SD Corn

As scary as it sounds, the journalist and university professor, Michael Pollan, known for his best-selling book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” might actually agree on something with the corn growing community. In a recent Huffington Post article, the author claimed that high fructose corn syrup is no better or worse for you than cane sugar. Basically saying what the Corn Refiners Association has been saying and defending since the media backlash began.

 “I’ve done a lot to demonize it,” Pollan said. “And people took away the message that there was something intrinsically wrong with it. A lot of research says this isn’t the case. But there is a problem with how much total sugar we consume.” High-fructose corn syrup is cheaper than sugar, so it traditionally was pumped into a lot of foods, including savory items.”

Too much sugar is of course very unhealthy, but the negative press sparked numerous marketing campaigns where products were advertised as HFCS-FREE or made with Real Cane Sugar making those products seem like a healthier choice, when actually they weren’t.

“It shows the brilliance of the industry, which is always a couple of steps ahead of me,” Pollan said. “They started giving products made of real sugar health claims and [are] trying to make sugar look good.” And that is a problem.

Indeed it is a problem when self-proclaimed experts like Pollan and foodie bloggers can influence such a large population on what they should or should not be eating without any scientific backing whatsoever. Mark Twain once wrote that “the trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that aren’t so.”

Just remember, a sugar is a sugar. Over-indulging is bad, but finally getting a food journalist like Michael Pollan to finally understand corn sugar isn’t, now that is bittersweet.

Twitter has been lit up all week with tweets about High Fructose Corn Syrup. A recent Princeton study released on Monday came with a headline saying HFCS causes rats to gain more weight than table sugar. So let’s dig a little deeper into the study.

The first study included 10 males in each group for total of 8 weeks. One group was fed HFCS with food for 12 hours a day and another was fed table sugar with food for 12 hours a day. This resulted in the HFCS group weighing more.

 But a similar study had the sweeteners with food available 24 hours a day and ended with the table sugar group weighing more.

An additional study with an unknown number of female rats over a period of seven months also provided both sweeteners with food to different groups 12 hours per day resulted in the table sugar group weighing more.

A major problem with these studies is the excessive amounts of sweeteners given to the rats. Comparing it to human consumption would equal a single person drinking 20 12oz cans of pop per day.

So what do these studies tell us? Not much, but a catchy headline like, “High Fructose Corn Syrup’s Big Fat Secret” is all it takes for the Twittervesre to go crazy over something so popular to be against.

Here are some things to remember…

“Consumers should not be misled by exaggerated studies that feed astronomical amounts of one ingredient to the study subjects, in this case rats. The medical community has long dismissed results from rat dietary studies as being inapplicable to human beings,” stated Audrae Erickson, president, Corn Refiners Association.

“Consumers should rest assured that high fructose corn syrup is safe. The American Medical Association concluded that high fructose corn syrup does not appear to contribute more to obesity than sugar. The American Dietetic Association stated that these two sweeteners are indistinguishable to the human body and are metabolized equivalently,” Erickson noted.

For more information on High Fructose Corn Syrup be sure to check out SweetSurprise.com

Click here for a quick SweetScam video

The Center for Consumer Freedom group is at it again, but this time defending the very popular, but wrongly accused ingredient, High Fructose Corn Syrup. CCF’s website, SweetScam.com is serving as a watchdog for the numerous attacks on HFCS by providing statistical information using sound science and professional expertise.

SweetScam. com is broken down in to four areas including:

Science and Nutrition

Myths and Facts

How it’s made

Mythmakers

The website reads, “Activists and others like to play the blame game when it comes to obesity. But their theory about some sweeteners doesn’t hold water. It turns out sugar is sugar, whether it comes from sugar cane, sugar beets, or corn, and it’s perfectly fine in moderation.”

A strong voice is needed as companies are centering advertising campaigns on the removal of an ingredient that is not actually improving the health of their product, but simply a marketing tactic. Most notably Starbucks has completely removed it from their menu and Pepsi-Cola is experimenting as well.

Consumer Reports wrote, “But tossing high-fructose corn syrup off ingredient lists may well have more to do with marketing than science. A sweetener made from cornstarch processed with enzymes and acids, HFCS has roughly the same composition as cane sugar—about half glucose and half fructose—and the same number of calories. Concerns that it’s directly responsible for rising obesity rates or somehow intrinsically more fat-inducing than sugar are largely unfounded…”

These marketing messages aren’t necessarily making claims against HFCS, but still put negative ideas into the average consumers’ mind. SweetScam. com looks to dispel the false rumors, claims and myths against the widely used sweetener by informing folks  with the factual information that they deserve.

Mark Twain once wrote that “the trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that aren’t so.”

Right now in the United States more emphasis is being placed on health care than ever before. This seems to make a lot of sense since America has an increasingly notable weight problem. One ingredient that seems to be taking a lot of the blame is High Fructose Corn Syrup.

There is no evidence that HFCS is causing weight gain, but there is evidence linked to overconsumption of fast foods and sweetened drinks. HFCS may be used in those food items, but you can’t blame anyone but yourself for eating two double cheeseburgers and supersizing your value meal.

“This is a marketing issue, not a metabolic issue… The real issue is not High Fructose Corn Syrup, it’s that we’ve forgotten what a real serving size is. We have to eat less of everything.” David Klurfeld Ph.D., Human Nutrition USDA

Americans have evolved into an easy go life style, they have every right to eat as much and exercise as little as they like, but blaming HFCS is “scapegoat” when determining the cause of their health problems.

It’s seems like bashing High Fructose Corn Syrup is the trendy thing to do. Many columnist and bloggers have been taking their shots and filled their reader’s thoughts with outdated science and biased logic. Many of the studies used in these articles are flawed in that they used pure fructose when comparing to cane sugar. When in reality, HFCS is somewhere between 42-55% Fructose.

The American Medical Association stated that, “Because the composition of high fructose corn syrup and sucrose are so similar, particularly on absorption by the body, it appears unlikely that high fructose corn syrup contributes more to obesity or other conditions than sucrose.”

FACT: High Fructose Corn Syrup is fine in moderation, but overeating is unhealthy.

To lean more check out sweetsurprise.com