Friday, June 08, 2012

High Fructose Corn Syrup

A few months ago, I had posted Prof. Robert Lustig's warning about sugar, or more accurately fructose. Sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose.  The commonly used sweetener, High Fructose Corn Syrup, is said to be 55% fructose and 45% glucose, and doesn't seem much worse than sugar.

But now this  (and from 2010, this)
Consider, for example, the most common form of HFCS - HFCS 55, which has 55% fructose compared to sucrose which is 50% fructose. Most people think this difference is negligible, but it's 10% more fructose. Yet this assumes that foods and drinks are made with HFCS 55. Our study showed that certain popular sodas and other beverages contain a fructose content approaching 65% of sugars. This works out to be 30% more fructose than if the sodas were made with natural sugar. HFCS can be made to have any proportion of fructose, as high as 90%, and added to foods without the need to disclose the specific fructose content.
It is not fair for the industry association to talk about the relative harmlessness of  HFCS 55 and HFCS 42 and then to feed us HFCS 65!