon patties. It would have been a nice high protein, nutritious treat. Then I read that “high fructose corn syrup was the second ingredient. Why would I want HFCS with my fish? Of course I put it back, but even this nutritionist was surprised to find this awful, dangerous ingredient in a fish product.
What’s this world coming to? With recent studies showing those consuming TWO (that’s 2) cans of soda per week increasing their risk of pancreatic cancer 87 percent, I think all consumers need to wake up more.
Thanks for this excellent article. Keep up the good work.
Note this is not the FDA demanding withdrawal of the additive HFCS, but the food companies themselves responding to consumer demands. The FDA is apparently too busy loading their machine-guns to go after the Raw Milk sellers.
“Why would I want HFCS with my fish?”
Well you might not but the good people who manufacture our food have found several ingredients indispensable. It also just happens they are extremely CHEAP. Sugar and HFCS are great fillers they add weight and calories. Salt, MSG and numerous chemicals add the required taste to the bland, tasteless, denatured, manufactured food.
The answer is simple DON’T BUY manufactured food. Buy raw whole food or better yet find it or grow it yourself. Dandelions are a fantastic food.
Here is an education from a professor of pediatrics and endocrinology about sugar, in general, that exposes fructose as the poison it is–even organic fructose, and even in juice. Fructose is meant to be consumed with fiber–as in whole fruit. Take a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM