Label-conscious consumers are skipping over high-fructose corn syrup in favor of products sweetened with natural alternatives like cane sugar, honey, and fruit juice. Finding HFCS-free items takes work, but the Corn Refiners Association worries that consumers are increasingly up to the challenge. They recently launched a “major marketing campaign” to defend their chemical concoction. Are you paying any attention to the sweet brouhaha?
High fructose corn syrup has become a favorite target of the health-conscious as an alleged cause of America’s obesity boom. A typical 2-liter bottle of soda contains 15 ounces of corn syrup, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Whether it’s really at fault is open to debate.
The Corn Refiners Assn. contends that high fructose corn syrup is just as natural as table sugar and honey. Others say it’s not natural at all, because it is manufactured through a chemical process and does not occur in nature by itself. The Center for Science in the Public Interest called the corn refiners’ campaign “deceptive.”
We prefer real sugar, and eagerly greet Passover as the holiday with the Kosher Coke. How about you?
Consumers are raising cane over corn sweetener [The Los Angeles Times]
(Photo: Getty)
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I quit drinking colas several years ago when I was in college. Nowadays, I refuse to touch the stuff — even when I treat myself to a rare fast-food meal. It simply tastes awful to me now. HFCS really is like a drug… you go through a withdrawal, but after you get over it, you will lose your appetite for it.
As it has been mentioned on this thread already, there is evidence that HFCS doesn’t tell your stomach/body when it has had enough of it. On the other hand, sugar does. Basically, you will feel more satiated drinking a Coke sweetened with real sugar verses an HFCS-ed Coke: For example, you drink one bottle of real sugar Coke and stop at that — because you feel satisfied and don’t want anymore. But you drink more than one bottle of Coke sweetened with HFCS because it takes a lot more bottles to satisfy your “thirst” (perceived) for it.
Anyway, f*ck HFCS (and the RIAA and MPAA — notice that most of the evils against consumers these days are four-letter acronyms).
The only pure Sugar Cane soda i know of is Jones
[www.jonessoda.com]
and yeah IT TASTES AWESOME!!! ( especialy the cream soda)
So cant the HFCS be distilled into ethanol? Or even Corn Liquor? There shouldn’t be a problem getting rid of the stuff. (I am probably wrong there, someone I’m sure will correct me). Cheerwine in the glass bottles is made from pure sugar, It is defiantly a treat. And really a treat is all that a soda should be.
I don’t particularly see it as a question of whether or not it’s natural (that being a whole other debate), but the fact being that some studies have suggested the body metabolizes it differently from sugar. Also, it’s a bit of a way to rein in the spending on edible items that I probably shouldn’t be buying a whole lot of. Items made with something other than HFCS tend to be pricier and smaller. I consume less calories. Although one day I noticed the tea I was drinking which contained no HFCS had less calories per 8oz and also had no sodium versus the tea my co-worker was drinking.
@PsychicPsycho3: I’ve known a few Costa Ricans who’ve also not changed their diet and gained weight. And these people aren’t couch potatoes either!
@GamblesAC2: There are a lot of other creme sodas beside Jones that don’t have HFCS, though you won’t find most of the others in Wal-Mart. Personally, I like Virgil’s better.
@mgy: You can also get Mexican Coke or Pepsi. They don’t use hfcs in Mexico, you can get sodas sweetened with cane sugar from any taco truck in Los Angeles, the bottles are made of class and usually don’t twist off. And they are less sweet than regular soda.
glass
@cubensis: As someone else already said, watch out. HFCS is now starting to be used in some Mexican bottling companies. It depends on the source of the bottles whether or not they’re made with sugar. I know a neighborhood Mexican restaurant has the 1L bottles, but they’re made with HFCS whereas the convenience store down the street has the smaller bottles (16oz?) and those have sugar.
Hansen’s soda – tasty and no HFCS.
Kosher coke is super delicious.
You know, none of this would be an issue if we could get our hands on some damn cane sugar, but, you know, prideful and ridiculous trade embargos on Cube still exist because a few people in the government still have sticks up their collective asses.
Did it ever occur to “Big Corn” that HFCS tastes like shit?
There is a lot of pure cane soda, btw, Jones is just one. A bottler of Doctor Pepper in Dublin Texas uses Pure Cane instead of HFCS. It can be special ordered from this link [www.olddocs.com]
@johnva:
Yeah. Like baby carrots.
@VA_White: I thought we were only talking about HFCS here, not processed vs unprocessed foods? I trust you eat nothing but freshly harvested produce, because if not, you’re eating something processed. Winter must be hard on your diet.
@Ajh:
HFCS is not natural. If it can’t occur in nature..how it is natural?
Though I have to agree with you, I have to point something out. Do you consider tofu natural? Do you know how to make tofu? You have to add a coagulant. Know what’s often used? Epsom Salts or gypsum… you don’t see that happening often in nature.
@formatc: I agree that the “processed” vs. “unprocessed” distinction is a bit arbitrary, but fresh vegetables ARE available in the winter thanks to the wonders of modern transportation.
I spent last month in the hospital. Every prepackaged food that I was served contained HFCS, even seemingly innocuous food like cups of applesauce. It was appalling–you’d think of hospital of all places would put special emphasis on nutritious food.
And once you’ve taken a break from HFCS and eat something containing it, you can taste the syrup. I had avoided HFCS for over year until this visit, and I could easily pick up that syrupy taste in the food. It doesn’t quite “emulsify” with other flavors. Gross.
In good news, however, I just noticed at the supermarket today that two brands of bread switched from HFCS to cane sugar. They even advertised it on the label–”NOW WITHOUT HFCS!”. Not sure if this is because of high corn prices or consumer sentiment, but I hope it becomes a trend…
@alice_bunnie: I think the point is can a person make it or does it occur in a lab?
Just try to google each respectively.
I typed “how to make tofu” & “how to make high fructose corn syrup”
To use your tofu question…
How to Make Tofu
Ingredients (Japanese names in parentheses):
* 500g Soy Beans (Daizu)
* 20g Bittern (Nigari)
You will also need:
* Cheesecloth
* Molds (milk cartons work fine)
* Press (rolled up newspaper wrapped in plastic wrap)
* Weights (plates, etc.)
* Cooking thermometer
The rest is here – [www.cs.cmu.edu]
How to make HFCS
Production
High-fructose corn syrup is produced by milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing that corn starch to yield corn syrup which is almost entirely glucose, and then adding enzymes which change the glucose into fructose. The resulting syrup (after enzyme conversion) contains approximately 90% fructose and is HFCS 90. To make the other common forms of HFCS (HFCS 55 and HFCS 42) the HFCS 90 is mixed with 100% glucose corn syrup in the appropriate ratios to form the desired HFCS. The enzyme process which changes the 100% glucose corn syrup into HFCS 90 is as follows:
1. Cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called oligosaccharides.
2. Glucoamylase breaks the sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose.
3. Xylose isomerase (aka glucose isomerase) converts glucose to a mixture of about 42% fructose and 50-52% glucose with some other sugars mixed in.
While inexpensive alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are added directly to the slurry and used only once, the more costly glucose-isomerase is packed into columns and the sugar mixture is then passed over it, allowing it to be used repeatedly until it loses its activity. This 42-43% fructose glucose mixture is then subjected to a liquid chromatography step where the fructose is enriched to approximately 90%. The 90% fructose is then back-blended with 42% fructose to achieve a 55% fructose final product. Most manufacturers use carbon absorption for impurity removal. Numerous filtration, ion-exchange and evaporation steps are also part of the overall process.
[en.wikipedia.org]
@Snarkysnake:
@JustThatGuy3: Bingo. HFCS is all sugar’s fault. All the BS tariffs and subsidies are what brought the stuff into use. They just ended the tobacco subsidies – they totally need to end the sugar subsidies.
Ive been leaning toward Jones now if I want a soda, and reading labels to see what has HFCS in it. Saddens me that almost everything has it. It should be illegal as Trans-fats are becoming. This cheap substitute is raping our country of its health.
Oddly, if you an find Coke in the classic glass bottles, they are made with real sugar I found out. I’ve seen them at Costco and the corner store by my home.
I love jelly beans etc. Try getting them without HFCS and still keep the price cheap. There is the trade off, cheap HFCS versus more costly real thing.
@Triborough: Yes they would. That is the one and only good thing about flex fuel/e85. It is causing the price of corn to go up so some products are going back to sugar. Lately some of the flavored waters and some of the sports drinks have moved back to sugar as it is cheaper.
I say this in all seriousness. HFCS needs to be banned in the US. Plain and simple. There are actually some scientists trying to convince the FDA of this. It’s introduction into the food chain was done purely for economic reasons (it takes less to make food taste sweet than cane sugar, so manufacturers switched to it). When you eat glucose, it is processed by several different metabolic pathways: when one gets “full”, it spills over into other pathways in a balancing act. Fructose, on the other end, goes down just one pathway: the one that leads to fat production (it bypasses direct glycogen synthesis, the normal pathway for quick storage of excess sugar). Thus, eating HFCS will make you fatter faster than regular sugar.
The obesity epidemic in the US started with the widespread adoption of HFCS. Fructose is evil. Believe it. And run far, far away from it.
@JoannaC: Its good you think that about food allergies. Now is there a legitimate scientist in the world that believes such nonsense?
@PsychicPsycho3: anecdotal is way off base. a single meaningless data point is more like it.
@mitten: This 3 year information has been demonstrated to be bunk. There is lot’s of information on Bray’s controversial positions on the Internet. And his statements on HFC have no basis in scientific evidence at this point in time.
But enough, as I have posted out here before. If anyone has any real scientific evidence that HFC is any worse than cane suguar or the like post it or go away.
Ok, so where’s the “Frankly, I don’t give a damn option” on the poll?
For you guys really into natural sugars, try molasses.
@Pasketti: It’s all about the glycemic index, baby:
Agave Nectar = 27
Fructose = 32
HFCS = 89
@Dansc29625: Cheerwine FTW! It is so great
We just started getting it here in California.
@floraposte: Pancake syrup. That’s the biggest dodge. Real maple syrup is actually a pretty good kind of sugar. The body is slow to absorb it and it makes you feel full. Grade B real maple syrup tastes the best, as it has more flavor than grade A. The grading system is based on which syrup can be most refined into sugar, so it’s irrelevant to the average pancake muncher.
If you’re only thinking of bottled beverages when you’re on Corn Syrup watch, you’re missing most of it. It’s in EVERYTHING. “Lil’ Smokies” sausages was the one that blew me away. Corn Syrup in Sausage? The food manufacturers try to put it in everything.
@GamblesAC2: MMmmmm, love me some Jones Soda Berry Pomegranate! Drinking 1 right now!
I don’t drink Coke anymore, but man, the sugar cane Coca-Cola that you can buy at Costco is king. It was a little odd at first, but in short order you can really taste the difference.
@synergy: Well that just sucks. I rarely drink soda anyways so now it is more of an incentive.
@TVarmy: I heard hfcs does the exact opposite it stops you from feeling full so you go hog wild at a fast food store. Part of me thinks the fast food companies used hfcs on purpose because of this, not just to save money.
@synergy: I was at an intl. food market this past weekend and noticed that a number of the imported coke and pepsi products were starting to use HFCS as well. I’m still trying to nail down a correlation with the ingredients on the bottlecap, but I have noticed that the ones with HFCS tend to list their second ingredient as “Azucares Y Concentrado de Coca-Cola (or Pepsi, Sprite, 7Up, etc).” To complicate it, some of the import labels will say “High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or sugar” so you don’t really truly know what’s in there.
If there are any Consumerists living in Mexico, Honduras, or any other country that serves the cane sugar (and/or HFCS) version of sodas, could they help with finding the correlation between which is HFCS and which is Cane sugar.
Seriously, there are this many elitist health-nut hippies on here?
I’m a tad disappointed.
@johnva: Most produce is processed (waxed, etc) to make that journey. Besides, that winter shipping is bad for the environment. That “fresh” organic produce imported from New Zealand is a good way to give mother earth the middle finger.
@Captain_Collide: I highly suspect that the ratio of “elitist health-nut hippies,” of which I’d consider myself one, is much lower than the poll suggests. I doubt this many people totally abstain from HFCS. Many probably don’t think about it at all. When presented with a poll like this, the kneejerk answer is the politicized one.
I am surprised no one has mentioned Splenda yet. The miracle sweetener that is taking the diet market by storm. In five or ten years it will be vilified like saccharin and HCFS and rightly so. Go as natural as possible and you won’t go wrong.
Mexican coke is made with real cane sugar, and, in my opinion, is better tasting than coke made in the USA. Luckily, I live in Texas and you can find it in most supermarkets. Try it next time, they come in long glass bottles.
I’m not going nuts over it, but I try to avoid it when I can. The main thing it REALLY drives me up the wall is when I see it in FRUIT JUICE! Why the heck does naturally sweet fruit juice need add’l sweetener? And why would you sweeten naturally sour juices with HFCS? Boggles the mind. I always have to look at 5 different bottles to find one that has no added sweeteners. And when I want 100% whatever juice I’m looking for (and a bunch of apple and grape juice) that doesn’t have HFCS…I gotta look at 12 bottles.
Sugar cane, schmuger cane. Where is the sugar beet love?
@Cliff_Donner: The glycemic index directly relates to the amount of glucose.
If you’re comparing 90/10 agave nectar with 55/45 HFCS, the the agave nectar will have a lower glycemic index. But so will 90/10 HFCS.
Which doesn’t change that it is still essentially the same thing as HFCS – a blend of fructose and glucose. And since it’s the fructose that seems to be causing the problems, using agave nectar will have the same health effects as HFCS.
@Troy F.: What disgusts me is how there are almost no bottled iced tea (or green tea) products available that aren’t full of HFCS. Do most Americans really like that sickly-sweet flavor in their tea? Luckily there are a few unsweetened types available now.
I grew up in Texas, but never had a Dublin Dr. Pepper. And I’m not sure I want to order them at those prices, but I might, darn it all.
I’ve basically eliminated soda from my diet-the last time I tried Diet Coke, it gave me a headache. I may look into Jones or other not HFCS stuff. I feel better drinking 75 or 80 percent water, with the occasional sweet tea or milkshake thrown in.
I think I lost a little weight once I stopped but now I’ve probably gained some back. Will try to look for HFCS more carefully now.
I think this has less to do with anti-corn sugar sentiment and more to do with people just looking for more natural ingredients lately.
HFCS is extremely bad for you and I don’t know for what reason that North America isn’t sweetening its products with Stevia which is no calorie and natural. Even better than having sugar itself. Look at the soft drinks with aspartame in it, Splenda is healthier and it’s hard to find.
Main reason I like Vitamin Water.
I work for an alternative health doctor…after 2 years of working for him and doing most of the reasearch for his articles and supplements, it’s been increasingly difficult for me to grocery shop. I literally stay on the outside of the store and totally skip the isles to avoid HFCS…plus it’s crossed over to the meat we eat too…I’ve switched to grass fed whenever possible. I avoid corn at all costs and don’t want to consume meat that was corn-fed either.
Shoot…pressed send too early..
Was going to add that Jason’s Deli…a restaurant that’s worked hard to remove MSG from all their ingredients is also working to become HFCS free as well. Also, a few grocery chains are working to remove it as well…here’s a link to an article about a grocery chain in Seattle…
[www.naturalnews.com]
If you’re looknig for a natural sweetener, try Stevia…it can be found in most health food stores and at Vitamin Shoppe, etc. Last I heard the FDA was set to approve it to be used in softdrinks, etc. Up until now, anything with Stevia in it had to be labeled as a dietary supplement and not food or drink, etc.
@johnva:
Lipton produces bottled tea made with sugar and it’s packaged in glass bottles. The plastic and canned ones are HFCS laden and crappy. Snapple’s teas have also been going to sugar and SoBe’s Green Tea switched to sugar sometime last year, although they just reformulated the herbal content in it, though. Safeway’s (or their regional version) ‘O’ Organics line of teas is sugar sweetened, and Target’s Archer Farms store brand also has sugar sweetened teas (in plastic 16 oz. bottles).