High Fructose Corn Syrup by any other name.....

[ConnieB]

should still be avoided! I know many on this forum are trying to avoid consumption of HFCS so I thought I'd make you aware of another term to add to your "avoid list".....Corn Sugar. That's what the HFCS makers have petitioned the Feds to be allowed to change their name. I'm trying to find a way to voice my objection to this to the Feds...if anyone knows, please share. It's so obvious to me that the only reason to change the name is because the world is finally realizing that HFCS is very bad.....so why don't they change the product instead of trying to hide behind a new name?

 

Here's one of many articles about it....not a lot of information, but just being aware is half the battle!

 

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/09/15/corn_syrup_producers_looking_to_sweeten_name/

[Word Nerd]

I think corn sugar is more accurate and more helpful to consumers than its current name. The ratio of fructose to glucose in HFCS is not necessarily any higher than in regular table sugar (in some cases, it's lower), and most consumers know that to eat healthier, they should cut back on sugar—in any form.

[DarcyB]

Yep - useless sugar in foods is a problem, no matter what the name.

 

However, there are still studies that show how we break down the fructose of HFCS and regular sucrose is different, and can cause problems. To me, I'd prefer my food not contain it at all with the GMO issues notwithstanding. It just needs to go away. Calling it corn sugar makes people less likely to worry about why it's even in there in the first place..cause it sounds more 'natural'.

[Lawana]

Why is HFCS supposed to be worse than sucrose (table sugar)? Sucrose is half fructose and half glucose. HFCS has about the same ratio of fructose and glucose. Can someone enlighten me?

[Dawn in OH]

In soda, it has been found that by using HFCS instead of pure sugar it can make the soda 10 times richer in harmful carbonyl compounds. According to one study, carbonyl compounds are elevated in people with diabetes and are blamed for causing diabetic complications such as foot ulcers and eye and nerve damage. Another study concluded that foods with increased fructose “produced significantly higher fasting plasma triacylglycerol values than did the glucose diet in men†and “if plasma triacylglycerols are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, then diets high in fructose may be undesirableâ€. (1)

 

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

 

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States. (2)

Over the long-haul, consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also leads to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the belly. Not to mention that is increased the circulation of triglycerides. (3)

 

High-fructose corn syrup is not the same as the corn syrup you buy to make pies. Whereas regular corn syrup is all glucose, HFCS is composed of half glucose and half fructose.

Says George A. Bray, former director of Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, "Fructose is absorbed differently [than other sugars]. It doesn't register in the body metabolically the same way that glucose does."

When glucose is consumed, a set of reactions occur in the body allowing it to be used as energy, and production of leptin, a hormone that helps control appetite and fat storage, is increased. Meanwhile, ghrelin, a stomach hormone, is reduced, which is thought to help hunger go away.

 

When fructose is consumed, however, it "appears to behave more like fat with respect to the hormones involved in body weight regulation," explains Peter Havel, associate professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. "Fructose doesn't stimulate insulin secretion. It doesn't increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin. That suggests that consuming a lot of fructose, like consuming too much fat, could contribute to weight gain."

 

 

 

More Than Just Weight Gain

Along with helping Americans pack on more pounds, HFCS has been linked to other health problems, including:

 

 

• Increased levels of triglycerides, which is linked to an increased risk of heart disease. A study by the University of Minnesota found that fructose "produced significantly higher [blood] levels" of triglycerides in men than did glucose.
  
• Accelerated bone loss. A study by the USDA, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, found that fructose may alter the body's balance of magnesium, leading to increased bone loss.
  
• A review of multiple studies by Havel and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that, in animals, consuming large amounts of HFCS:
   
  
  • Induced insulin resistance
    
  • Impaired glucose tolerance
    
  • Produced high levels of insulin
    
  • Boosted a dangerous fat in the blood
    
  • Caused high blood pressure (4)
    

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2007/09/10/high-fructose-corn-syrup-vs-pure-sugar-is-one-worse-than-the-other/ (1)

 

http://www.grist.org/article/researchers-yes.-hfcs-is-much-worse-than-table-sugar/ (2)

 

http://www.dietsinreview.com/diet_column/03/eating-high-fructose-corn-syrup-worse-than-sugar/ (3)

 

http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/05/09/28/high-fructose-corn-syrup-why-the-worlds-most-popular-sweetener-is-enemy-1-to-your-health-and-wais.htm (4)

 

And a bit of my own opinion: HFCS is turning up in all kinds of food products that do not need, nor used to be sweetened. It's added because it's cheap, and addictive. You can't avoid it unless you avoid processed foods. You know that line about "in moderation" used in the HFCS commercials...it makes me laugh. HFCS is in nearly everything. Look next time you are at the grocery store. I went to buy a can of BEANS and HFCS was on the ingredient list. Beans don't need sweetened. I came home with dry beans instead.

 

I don't just avoid HFCS, I avoid sweeteners in general in products that don't need it. I buy natural peanut butter (peanuts and salt), I don't do aspartame or other artificial sweeteners, and have cut sugar amounts in all my baked goods. But the whole new lifestyle started with eliminating HFCS.

[Karen in CO]

And a bit of my own opinion: HFCS is turning up in all kinds of food products that do not need, nor used to be sweetened. It's added because it's cheap, and addictive. You can't avoid it unless you avoid processed foods. You know that line about "in moderation" used in the HFCS commercials...it makes me laugh. HFCS is in nearly everything. Look next time you are at the grocery store. I went to buy a can of BEANS and HFCS was on the ingredient list. Beans don't need sweetened. I came home with dry beans instead.

 

I don't just avoid HFCS, I avoid sweeteners in general in products that don't need it. I buy natural peanut butter (peanuts and salt), I don't do aspartame or other artificial sweeteners, and have cut sugar amounts in all my baked goods. But the whole new lifestyle started with eliminating HFCS.

 

Try buying some whole wheat bread without HCFS in it. It takes some reading. That one simple change of quitting HCFS will clean up a diet in amazing ways.

[Dawn in OH]

Try buying some whole wheat bread without HCFS in it. It takes some reading. That one simple change of quitting HCFS will clean up a diet in amazing ways.

 

Yes, we've done that. We did manage to find some whole wheat bread without it. I also bake a lot of our own bread. Unfortunately, I cannot keep up with my family's demand for sandwich bread, I would be baking bread every day.

 

My husband and I both lost some weight when I reduced our sugar intake.

[Mothersweets]

HFCS is bad bad bad!! Dawn explained it very well above.

 

If you enjoy podcasts at all, listen to the episode about HFCS from Stuff You Should Know; they give a good explanation, too. http://podcast.com/show/68331/ It is the April 28, 2009 episode.

 

Something I have noticed recently: Yoplait yogurt had been using HFCS and I stopped buying it. Kind of a bummer since everyone in my family really liked that brand. I checked the ingredients label about a month ago and they have gone back to using sugar instead of HFCS. So maybe food companies are getting the message that consumers don't want it in their foods?

 

It does take some searching for a bread without HFCS. Here in the northwest, Franz bakeries puts out several different whole wheat breads without it. Yay!

Edited September 16, 2010 by Mothersweets

[ConnieB]

I read labels religiously.....each and every time I go shopping, because a product that may not have had any of the long list of ingredients I want to avoid last month may have changed and have them this month (or in a rare case, it now DOESN'T have them). It's the only way you can be relatively sure what you're feeding your family. Cooking from scratch has helped us to avoid a lot of the additives and chemicals too, but I know not everyone enjoys cooking like we do (or has the time, which we don't so we do a lot of batch cooking).

 

Anyway....my real point of posting this article wasn't to start the debate over HFCS, but to warn those that perhaps don't read labels like I do, or might not realize that HFCS makers are trying to do a bait and switch on us. I would have seen corn sugar on the list and written it down to research before my next grocery trip (without buying the item), but I think the average person would have said "hmmm, corn is good for me....and sugar is ok in moderation"....perhaps even thinking that sugar/sweetener from corn might actually even be better than table sugar....just like the sweetness of fruit is better than table sugar. ....instead of having the warning bells and flashing lights telling you that this is the new name for the same old product HFCS.

 

I find this attempt to fool the public to be deplorable. In fact I fear that the advertising campaign would include lies like "No HFCS" on the label, all the while knowing that corn sugar is the exact same product.

[Perry]

We did manage to find some whole wheat bread without it.

Pepperidge Farm has several different kinds of bread without HFCS.

 

[DarcyB]

I find this attempt to fool the public to be deplorable. In fact I fear that the advertising campaign would include lies like "No HFCS" on the label, all the while knowing that corn sugar is the exact same product.

 

 

And that's exactly what will happen.

[ConnieB]

Unfortunately, I cannot keep up with my family's demand for sandwich bread, I would be baking bread every day.

 

 

 

We now have TWO bread machines so that I can keep up with the sandwich bread needs of our family. AND we do the 5 minute Artisan dough in the refrigerator so we have various breads with dinner too.

 

We are definitely a carb loving family here....but ya know what...I haven't gained weight eating all this HOMEMADE bread. But back several years ago when I set out to lose 100+ pounds I cut out all bread, and lost a ton of weight from just that second change (the first change was things that the main ingredient was sugar...desserts, sweets, snacks, whatever you want to call them, I turned to naturally sweet snacks of fruit and lost almost 10 pounds that first month). So for me at least it wasn't the bread as much as what was in the breads we were eating. I know we're eating more of it because we very rarely had bread with dinner before just because the storebought Artisan was so expensive. So more bread didn't equal more weight for me.

[Dawn in OH]

Brownberry also has bread without HFCS in it. It does have sugar in it though. No artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.

[Cinder]

Pepperidge Farm has several different kinds of bread without HFCS.

 

 

 

There is another brand that advertises No HFCS right on the packaging. Can't remember right not which one it is, though. I love that they're doing this, but it's still smart to read the ingredient list.

 

Cinder

[Carrie12345]

I didn't read the article, but it sounds like an attempt to be able to compete with all of the products that now label themselves as using Sugar or Real Sugar, to separate themselves from HFCS. If they change to Corn Sugar, what's to stop them from putting their own "Made with Sugar" label on the front (since many people won't read beyond that).

[Crissy]

Here in the northwest, Franz bakeries puts out several different whole wheat breads without it. Yay!

 

We have a Franz outlet just a couple blocks away, so this is what my boys eat. I couldn't make a decent loaf of sandwich bread to save my life, so I was thrilled to find this brand.

 

 

After reading articles like this one last year, I am incredibly frustrated that the Corn Refiners Association could be allowed to simply change the name of their product and continue putting unsafe ingredients in our food.

[sweetbasil]

I checked the ingredients label about a month ago and they have gone back to using sugar instead of HFCS. So maybe food companies are getting the message that consumers don't want it in their foods?

 

The main cause for the change, as I understand it, is that corn has gotten very expensive.

[Perry]

Brownberry also has bread without HFCS in it. It does have sugar in it though. No artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.

Thanks. I'm always looking for non-HFCS products.

[Teresa in MO]

I have found more companies changing their formulas and advertising no HFCS. Some recently have been:

 

Hunts ketchup

Bullseye BBQ Sauce

Log Cabin syrup

[Perry]

Bullseye BBQ Sauce

 

I'm really glad to see this one. Non-HFCS BBQ sauce is one thing I've had a terrible time finding.

[ConnieB]

I didn't read the article, but it sounds like an attempt to be able to compete with all of the products that now label themselves as using Sugar or Real Sugar, to separate themselves from HFCS. If they change to Corn Sugar, what's to stop them from putting their own "Made with Sugar" label on the front (since many people won't read beyond that).

 

 

EXACTLY my point.

[MolleenCarie]

They're so tricksy.

[carolinagirl]

Buying healthy bread is frustrating. If you can find one with HFCS in it, odds are it'll say 'enriched wheat flour'... you want to avoid that as well. Enriched is a way of saying 'we took out the good ingredients and now we're trying to stuff some back in artificially'. There is a Nature's Own 100% wheat that is a good option. I just wish some that had the whole grains in the mix weren't 'enriched' or had sugar in the top 5 (also a common problem).