High Fructose Corn Syrup: Good or Bad?
“Don’t eat that, it has high fructose corn syrup”. It causes weight gain, they say. Is high fructose corn syrup as bad as it is portrayed to be? What the between difference in using HFCS and table sugar? HFCS and its alleged link to weight gain is a major controversy in America. There has even been court cases about this matter.
Terms
Let’s review some terms before we start:
• Glucose- a simple sugar. It’s a by-product of photosynthesis.
• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) - a combination of corn syrup and an enzyme that is converted into fructose. Combination of glucose and fructose
• Table Sugar- or sucrose is crystallized sugar cane or beet juice made up of glucose and fructose.
• Fructose- sugar normally from fruit
• Obesity-
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The overconsumption of calories is one of the many factors that lead to weight gain. Sugar is in just about every product. Along with any other nutrient, it should be consumed in moderation. While a little won’t hurt, it is important to keep in mind that sugar and HFCS have no nutritional value. Focus on maintaining a well-balanced diet along with exercise and you’ll do just fine.
References
1. Lowndes, J., Sinnett, S., Pardo, S., Nguyen, V.T., Melanson, K.J., Yu, Z. Lowther , B.E. and Rippe, J.M. (2014).The Effect of Normally Consumed Amounts of Sucrose or High Fructose Corn Syrup on Lipid Profiles, Body Composition and Related Parameters in Overweight/Obese Subjects. Nutrients. 6, 1128-1144.
2. Lowndes, J., Sinnett, S., Yu, Z. and Rippe, J.M. (2014).The Effects of Fructose-Containing Sugars on Weight, Body Composition and Cardio-metabolic Risk Factors Nutrients When Consumed at up to the 90th Percentile Population Consumption Level for Fructose. Nutrients. 6,
High-fructose corn syrup is a commonly used artificial sweetener in foods. High-fructose corn syrup is a hydrolyzed version of ordinary corn syrup, which is produced via a steeping process. It is so widely used because it is both economically favorable and it helps to preserve food for extended periods of time. However, the drawbacks of high-fructose corn syrup include issues like potential obesity, diabetes, loss of liver function, malnutrition, and cancer. The fact that the producers of high-fructose corn syrup can deceive people that HFCS is harmless makes matters worse.
Fructose is having a negative impact on the modern diet, but a broader lesson than “fructose is the problem” will lead to better results. Looking back to America before Nixon signed the farm bill provides guidance.
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).
Obesity in America has risen dramatically in the last forty years. Many believe high fructose corn syrup is to blame for this and other health related issues like diabetes and high blood pressure. High fructose corn syrup was invented by Richard O. Marshall and Earl R. Kooi in 1957 (Production of high fructose corn syrup). Scientists have done tests and many reports and found many statistics showing the same thing: once high fructose corn syrup (or HFCS) was added to food and beverages in 1975, obesity rose without warning. The U.S. has the highest obesity rate in the world: “roughly two-thirds of adults and one-third of young people in the U.S. are now overweight or obese” (McMillen). That’s a massive amount, and it’s growing at a steady pace with little sign of ending any time soon. We also eat more mass produced food than any other country in the world. High fructose corn syrup has taken over the food market and has found its way to almost all of our food and drinks.
The use of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contributes drastically to obesity. In the normal process of glucose consumption the pancreas responds by producing insulin to transport sugar to the body cells to use as energy. It then stimulates the production of the hormone leptin, which regulates appetite and fat storage, and suppresses production of the hormone ghrelin. When properly functioning, these hormones serve to regulate food intake and cause hunger to dissipate. However, fructose (the most commodious substance in HFCS)
My hypotheses stated that when an egg is placed in corn syrup or distilled water, osmosis will occur. They also said that when an egg is placed in corn syrup, the osmosis will occur from the water in the egg to the corn syrup while when the egg is placed in water, the osmosis will occur from water outside of the egg into the egg itself. The final part of my hypotheses states that the egg’s mass will decrease when it is placed in corn syrup, but when an egg is placed in water, its mass will increase. My reasoning when constructing my first hypothesis was that the structure of the corn syrup is too thick to travel through the cell membranes of the egg, but the water in the egg will be able to travel through the egg’s membranes and into the corn
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.
“there’s a fundamental difference between the sugar that you find in fruits & vegetables and the sugar that you find in a large Mountain Dew. The sugar in a lot of these carbonated drinks is highly concentrated simple sugar, the kind that will spike your blood glucose levels, reduce your insulin response over time (leading to Type 2 diabetes) and almost immediately get stored in your body as fat.” There is a difference between sugar from nature and sugar that is processed. Sugar that is processed is highly concentrated because of this it tends to increase your blood glucose levels higher than natural sugar. With high
Many researchers at various Universities say that high fructose corn syrup is the same as sugar and there is no evidence to suggest that it is linked to an increase in obesity. In “Fat Land” by Greg Critser, he talks about America’s obesity problem, which included high fructose corn syrup as a topic of discussion. Critser states that when Coca-Cola switched from sugar
A developing body demonstrates that fructose offer ascent to liver poisonous quality and persistent ailments. Dr. Barclay said that “Sugar consumption had dropped 23% since 1980. Despite this, over the same period cases of overweight or obese people had doubled, and diabetes had at least tripled” (Norrie, 2012). A small amount of sugar is not a problem but it kills the immune system if you take more. “The average U.S. adult downs 22 teaspoons of sugar
According to the article, Too Much Can Make Us Sick (http://www.sugarscience.org/too-much-can-make-us-sick/), “Heart disease. Diabetes. These chronic conditions are among the leading causes of death worldwide. Increasingly, scientists are focusing on a common set of underlying metabolic issues that raise people's risk for chronic disease. It turns out that the long-term overconsumption of added sugars is linked to many of these dysfunctions.” This means that people living today, have a lot more trouble with diseases because of our unhealthy sugar intake compared to the
The movie brought up how consuming an ounce a day is fine, but an average person consumes much more. I was amazed how an average person today consumes 70-80 g of fructose corn syrup a day, while a child consumes nearly 120-150 g a day. Fructose is a fruit sugar that has a severe metabolic process where people can become very addicted. I did not know a lot of information about this food ingredient, but I now know it is time to pay more attention for it to be listed on my food
A. Well, According to the dictionary “High Fructose Corn Syrup is a sugar that is processed with corn syrup that is sweeter than the normal cane sugar”…..
HFCS is being used for almost every food product in the food industry. However, if we look at HFCS from a limited point of view we just see it as something present in our food and not the health factors behind it. HFCS can be habit forming since it is a sweet replacement for sugar and in his article Peretti mentions that David Kessler said “sugar, through its metabolisation by the gut and hence the brain, is extremely addictive, just like cigarettes or alcohol.” People enjoy the taste and because of this they consume large quantities, which lead to health factors such as: obesity, diabetes, heart problems, infertility, liver problems, and so on. Our limited perspective may cause us to lose sight of how much of a risk HFCS possess. In my case I use to think that my family gained significant amount of weight only through fatty foods and...
The primary use for sugarcane is to process sugar, which can then be used in an infinite number of products. The type of sugar produced by sugarcane is called sucrose. This is the most important of all the sugars. Sucrose is used as a sweetening agent for foods and in the manufacture of cakes, candies, preservatives, soft drinks, alcohol, and numerous other foods. Although the use of sugar in the human diet is controversial, sucrose supplies about 13 percent of all energy that is derived from foods (Escalona, 1952).