High Fructose Corn Syrup - Is It Making America Fat?

We've apparently figured out the reason Americans are obese. Yes, it's true, figures have now shown that approximately 2/3 of people in the United States are overweight. Even if that number isn't correct, a trip to Walmart on any given day will show you that a shocking number of people do appear to be heavier than healthy.

But, now we've got it figured out. It's something called high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, is a sweetener used primarily in the United States since the 1970's. The premise seems to make sense: people have gotten steadily fatter since the 1970's, and it's mostly people in the United States. It must be the high fructose corn syrup, then.

The idea that it is high fructose corn syrup making us fat is almost Gospel in the health food world. But is HFCS really the culprit? Granted, it is in everything: bread, cookies, donuts, ketchup, yogurt, crackers, breakfast cereal, and even in some pickles.

Some people assume because of the name that high fructose corn syrup is actually high in fructose, so it must be sweeter or bad for you. HFCS was given the name "high" to distinguish it from plain corn syrup. HFCS actually is almost identical in make up to regular old table sugar, which is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose. HFCS is composed of between 42 and 55 percent fructose, with the remainder being glucose and other sugars.

It is taken as common fact that high fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently than table sugar or honey, and that people who consume HFCS are not able to distinguish when they are full, leading to overeating. There are many reasons to overeat, and stress is one of the big ones. But there has been no research to actually support the idea that HFCS blocks the body's natural ability to feel full. Rather, researchers have found that sugar, honey, and high fructose corn syrup acted in the body the same way; and none of them impaired the satiety hormone that cause a person to feel full. The common misconception may have started when a study done with pure fructose (not high fructose corn syrup at all) at extremely high levels was done, so HFCS has become the villain.

Many people continue to think that somehow table sugar is healthier than high fructose corn syrup in some way. These people go to great lengths to avoid the popular sweetener by shopping at health food stores and other places who advertise that they carry products that do not contain HFCS. But both sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup have been evaluated many times, and one is not considered by researchers to be better than the other.

Other misconceptions abound, and I hear them quoted all the time, One is that high fructose corn syrup is sweeter than sugar, and has therefore trained our taste buds to crave sweeter, and sweeter things. I have not personally tested this, but others have, and they report that HFCS was specifically created to be equal to sugar in sweetness, not more sweet. Another common "truth" is that HFCS is less natural than real sugar. Well, real sugar is a byproduct of either beets or cane, neither of which resemble the white, grainy end result that we spoon into our cup of tea. HFCS is a byproduct of corn, and does not contain any additional ingredients that the Food and Drug Administration consider artificial.

Diabetes is a serious, life-threatening illness, and right now, the numbers of people affected are rising to near epidemic proportions. And once again, high fructose corn syrup is commonly supposed to be contributing to the increase in cases of diabetes. Well, HFCS does affect insulin, but in the exact way that sugar does. Any caloric sweetener triggers an insulin response. No research has shown that HFCS triggers a greater response, nor that sugar or honey have a lower response for blood sugar levels. One of the number one causes of diabetes is being overweight, not necessarily a sweetener.

It is natural to make a villain of something that didn't exist in 1950, that exists almost ubiquitously now, and that is called "high fructose corn syrup". Those words just seem to imply a culprit. I think the United States gets tired of being told how fat it is on a daily basis by the media. If everyone is fat, and no one knows why, then it must be the fault of some product that we are consuming.

And if people want to spend the extra money and time on searching out products that do not contain this sweetener, that's fine. It's not less healthy to eat ketchup, bread, or barbecue sauce made with sugar or honey.

But the research just doesn't back up all this hysteria over high fructose corn syrup. I'm sorry, folks, I think it comes down to that same old boring formula: when you eat more food than you use, the food turns to fat. And people in the United States eat a lot. If you want to know the difference in eating habits since the 1960's, take a look at portion sizes. An 8 ounce coca-cola was a standard serving, not merely the first gulp in your 48 ounce soda. A McDonald's hamburger and what is now a small order of fries was actually an adult's meal, not your two year old's Happy Meal.

If people who are genuinely concerned about being overweight quit looking for a culprit, a villain, a demon, and just focused on eating less, I bet the "obesity epidemic" would be a thing of the past.