Topic: High Fructose Corn Syrup... ITS EVERYWHERE

[Chris Salvato]

Lastly, a good tip given to me by my nutritional sciences teacher is that if you want to eat healthier look for products that resemble something you would find on a farm or out in nature, like whole fruits and vegetables or whole wheat bread instead of white.  Those are the foods that the body was built to use as fuel.

I have never seen a whole wheat bread tree out in nature   Best to avoid the breads

[TraceuseDS]

A question that I do have is that I was looking for grape jelly and no matter what brand I looked at (might have missed one) they all had HFCS. Does anybody know of a brand that makes health grape or strawberry jelly?
Chris

The problem with jelly (and jam, for that matter) is that traditionally it's the UBER-high levels of sugar that keeps bacteria from growing in it (I know, it seems counter intuitive, but there you have it), and it helps it to set properly instead of ending up in a sticky, runny mess. So, almost every kind of jam and jelly is going to have high levels of some sort of sugar, HFCS or otherwise. Or it's going to have all kinds of nasty synthetic crap in it to artificially reproduce the sweetness and consistancy.

I'm not going to get into the debate about types of sugar - I don't know enough to contribute significantly, so I'll leave that to the experts.


However, if YOU are looking for a natural jam or jelly, try making your own. It's actually not as hard as it sounds, you can control all the ingredients in it (just fruit, sugar, and pectin), it's pretty fun, and it tastes WAY better than store-bought jelly. JUST KEEP IN MIND THAT IT SHOULD BE USED SPARINGLY, even if you're making it yourself. You do NOT need this amount of sugar in your diet on a regular basis, even if it IS less nasty than Smuckers.

Basically all you have to do is buy some canning jars, pectin (I usually go with Sure-Jell, which also has a low-sugar variety of pectin, but there are several other kinds), sugar, and your fruit of choice at the grocery store (or wherever). The canning jars and pectin can sometimes be hard to find (I think the grocery stores try to hide them since so few people use them anymore), but they're usually there somewhere.

(1) Sterilize the jars and lids by boiling them, or wash with hot soapy water, and then pour boiling water over them.
(2) Cut up the fruit while the lids and jars are air-drying. There should be a little insert in the package of pectin that tells you the correct ratio of pectin to fruit to sugar. It'll vary from fruit to fruit, since different fruits have different levels of sugar, acid, and pectin.
(3) Bring the fruit and pectin to a rolling boil, and stir it until it's all squishy. Make sure you keep stirring it so that it doesn't burn or stick to the pan.
(4) Add the sugar and bring it to a rolling boil again. DON'T decrease the amount of sugar, or use any sugar substitutes, because that could cause the jam go bad (it'll either spoil or fail to set). Boil for 1 minute.
(5) Measure it into the jars. Screw the lids on tightly.
(6) Boil the jars again in a big saucepan for 5-10 minutes; the water should cover the lids of the jars by about an inch.
(7) Take the jars out, and let them cool to room temperature. The cooling air inside will vacuum-seal the lids.


You're done! Just don't tell Chris how much sugar goes in there...

[Schuman]

   High Fructose Corn Syrup. In the 1980s the food industry began replacing table sugar (sucrose) with an artificial sweetener in many packaged foods. They did this for one simple reason: it was cheaper for them and thus they made more money. The artificial sweetener is known as HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS). This product alone is the reason why the majority of American are overweight and without doubt the reason for the increasing obesity epidemic. Why? HFCS is an artificial sugar. It is not natural. So, human bodies are not adapted to digest it. More specifically:
   When you eat foods with HFCS your body recognizes it as A sugar, but can’t tell exactly what it is. So, your body does the normal sugar thing – your insulin levels go up (read as: ah shit.) But then, your body can’t tell what to do with it. Is it fructose? Is it sucrose? Is it glucose, dextrose? Who knows! ! So, you body will usually just store the food as excess energy (FAT).
   In summary: HFCS does two things to your body –
   1: screws with your insulin levels (read as: you body cannot manage its energy properly and your ability to burn fat goes down).
   2: Turns into fat.
Here’s where it gets sad. The following foods all are LOADED with HFCS.
   Any type of soda, packaged food, most kinds of bread, yes bread, most kinds of candy, cereal, etc. Basically if the food was MADE by a human, it’s got HFCS. The only way to tell for sure is to check the nutrition label. I suggest you do this whenever possible.

http://www.dogentricks.com/videos/Revision.doc

[Chris Salvato]

   High Fructose Corn Syrup. In the 1980s the food industry began replacing table sugar (sucrose) with an artificial sweetener in many packaged foods. They did this for one simple reason: it was cheaper for them and thus they made more money. The artificial sweetener is known as HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS). This product alone is the reason why the majority of American are overweight and without doubt the reason for the increasing obesity epidemic. Why? HFCS is an artificial sugar. It is not natural. So, human bodies are not adapted to digest it. More specifically:
   When you eat foods with HFCS your body recognizes it as A sugar, but can’t tell exactly what it is. So, your body does the normal sugar thing – your insulin levels go up (read as: ah shit.) But then, your body can’t tell what to do with it. Is it fructose? Is it sucrose? Is it glucose, dextrose? Who knows! ! So, you body will usually just store the food as excess energy (FAT).
   In summary: HFCS does two things to your body –
   1: screws with your insulin levels (read as: you body cannot manage its energy properly and your ability to burn fat goes down).
   2: Turns into fat.
Here’s where it gets sad. The following foods all are LOADED with HFCS.
   Any type of soda, packaged food, most kinds of bread, yes bread, most kinds of candy, cereal, etc. Basically if the food was MADE by a human, it’s got HFCS. The only way to tell for sure is to check the nutrition label. I suggest you do this whenever possible.

http://www.dogentricks.com/videos/Revision.doc

Dogen strikes again...bless his well intentioned heart.  He got a lot of the little things wrong...

If you don't want to read my comments, just read this interview: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/1969924.htm

Your body doesn't "know" anything.  It has receptors and sensors.  It sees fructose and glucose - the only two sugars that are able to be taken into the blood stream (unless my memory of my A&P fails me at this current moment..) - thus it raises insulin levels...dogen got part of that right, it seems.  Higher insulin levels cause fructose and glucose to be stored in tissues that can accept them -- for glucose this is pretty much every tissue in the body...for fructose it is only the liver.  This causes the liver to "overflow" with fructose and causes things like hypertension (high blood pressure), phosphate depletion, increased inflammation and fatty liver (a condition which is only shared with alcoholics...)

In other words, in extremely high quantities all sugars are converted into fat...whether you eat 25 pixie sticks in a row, eat a pound of table sugar or drink 5 sodas a day (that might be a bit modest for some people, actually).  All of these sugar sources (sucrose and HFCS) involve the liver as stated above due to their carb profile. Highly concentrated carbohydrate sources are absorbed into the blood stream WAY too quickly for the body to handle...this is bad - especially when the source is very rich in fructose like HFCS is.  Sure, you can argue (as tombb has) that HFCS is not evil and is just like honey in its carbohydrate profile -- but how many people drink a pint of honey a day?!

HFCS, carries other inherent risks that whole foods do not.  Whole foods that are rich in fructose are also rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber and a newly found compound called "simulin" (still being investigated).  The fiber and simulin are important - the former buffers absorption and the latter decreases the effects of fructose on insulin levels and increases insulin action (in other words, acts as insulin in "good" tissues like muscle but not in "bad" tissues like fat) -- this means whole food sugar sources (unrefined, unprocessed) are much safer for consumption.

HFCS is responsible for the obesity epidemic -- but that is also based on the fact that people think excessive quantities are healthy.  Everything people eat these days is filled with HFCS.  The danger of saying "HFCS is OK!" is that it promotes the fact that it is OK to eat it en masse...which it is not.

HFCS can be construed to be a "poison" that your body gets confused about and instantly turns to fat (like Dogen is trying to tell you) - this would be similar to how alcohol is a "poison".  Not healthy - especially in massive quantities.  Dogen's side of the coin is just as dangerous as the Corn Refiners.  Both are using misinformation and manipulation - intentional or unintentional - to get you to behave how they want you to behave. 

In short, don't eat HFCS.  Its not a good choice for anyone's diet.   However, you should treat ALL sugars the same exact way as you treat HFCS.  You can't be shoveling table sugar into your morning tea/coffee while discussing the evils of HFCS.  It makes no sense.

For your carbohydrates, eat whole foods and foods made DIRECTLY from these whole foods - Fruits, Vegetables, Beans, etc.

[Steven Low]

Basically:

1. AVOID SUGAR IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.

2. IF YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE ANY SUGAR, TAKE IT RIGHT AFTER WORKOUT WHEN YOUR INSULIN SENSITIVITY IS HIGH.

[tombb]

Sebeta, you need to look into things more carefully, anybody can write crazy things on the web and it doesn't mean they are true.  Whoever the person that you are quoting is, he needs to seriously pick up a basic chemistry book (as well as a physiology one) or at least pay attention in school

I striked the parts that are absolutely incorrect, and wrote in bold and parenthesis a few extra comments.

High Fructose Corn Syrup. In the 1980s the food industry began replacing table sugar (sucrose) with an artificial sweetener in many packaged foods. They did this for one simple reason: it was cheaper for them and thus they made more money.(other reasons too like lighter and more fruit-like taste) The artificial sweetener is known as HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP (HFCS). This product alone is the reason why the majority of American are overweight and without doubt the reason for the increasing obesity epidemic (not the only reason at -all-, -WAAY more important ones are sedentary lifestyle, huge portions, delicious deep fried foods etc, you can get obese easily just eating salty potato chips and sitting on the couch all day, with zero HFCS in your diet, and many people do it that way). Why? HFCS is an artificial sugar. It is not natural (-not- artificial, just normal sugar like any other from fruit). So, human bodies are not adapted to digest it. More specifically:
   When you eat foods with HFCS your body recognizes it as A sugar, but can’t tell exactly what it is. So, your body does the normal sugar thing – your insulin levels go up (that's normal and the correct response, insulin goes up even just eating proteins, the problem is with excesses)(read as: ah shit.) But then, your body can’t tell what to do with it. Is it fructose? (yes)Is it sucrose? Is it glucose (yes), dextrose? Who knows! So, you body will usually just store the food as excess energy (FAT) (normal, living organisms store excess energy instead of wasting it, not necessarily as fat, it can be stored as glycogen etc).
   In summary: HFCS does two things to your body –
   1: screws with your insulin levels (read as: you body cannot manage its energy properly and your ability to burn fat goes down) (nothing to do with fructose itself, just the most logical response to insufficient exercise and excessive energy/carb intake)
   2: Turns into fat. (not something about HFCS, just about any caloric excess, especially in concentrated spikes without exercise)

Edit: By the way, I also agree with everything Chris mentioned here.
But Chris, one of the reasons why I encourage people to understand the real problems in consuming excesses of say sugars rather than just blaming it on a single label like HFCS without knowing why, is that advertisers are clever in manipulating people, fads, and dodging around these sorts of things with often worse consequences.

So nobody should consume the equivalent of a pint of honey or HFCS a day of course, that's -way- too much.  But if HFCS becomes unpopular, companies will just switch to saying  "now with more -natural- honey and no HFCS"  in their products, and you'll end up with people consuming maybe even 2 pints of honey (now hidden in those foods) thinking "I am so healthy"... It's already happened with things like fat-free grain+fruit bars that use sugars instead of fats to keep things together and actually end up having more calories and are less filling and more likely to be consumed in excess.

If people understand nutrition a bit better, especially in terms of being able to compare and put things in perspective they will be much better off than just trying to avoid the current scapegoat ingredient which could just be replaced with something even worse but with a more ~markety~ word full of 'natural' and 'wholesome' adjectives attached to it.

[Chris Salvato]

http://www.dogentricks.com/videos/Revision.doc

BTW, I read through some of that article and most of it seemed like the rantings of a late teen or college student.  I wouldn't be pulling my scientific information from this site....just like i wouldn't pull scientific information from Arnold Schwarzenegger

This guy also says that salad dressings are bad (nonsense) and so is milk for weight gain and fat loss....also says that CLIF bars are good for you.  After he says to avoid milk, he says to eat cottage cheese and yogurt - contradiction. 

His explanation of why organic foods are better is total nonsense, also.

He says the best thing to do for losing weight is to walk on a treadmill at full incline for 15 minutes, wtf?  He claims this is somehow also good on the joints -- which are not being conditioned at all with this routine and are very important to trickers...

Like I said -- it is well intentioned but people should refrain from explaining things that they don't understand...it just makes them look stupid.

[Alec Furtado]

I feel like it would be a good idea to make a sticky where the OP just keeps updating it with debunked myths as the discussion in the thread continues. Might be able to write a book in the end

[Bret [Soundcrafter]]

Lastly, a good tip given to me by my nutritional sciences teacher is that if you want to eat healthier look for products that resemble something you would find on a farm or out in nature, like whole fruits and vegetables or whole wheat bread instead of white.  Those are the foods that the body was built to use as fuel.

I have never seen a whole wheat bread tree out in nature   Best to avoid the breads

Oh, who the hell are you, Scott Kustes? Screw you man, let me eat my damn bread!

 
Seriously, though, he's right, but if you're going to eat bread (like me, on occasion) get whole wheat.

[Schuman]

Sorry for any misinformation.  
But lets just agree that eating too much HFCS is horrible and leave it at that.

[tombb]

Sorry for any misinformation.  

No problem.
As a suggestion for future reference, one good way to tell bad information is the lack of references or explanation.

The good thing about serious textbooks and scientific papers is that they are peer reviewed, so groups of people already went through the exercise of trying to pick it apart and making sure everything they claim is well supported by strong evidence. If you see a random claim like, say, "people should sleep 20 hours a day", the next thing would be to ask, why do you say that, and how do you know for sure? By doing that the writer has a better chance to realize that maybe it's just something he heard from a friend of a friend, he will take the time to search until he finds a source that actually has a reasonable explanation for that claim, and if he can't find it anywhere and actually finds strong evidence for the opposite, they might correct their statement, and add a reference to that strong convincing evidence.

If an article is written without any reference, it could still potentially be true, but to be sure that's the case you have to end up doing all that search work yourself.   That's why if you don't want to take the time to do all the searching you are generally much better off at least basing yourself on articles with many references and citations to actual evidence and studies already.

But lets just agree that eating too much HFCS is horrible and leave it at that.

Still not quite right. Eating too much sugar is bad for you. Honey, HFCS, table sugar, fruit juice etc are all more or less equally bad in large quantities for the same reason. A teaspoon a day of either is perfectly ok, although you might as well go for something like honey since you get some extra vitamins etc for free.

Yes, eating too much sugar is bad. But definitely not horrible, not by a long shot.  Ebola virus causing hemorraging fever, killing you in a couple of weeks while you bleed out from everywhere is horrible. Eating too much candy one time at Halloween when you were a little kid will maybe give you indigestion, but if you have good eating habits the other 364 days of the year it will have basically no consequences.

You need to put things into context, as they say "exaggeration is a -BILLION- times worse than understatement" (humor intended).

[Jon Hurst]

http://www.americanparkour.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,159/topic,14846.15/ is not loading correctly at the moment, so can't see the second group of 15 posts. Hopefully I'm adding to the conversation productively...

Here's a passage from Wikipedia's page on HFCS:
"In his recent book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, journalist Michael Pollan claims that the way that the body processes HFCS is different from the way it processes the glucose and fructose found in other sugars. Digesting sucrose requires the production of an enzyme called sucrase, which breaks the bond between the glucose molecule and the fructose molecule. Because the body regulates its production of sucrase, it can only digest sucrose at a certain rate. Because digesting HFCS does not require sucrase to be digested, the rate at which it is digested is not similarly regulated by the body.[citation needed]"

My thought is that if the body is not regulating glucose and fructose as well, that it would be very easy to see spikes and drops in blood sugar. That would throw off insulin production which, if it didn't cause diabetes, would at least be dangerous for diabetics. Therefore, even though both HFCS and sucrose are both (basically) half glucose and half fructose, sucrose is safer for your body.

Does that logic make sense?

[Chris Salvato]

I think you are onto something Jon, however, saying sucrose is safer than HFCS is like saying shooting your best friend is better than shooting your mother.  Both are pretty damn crappy.

[Jon Hurst]

lol. Fair enough.

[tombb]

http://www.americanparkour.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,159/topic,14846.15/ is not loading correctly at the moment, so can't see the second group of 15 posts. Hopefully I'm adding to the conversation productively...

Here's a passage from Wikipedia's page on HFCS:
"In his recent book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, journalist Michael Pollan claims that the way that the body processes HFCS is different from the way it processes the glucose and fructose found in other sugars. Digesting sucrose requires the production of an enzyme called sucrase, which breaks the bond between the glucose molecule and the fructose molecule. Because the body regulates its production of sucrase, it can only digest sucrose at a certain rate. Because digesting HFCS does not require sucrase to be digested, the rate at which it is digested is not similarly regulated by the body.[citation needed]"

My thought is that if the body is not regulating glucose and fructose as well, that it would be very easy to see spikes and drops in blood sugar. That would throw off insulin production which, if it didn't cause diabetes, would at least be dangerous for diabetics. Therefore, even though both HFCS and sucrose are both (basically) half glucose and half fructose, sucrose is safer for your body.

Does that logic make sense?

John, I already mentioned the difference between sucrose and fructose+glucose in this and previous threads.

But that particular statement is flawed because it assumes HFCS is the only thing that doesn't require sucrase, and that it's somehow special. As I mentioned before, honey and many other 'natural' foods like fruits are exactly equivalent in that respect, they already have fructose and glucose separated and not in sucrose form.

Your body handles them just fine when not in excess for extended periods of time. Even people fond of foraging metaphors should know we were eating fruits and berries even before hunting and fishing.

So the way your body processes HFCS is -exactly the same- as the way it processes glucose and fructose in other foods.
It is only different from the way it processes -composite sugars- like sucrose (found in sugar canes for example) or lactose (which doesn't even have fructose as a component) because those are composite sugars.

[tombb]

Jeff, I really don't see it as banter, it's reasonable for people who heard otherwise to post with the conflicting claims and sources they heard and ask for clarifications.

That's all we did here.  For example Jon saw a quote from a journalist which was written ambiguously enough to suggest the body used sucrase for digesting all sugars except HFCS, and I clarified that's not the case at all.

Nobody would disagree with this, it's just a simple biological fact. 

It's not that this particular journalist had bad intentions, but rather more likely they heard an accurate fact about the difference between fructose and table sugar, but did not have a sufficient understanding on the subject to actually realize what it meant in practice or properly paraphrase it without conveying an incorrect global picture.  It's like the Calvin&Hobbes comic strip where he reads that the body is ~70% water, and concludes that drinking a glass of water could disrupt this delicate balance and cause people to melt instantly.

However you might be right that this topic somehow seems to come up often and maybe Alec's suggestion of a myths thread and your similar suggestion might be worth considering. But that might be really too much work, there are so many myths out there (just look at all the ones Chris found just in that one webpage), and it doesn't solve the larger problem of people just believing any random claim without knowing or understanding why it's true or false.
That's why my approach is always in helping people tell the difference on their own by looking more critically at claims, sources and explanations themselves (along the lines of "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"), and if they just need extra help in understanding something aside from textbooks and sources they can ask in forums like these and get actual detailed explanations instead of just empty claims like "trust me, it's true".

[Jon Hurst]

Thanks for the help. True, this passage did not address any other sugars besides HFCS and sucrose. I've been wondering about xylitol recently myself. Anyway, I hear all the time that complex sugars are "better for you" than simple sugars. Is it safe to assume that your body can more precisely regulate blood sugar level by monitoring sucrase (and/or other enzymes?) levels used to break down complex sugars than it can when it's processing simple sugars without sucrase? Would sucrose be considered simple or complex or somewhere in the middle? Does the complexity of different sugars fall on a continuum or is it one or the other, simple or complex?

This wiki article also implied something along the lines of that fructose is bad for you. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. However, while fructose is the sugar found in fruit, the levels are much lower than one would think and that fructose only becomes problematic when added to foods/drinks bringing the sugar content much higher than nature intended whether in the form of HFCS or otherwise.

[tombb]

..Anyway, I hear all the time that complex sugars are "better for you" than simple sugars. Is it safe to assume that your body can more precisely regulate blood sugar level by monitoring sucrase (and/or other enzymes?) levels used to break down complex sugars than it can when it's processing simple sugars without sucrase? Would sucrose be considered simple or complex or somewhere in the middle? Does the complexity of different sugars fall on a continuum or is it one or the other, simple or complex?

Complex carbohydrates in general are slower absorption. Things like Starch are even slower and have to be converted to sugars by amylase before they are absorbed. That's where the whole thing about Glycemic Indexes comes in. 
Generally it's good to have slow steady streams of nutrients when you are doing low level everyday activities, while fast absorption is more useful when you are in the middle of intense exercise or recovering from it. People often just go by taste instead which causes problems especially with excess consumption coupled with low activity levels. Fast-absorbing carbs right after intense exercise can actually increase and prolong insulin sensitivity (good), while the same food would reduce insulin sensitivity (bad) if consumed while sitting on the couch all day.

In terms of complex sugars, things like sucrose and lactose (sugars made of two simple sugars) are the most prevalent, it's mostly those two, plus glycogen and starches that cover most cases.  I would say the absorption rate difference for those two is not really a big consideration. If you are always eating too much table sugar (sucrose), your body will just start to produce larger amounts of sucrase enzyme to digest it faster. Not only but total fructose absorption can actually be higher when it's from sucrose rather than in free-form.

This wiki article also implied something along the lines of that fructose is bad for you. Or at least that's how I interpreted it. However, while fructose is the sugar found in fruit, the levels are much lower than one would think and that fructose only becomes problematic when added to foods/drinks bringing the sugar content much higher than nature intended whether in the form of HFCS or otherwise.

Free fructose and glucose have differences in how they interact with insulin and liver metabolism, as well as other small differences due to being different molecules.
But all of these differences are inconsequential in balanced diets because both sugars are part of good nutrition, unless you completely remove all plant-food like vegetables and fruits from your diet.

Half of the natural sugar and sweetness of an apple comes from free fructose. Proportionally that's not much lower than expected, it's just that people don't make concentrated candies out of apples much, and tend to eat apples in moderation (takes a while to chew, decently filling, etc, while pure pulp-free apple juice might be easier to abuse).
The same is true for grapes. Other fruits have different ratios of free fructose, free glucose, free sucrose etc but still a lot of naturally occurring free fructose. Some vegetables like carrots actually have different ratios of free fructose or sucrose depending on genetic differences between known varieties, but even onions, peppers etc still have about 1/4th of their sugar as free-form fructose.

So basically no, you shouldn't think that fructose as a molecule is bad for you and remove all vegetables and fruit from your diet.  The problem is just with adding refined sugars in general in large amounts (you can definitely still add half a teaspoon of honey to a cup of tea a day for example without any negative consequence whatsoever). 
When you start talking about long term excess consumption especially from adding large amounts of refined sugars to your diet, then there might be slightly different complications from using one type of sugar or another, but you are basically getting to diabetes either way, and the problem is still just the prolonged excess of sugars in general.

[Jon Hurst]

Shibby.

Yeah we need a stickied article on sugars and sugar processing.

[MIG~de~PK]

Thank you for all of the information on high fructose corn syrup and all other things saccharine.  My science teacher keeps telling us to watch what we eat, and I have been seeing a lot of confusing and contradicting data in the news.  Now I can impress all my friends with this newfound knowledge!