Sugar Shock and Awe

So apparently the Corn Refiners Association is being trounced by Big Sugar, and wants the world to know that there is another game in town. They are touting the benefits and similarities of sugar and their product, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), and have begun a new ad campaign, including television spots that almost boggle the mind. (Since I’m still unable to successfully embed video, here is the link.) If you are to believe them, HFCS is just as good as sugar, tastes virtually the same, and has about the same health effects as its more natural, less chemically retooled brother from canetown.

I’m all for friendly competition, but it seems that the CRA might just be a little bit wrong on this point. The question should not be whether HFCS is as just as good as sugar; it should be a question of whether either of them is any good for us as consumers. I understand that this is not the CRA’s main concern, but is it the FDA’s concern? Evidently not, because HFCS, for all of its processing and chemical synthesis, is now listed by the FDA as a natural ingredient.  The FDA’s letter to the CRA can be read here if you are interested.  I’m sorry to disagree with the FDA, but I read how HFCS is made (as compared with how sugar is processed), and that, my friends, is not natural in the slightest, but since it fits within the scope of the FDA’s definition of natural, they seem to be getting away with it.

Other items that are now considered “natural” include saturated fat, alcohol, refined grains, refined sugars, and trans fats. Trans fat? The fat that all food companies on the planet are now going out of their way to eliminate from their ingredients, is now considered natural? I don’t know about you, but none of those things seem particularly natural to me. I grew up believing that something “natural” could be picked or harvested, and, with little other than possibly a little bit of cooking, could be then consumed. Seems the FDA may be a little confused as well.

The CRA’s website, which contains the above video and others, also has “fun facts” about HFCS, which seem to take advantage of their new FDA status. I understand that these corn refiners have to make a living, but in light of the push for alternative fuels, couldn’t they just as easily make ethanol and make boatloads of money, which would be fully subsidized by the government? Either way, it seems that whether you believe that HFCS is indeed a natural ingredient or not, the CRA may be misleading the public with their site. According to studies by the Mayo Clinic (link), some of the some of their information may be deliberately false, such as how sugar and HFCS are comparatively digested and metabolized. While the long-term effects on humans have not been proven, in animal trials, it has been shown that fructose actually metabolizes to fat more quickly in your liver than does sucrose, the main chemical in sugar.

The American Medical Association recently concluded that there is no evidence that HFCS is any more likely to cause obesity, a fact that is at the top of the CRA’s list of “quick facts.” However, in an article published in June in the Wall Street Journal, Susan Vranica further wrote,

[T]he AMA called for further independent research to be done on the health effects of HFCS and also said that consumers should limit the amount of all sweeteners they use.

Its decision comes after some in the medical community called for the AMA to recommend that food companies restrict the use of HFCS or recommend that food companies label products that contain HFCS with a warning. link

It’s funny…nowhere in the article does it mention labeling products with sugar with the same warning.  I guess that we simply have to take the FDA’s word on what we’re putting into our bodies…