High Fructose Corn Syrup...Is It Really So Bad?

High Fructose Corn Syrup, or HFCS, as it is often referred to, has become the topic of many a health reporters articles and news reports. Most recently, reports of the Corn Industry’s desire to re-brand HFCS as “Corn Sugar” have surfaced (watch video at http://www.cornsugar.com/video-gallery/#). But as with many issues of the day, the real root story continues to be missed. The media has blinders on, and has become focused on only one question: Is HFCS more of a nutritional black eye than Table Sugar (also referred to as cane sugar or evaporated cane juice)? That is indeed an interesting question, and one that has been hotly debated in the media recently. The recent study by Bart Hoebel at Princeton University argues that his experiment on Lab Rats proved that animals being fed the same dosage of HFCS vs the control group, who received sugar, became substantially fatter (See http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/). The Corn Refiners Association has been firing on all cylinders to discredit the study and present an argument that HFCS and Sugar produce indistinguishable reactions in the human body (See http://sweetsurprise.com). So, is HFCS worse for us than sugar? I don’t know. I’m not a scientist and I don’t understand the chemistry around it, so it’s difficult for me to have an opinion. You can find several dozen nutritional experts to sit on either side of the issue. All major news organizations have been reporting on the issue, but they are missing the real story, and they are singularly focused on the nutritional question rather than the more telling and interesting root questions:

1) Why are suppliers and manufacturers so committed to using corn rather than sugar to sweeten soft drinks and other products?

This question is really the root of the entire issue, and goes way back to the development of the modern farm bill, which heavily subsidizes corn to artificially control cost and produce billions of bushels of cheap genetically modified, chemically fertilized field corn for animal feed, HFCS, hundreds of food additives, and most recently, ethanol. Of course very little of the value from the subsidies reaches the farmers. It all goes down-stream to other producers, who manufacture what are sometimes referred to as “further processed products”, or “value added products”. Of course this also translates to cheaper costs at store level, which one might say is a benefit to the consumer. To top it off, sugar, imported from other countries is taxed to further discourage the use of cane sugar and strengthen the use of HFCS. There are a lot of environmental black eyes surrounding this issue – the rise and widespread acceptance of the biggest monoculture our planet has ever seen in agriculture, the genetic modification of the corn itself and subsequent near elimination of non-genetically modified species due to open pollination, and most importantly, the use of very large quantities of gulf oil to manufacture chemical fertilizers to treat the vast fields.

2) Why are we looking for nutritional permission to be hedonistic with respect to our portion sizes rather than learning balance and moderation?

I personally have never been a huge soda drinker. I enjoy a bottled Coca Cola (sometimes referred to as “Mexican Coke”, because it is made in Mexico) about twice a year. This is the Coke made with real sugar that comes in the traditional thick glass bottle. I drink it, on occasion, rather than “normal” Coke, made with HFCS, because the taste is absolutely superior. I personally could never understand why and how people can drink 20-40 oz of bubbly sugar water a day, but that has become the reality for many children and adults on a daily basis. We obviously still have a lot to learn about the basics of balance, discipline, and maturity as a culture to abstain from overindulgence.

We will not address the issues of obesity related to HFCS, Cane Sugar, or any other food product until we start instilling the virtue of balance in our society, and we will never address why the Corn Refiners Association is committed to shoving 12 billion bushels of corn a year into the US Food Supply until we address the realities of the Farm Bill – which is the real story that journalists should be reporting on.

This blog was written by my son Phil, who operates a natural and organic food company in Colorado. I was just getting ready to address the issue of HFCS when he wrote this blog, so with his permission, here it is.