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The pros and cons of high fructose corn syrup
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A Sweet Death? For a moment, imagine you are a very health conscious person. You start the mornings off with a brewed cup of coffee, a newspaper, and your favorite cereal. As you eat, you are comforted in seeing the bold print on the packaging that reads, “Loaded with vitamins and minerals.” However, you become curious and decide to investigate the back panel of ingredients to see if it is as wholesome as it leads you to believe. The number one ingredient is enriched wheat flour. You are content as you swallow the next to last spoonful of your shredded richness. The second ingredient is honey, another that reinforces your feelings of responsible eating. Ingredients three, four, and five are foreign to you. They read soy lecithin, niacin, and high fructose corn syrup. Now the first two you have a good feeling about. Soy is a good source of protein in place of many meats and niacin must be one of those vitamins or minerals the food tycoon General Mills boasted about on the box. However, the latter of the three is what prompts you to do some research on your computer. The results yield studies and illustrations which surprise you. “From crackers to raisins, cans of soda to cans of soup, high fructose corn syrup is in virtually every list of ingredients. Even for consumers that are vigilant about steering clear of it, it’s hard not to avoid” (Mangano). As you finish your last bite of cereal it does not seem as satisfying as the first. Uncertainty is the lingering taste and you wonder what high fructose corn syrup really is, why it is in all of the foods you eat, and if it could affect your health negatively. Rasmussen 2 High fructose corn syrup is a mixture of fructose sugars and pure corn syrup. It is cheap, easy to manufactur... ... middle of paper ... ...e 2010. Gross, Alexandra. “Eating mercury: many products with high fructose corn syrup contain mercury--where's the uproar?” E May-June 2009: 19+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 18 June 2010. “High-fructose corn syrup.” World Watch 22.3 (2009): 1. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 18 June 2010. Mangano, Frank. “Not-So-Surprising Finding: Study Links HFCS to Hypertension.” NaturalNews.com. Mike Adams, 17 Nov. 2009. Web. 11 June 2010. “No evidence 'Throwback' sugared sodas healthier.” Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter Mar. 2010: 3. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 19 June 2010. Raskin, Hanna. “Latest high-fructose corn syrup study generates buzz, debate.” CNN, 25 Mar. 2010. Web. 13 June 2010. Walsh, Nancy. “Fructose in sugary soft drinks is implicated in rise in gout.” Family Practice News 38.13 (2008): 40. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 10 June 2010.
The book Salt, Sugar, and Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us discusses the danger of food with its readers. The dangers of food discussed in the book are the ingredients of Salt, Sugar and Fat in the food individuals consume on a daily basis. Producers use these ingredients to their advantage to get the consumers bliss point. The bliss point attained is used by the food giants to achieve a profit. However due to research on the health risks of these ingredients food companies are strategizing in order to maintain their profit and earn more of a profit.
Some might complain about the guilt they feel knowing they are willingly consuming sodium benzoate and soybean oil. Which, according to Warner, isn’t a bad thing. If one is buying a blueberry muffin, most likely, they’d be interested to know that those “blueberry” pieces are the result of an experiment. If it was common knowledge that out of the 5,000 additives found in food barely a half has been tested, American’s would ponder their diet. While change is never easy, it isn’t hard to spark a movement towards change. This is evident with the shift towards eating better. Perhaps it will amount to no more than a trend, but throughout history, science has never surpassed the natural world. That is why the natural world has survived as long as it can, because, in many ways, it’s the best you can get. Pandora’s Lunchbox possess the ability to spark something more than a general knowledge of cereal factories.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is found in a lot of the foods and drinks we consume. It is something that is consumed on a regular basis by not only Americans but by plenty of others across the world and sometimes we might not even note the difference between it and “real” sugar. HFCS comes from a type of corn known as “Dent” corn, dent corn is transformed into cornstarch by being cleaned, soaked, ground, milled, and dried corn starch is then converted into a liquid state in a process known as hydrolysis (Sloan, 2013). Once in a liquid state, HFCS is then used to not only add a sweet flavor to drinks and food but it also can be used as a form of coloring to the consumables. What you would label as “regular” sugar is essentially the same the same thing as HFCS when you break them down chemically, the only difference between the two is that their chemical components are placed in different order (Beil, 2013).
Abstract: The use of high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener in various food and drink products has drastically affected the American people in the last three decades. Dominating 55% of the sweetener market because of its industrial benefits, HFCS’s increased use has caused dramatic effects in its consumers, including upsetting normal hormonal functions, destroying vital organs, nerves, and throwing off the body’s mineral balance. As the use of HFCS increased, the rates of obesity, diabetes, and related health problems have escalated, resulting in a nationwide epidemic.
Michael Pollan, a writer for New York Times and author of New York Times bestseller The Botany of Desire and named best book of the year by Borders, Amazon, and the American Booksellers Association, discusses some of these harmful effects along with many other facts in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan discusses how corn syrup has consumed our nation in chapter six of his book. He discusses how high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has snuck its way into the food of the American’s every meal. As restaurants line roads and food lines pantries, HFCS lurks in almost every meal. Marlene Bishop, editor of Chocolate, Fast Food, and Sweeteners: Consumption and Health, states: “In the last 35 years, high fructose corn syrup has replaced the use of sucrose by food manufactures in the US due to its steady price and availability (White, 2008)" (3). Because of the excess corn and low price to make HFCS, it continues to pour into the ingredients of the American’s diet.
Repeatedly the news will highlight a story about the obesity epidemic sweeping the nation. Although the news and health experts bombard the common citizen with quick and easy ways to eat healthier and exercise more, the source of the issue is kept hidden behind closed doors. Before placing blame on the eating habits, it’s essential to take a closer look at what is being consumed. With rapid change in the food industry, progress must be met with caution because “The way we eat has changed more in the past fifty years than in the past 10,000” (Pollan and Schlosser). It is easy for the common man to provide the blanket statement of eating “better”, yet few actually proceed to do this. The average American has one of the worst diets in the world although opportunity and variety of options are overwhelming. Food industries are deceiving by masking the true process of how their food is produced. Not only does the eye not see how the food was made, but there is also a false sense of variety in the grocery market. The grossly unbalanced American diets and genetically modified organisms both coexist to create a greater problem than previously thought of.
Everyday, the foods we eat contain a handful of ingredients, some well known, others we’re unable to pronounce. The food industry is responsible for listing these ingredients for consumers to read, but that is the limit to their responsibility. It is not required that they explain ingredients or the effects they can have on the body. After tracking my food intake, I found I only knew a handful of the ingredients. Out of the ingredients I didn’t know, three ingredients stuck out to me and I decided to research what these ingredients where made of, how they affect the body, and why the food industry included them in their products. Learning about these ingredients opened my eyes to what I was really putting in my body and the affects ingredients
Peoples’ personal life experiences usually affect the topic of their work. John Keats was a famous poet who grew up in an idyllic life until tragedy continuously stroked until his death at twenty-five years old. At eight years old, his father died in a tragic riding accident. Six years later, his mother died of tuberculosis (TB). In the midst of his troubles, his teacher strongly encouraged his reading and literacy ambitions. Living next to an insane asylum, Keats eventually started to develop physical and emotional problems. Diagnosed with TB, Keats helplessly watched his beloved brother die from the final stages of the same disease. Furthermore, he was unable to marry his fiancée, Fanny Brawne. Drawing from his individual experiences, Keats wrote very vividly about the pains and suffering he was going through. He expressed his unfulfillment as a writer, his love and struggles, the fleetingness of life and happiness, and his inner conflicts. Jack Stillinger writes, “It is this combined experience of suffering, death, and love all at once, against a background of serious conversation, reading, and thinking, that accounts for Keats's sudden rise to excellence in his poetry” (qtd. in Everett). All of Keats’s life experiences combined to make works of arts that could only be inspired by individual human experiences. John Keats’s background directly affects the topic of his works in order to realistically articulate his feelings in poetic form.
Daily, millions of people are perusing the grocery store, buying food for their families, completely unaware of what they are purchasing. A study on consumer research regarding food labels by the FDA found only a small percentage of people actually read the food labels and understand what they mean apart from only the calories and fat; ingredients are another story. “According to a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, about 61.5 percent reported using the nutrition facts panel when deciding to purchase food. Fewer people paid attention to the list of ingredients” (CNN Health). The FDA is aware that labeling could help reverse the acceleration we are seeing in heart diseases and obesity, but labeling does not help people to read the ingredients if they do not understand pseudonyms, and vitamins. “The surveys also revealed frequent misunderstanding of the meaning of the daily/value column that shows how each nutrient fits into a healthy diet, “(American journal Nutrition, WEB). Many different harmful ingredients are secretly hidden in labels and people skimming ov...
It’s reasonable to understand that if a sugar glazed doughnut is sitting right in front of you, calling your name, especially the fact that the doughnut just seems to be there the day that you skipped out on breakfast. You’re going to eat it! Unfortunately that’s the case for 90 percent of us. With that though come consequences! People who consume high amounts of high-fructose corn syrup are 20 percent more-likely to...
A Good Death Death is final. Some die naturally in a peaceful manner, while others suffer through tremendous pain in order to get there. Euthanasia is the only way for some people to leave all their pain behind. Euthanasia is the act of killing another person in a merciful way. Of course, euthanasia has many more meanings to it than that.
More and More people are becoming concerned about what they eat, especially if they consume food products that are manufactured in food industries. However, it is hard to know what exactly you are consuming if food industries provide false nutrition content and mislead consumers by placing false advertisements on the packaging. When a company produces a product that contains misleading label, consumers are not receiving complete information about the food they are eating which could lead to health issues including allergies and problems with diabetes.
"Obesity & Diet: Facts About Fructose." Consumer Health Complete. EBSCOhost, Fall 2008. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
We are all familiar with sugar. It is sweet, delicious, and addictive; yet only a few of us know that it is deadly. When it comes to sugar, it seems like most people are in the mind frame knowing that it could be bad for our health, but only a few are really taking the moderate amounts. In fact, as a whole population, each and everyone of us are still eating about 500 extra calories per day from sugar. Yes, that seems like an exaggerated number judging from the tiny sweet crystals we sprinkle on our coffee, but it is not. Sugar is not only present in the form of sweets and flavourings, it is hidden in all the processed foods we eat. We have heard about the dangers of eating too much fat or salt, but we know very little about the harmful effects of consuming too much sugar. There still isn’t any warnings about sugar on our food labels, nor has there been any broadcasts on the serious damages it could do to our health. It has come to my concern during my research that few
Sugar or its evil twin, high-fructose corn syrup, is commonly packed into processed foods. The consumption of sugar is associated to devastating diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. On top of that, processed food substances, high in sugar and artificial ingredients, can lead to overconsumption and become addictive. Food companies know that people’s appetites gravitate towards food that are sweet, salty, and high in fat, therefore they generate more “desirable” food, knowing that consumers will continue to eat these foods. Individuals need to avoid highly processed foods and search out healthier