Posted on 05/30/2019 11:03:27 AM PDT by Red Badger
Many of us believe some kinds of sugar are somehow healthier.
High-fructose corn syrup has been a scapegoat for American obesity for the past decade and a half, so you might be surprised to learn that sugar and honey both have more fructose than high-fructose corn syrup.
Let’s break down the numbers here. Despite its misleading name, the most commonly used form of HFCS only has 42 percent fructose in comparison to table sugar’s 50 percent. Honey, the beloved natural sweetener, has 49 percent. Standard corn syrup doesn’t have any fructose because it’s 100 percent glucose, which explains how HFCS got its name: it was a kind of corn syrup with more fructose than normal.
This is true for every form of natural sugar you see advertised on organic food because sucrose, the molecule you know as sugar, is made up of one fructose molecule and one glucose molecule. Honey is a bit different, as its fructose and glucose molecules aren’t bound together, but instead are free-floating—much more like HFCS.
“People say you should use honey, but what’s interesting about honey is that because the sucrose is split apart [into glucose and fructose], you can fit a lot more of those molecules into a tablespoon,” says Andrea Giancoli, a registered dietician and consulting expert on dietary policy. “A tablespoon of honey has more calories than a tablespoon of table sugar.”
Now, it is true that your body metabolizes fructose differently from glucose, and products made with only fructose can cause metabolic issues as well as digestive problems. Pure fructose more directly impacts blood sugar, and eventually can lead to decreased insulin sensitivity and high triglycerides. But as a 2008 review of HFCS notes, those differences are irrelevant when talking about the health impacts of any of these commonly used sugars: “Sucrose, HFCS, invert sugar, honey, and many fruits and juices deliver the same sugars in the same ratios to the same tissues within the same time frame to the same metabolic pathways.”
Maybe the most confusing thing about the whole HFCS controversy is that there isn’t actually much scientific debate. Though there are still some questions as to how the body might process different types of sugar in distinct ways, the research thus far shows that the metabolic effects are exactly the same.
The confusion stems from a 2004 study that correlated HFCS consumption with obesity rates in the U.S., which at the time were fairly closely aligned. More and more food companies were using table sugar’s syrupy cousin because it has properties that make it ideal for making processed foods like soda and candy. Around the same time, Americans were growing fatter. The researchers were careful to note that, as always, correlation doesn’t imply causation. Perhaps the rise of HFCS coincided with an increase in processed food consumption or simply in total calories consumed, and the shift in sugar use had nothing to do with it.
But that didn’t stop other people, both scientists and journalists, from drawing much broader conclusions. Many parties took the paper to mean that there was something unique about HFCS that contributed to obesity. But the study never claimed to prove that, and subsequent research has shown exactly the opposite. As a 2014 review in the journal Diabetes Care put it: "the belief that sucrose is metabolized differently than HFCS is a myth. No study has shown any difference between the two when each is given [in the same caloric values], nor is there any difference in sweetness or caloric value."
In the time since that study, sugar consumption overall (including that of HFCS) has declined, even as obesity rates have continued to climb.
Of course, this is not to say that you should feel fine eating food with HFCS in it. Just remember that it’s the nature of those products—the fact that they’re often sugary drinks and processed foods—that make them bad for you. An equivalent product made with real cane sugar is just as bad. In fact, one review paper points out that soda’s acidity actually causes sucrose to split apart into its constituent molecules, meaning the can starts out containing common sugar but looks quite different, at the molecular level, by the time you drink it. The authors note, “It is a sweet irony that purists who must have their sucrose-sweetened sodas end up drinking a sweetener composition more similar to HFCS and have been doing so since the first cola was formulated in the 1880s.”
The message here is that you should absolutely avoid HFCS. But you should also be avoiding all forms of sugar equally. You should really only be getting six to nine teaspoons a day at a maximum, according to federal guidelines, but Americans consume close to 20 on average. If we all focused on sugar as one lump category rather than “natural” versus “unnatural,” we’d be better at making healthy choices. Even the sugar found in fruits is unhealthy if you eat too much of it. Go ahead and drizzle some honey on your toast because you like the taste—but don’t fool yourself into thinking the natural sources of sugar don't count as sweet treats.
Tags:
sugar high fructose corn syrup food Diet Health
Indeed. But it must stop. Especially in ethanol infusion into gasoline.
*cough* processed *cough*
brought to you by Big Processors Inc.,
yes it is not food
~~~
Agree
HFCS is almost as bad as bleached refined table sugar. There is no goodness of nature left from the plants left in them.
Similarly, the article tries to say that honey is worse because it has more calories by volume. So what!? Good natural (unprocessed and unfiltered) honey has lots of natural goodness, provided to you by your friends the bees.
I agree with you totally, I avoid HFCS and I lost a lot of weight and changed my eating habits. I specifically avoid it and I am not a sweet tooth junkie as well.
Doctor visit was fun after losing 50 lbs over a year, removing products with HFCS and eating only if hungry, eat less and watching sugars overall. He asked me how I did it and I told him about HFCS and avoiding it and reducing carbs and eating fruit versus other junk. They also in too much feed bad bacteria in your gut and they can be converted to alcohol by them.
Check it out, I am healthier in my 60’s than I was before and I will never go back
We all like sugar and that’s a problem.
Go on youtube and look at some videos of sugar processing
it doesn’t come like that from the cane.
I also watched some videos about England
and the introduction of processed sugar into their diet.
As a simple agrarian society their teeth were beautiful
but once processed sugar became available to the masses
the decay and tooth lose was horrific.
Fructose depletes your liver of essential copper that prevents an lethal inflammatory iron cascade.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261305/
“That’s why I sweeten my cofee with maple syrup - that’s good sugar!”
Have you ever tried palm sugar? Don’t know anything about it chemically, but it tastes very similar.
As one who is under doctor's orders to control blood sugar, I see them all as the same because I avoid them all regardless of the health benefits of one over the other.
They are all bad for you.. especially in the quantities of refined sugars you are exposed to in the western processed food diets of today.. but to claim HFCS is no worse than the others is a flat out lie.
LOL I stopped drinking sodas diet or otherwise 15 years ago. I just see the Mexican ones in a cafe where I eat breakfast. Thanx is that canned in the US?
Today’s strains of wheat is, of course, the REAL PROBLEM, but I agree, HFCS is not doing anyone any good either.
Glucose, Galactose, Lactose, Maltose, Sucrose, Fructose. Which is best, Honey?
Galactose is that stuff we’ve been importing from Alpha Centuari, right?
Go to Eastern Europe, those people are damn healthy... perhaps your mom was in to something.
Not bad for 71!:
Yep.....Romanian sailors..............
Not bad at all. She’s still performing, too.
I avoid all of them including HFCS.
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