High fructose corn syrup, HFCS, is in so many products now it’s almost impossible to avoid. HFCS is the most common sweetener used in most sweets like soda and candy. You find it in items you wouldn’t expect like salad dressing and even ketchup.
HFCS is produced by an enzymatic reaction involving the glucose naturally found in corn. This reaction forms a product that is either 42 to 55 percent fructose, which is a simple sugar. The other 38 to 45 percent of the product is glucose, another simple sugar, respectively. Both products are called HFCS.
HFCS is used because the mixture of fructose and glucose is sweeter than the original item, pure glucose. It is cheaper to produce than sucrose, or common table sugar, which is equally as sweet.
American food manufactures began replacing sucrose with HFCS as the major sweetener in the 1960s. It was introduced to the American food market around the same time the number of overweight Americans began to spike.
The similar timelines for HFCS and the obesity epidemic as well as the extensive use of HFCS led many experts to conclude that HFCS must have caused the obesity epidemic. Is a similar time line really enough to blame all this on HFCS?
One theory that would explain why HFCS would cause the obesity epidemic stems from the fact that fructose does not start a metabolic chain reaction, which triggers fullness. Other sugars, including glucose, do initiate this reaction.
The problem with this theory is that pure fructose is not used as a sweetener in the United States and is rarely consumed by Americans. Studies comparing HFCS, if you recall HFCS is a mixture of fructose and glucose, and sucrose have indicated that there is little difference in hunger after consuming HFCS and sucrose.
Sucrose has been presented as a possible “healthier” replacement for HFCS in sodas. The low pH of soda causes sucrose, a disaccharide, to break down into its component parts by the time it reaches consumers. The product of this break down is a 50-50 mixture of fructose and glucose. This is almost exactly the same components of HFCS.
Sucrose could be used to replace HFCS in other products that don’t have such a low pH as soda such as popsicles or candy. In the human body sucrose is broken down to a 50-50 mixture of glucose and fructose before it is absorbed. Again, this is a very similar product to HFCS. So, what has really been accomplished by replacing HFCS with a more expensive sweetener other than a more expensive product?
Other countries don’t use HFCS near as frequently as we do in the United States. The rise in the rates of obesity has happened all over the globe, not just in the US.
It’s a lot easier to blame a product like HFCS than face the ugly truth that it’s our own faults that we’ve gained so much weight. Consumption of more calories than can be expended over time causes weight gain whether they are from HFCS, sucrose or fat. They all count.
JoLee Seaborn is a senior majoring in nutrition. This is her last health column.
