HFCS industry is spending 30 million dollars to convince us that their product is wonderful. When we start to look at the health issues ,they want to say ;don’t pay any attention to the man behind the curtain! Maybe it’s time to look behind the curtain,
Before becomming a diabetic ,I believe it was no different than sucrose other than percentage of fructose to glucose.After becomming a diabetic, I started to examine everything I ate. HFCS was one of things that I took a close look at.
Here’s what to say about it.
They are quick to point out it is made from corn. Okay, so is Ethanol ,I don’t believe you want to drink it every time you put something in your mouth . Yet, thats what is happening with HFCS . Further more it is so refined virtually nothing is left to identify it as corn.(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)
HFCS is not corn syrup. Corn syrup is mostly glucose but it lacks the sweetness of HFCS. HFCS is not fructose. This is an area that they like to muddy the waters . Both fructose and corn syrup are metabolized differently than HFCS.(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)
HFCS is made from natural ingredients .Just like Trans Fats started out as natural but the end product is no longer natural and our bodies have problems processing them.(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)
Like sugar, use HFCS in moderation.Yeah ,right! It is hid in everything . Almost all prepared foods of any kind will have HFCS in it ,want it or not . In 1970 the avg, person consumed .5lb. a year ;today the avg is 67lb. a year ;much of it without the consumers knowlege. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)
Checking Gov. sites ,they defined moderation as 32gms. a day. One soft drink equals 40gms. (Do not pay attention to the man behind the curtain.)
HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose that makes it almost the same as Sucrose that is 50% fructose and50% glucose. That what HFCS industry would have you to believe. In sucrose ,glucose and fructose are bonded .Insulin is use to metabolize . With HFCS it is absorbed through the Jejunum and is directly converted to Triglycerides by the liver.(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)
Do you know why we didn’t have supper sizes in the “60’s” ? No one could consume them. Now its not uncommon to see someone drink a 2litter bottle of Coke in one setting.Why ? HFCS shut off the hypothylamus to tell us we are full.(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.) Without the use of insulin, leptin is not raised, With out insulin and leptin the body has no “hunger shut off mechanisim”(Just Ignore the man behind the curtain.)
Because HFCS is directly processed through the liver .it has the same effect on the liver as non-alcholic fatty liver disease;the high production of triglycrides gives support to an increase of heart disease ,diabetes and obesity.(Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain)
The carbonyl bond in HFCS which doesn’t exist in sucrose ,causes reactive carbonyl damage to cells and tissue.This can promote inflamation in arteries(Pay No ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!)
HFCS doesn’t increase blood sugar any more than sucrose but it increases sorbitol in cells and increases AGE product in diabetics (Okay ,Im paying attention to that man behind the curtain,now.)
Joe, I had also read the following by Linda Joyce Forristal, who suggested the documentary “the Corn King” which I haven’t seen yet. but anyway, http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html
this is good info. We shop at Trader Joes as they do not sell any foods with HFCS. Its hard to stay away from that stuff if you buy packaged foods. Thanks for getting the word out there!
actually, I very much like drinking ethanol Corn ethanol is essentially good ol’ fashioned moonshine, just distilled down to 95% purity or so. Other than that minor quibble, you’re dead on! It’s damned near impossible to avoid that stuff, and it’s just no damned good for you.
(and I only drink in moderation, as per instructions from my nurse educator and dietician . . . .)
Hey Joe,
Good job. I think you are on a roll here. I would have thought that not an awful lot of people understood the role leptin plays for us. I am waiting to see what else you brung us. Dare i hope you don’t go back to work too quickly and continue for a while to bring us more of your insights? Really well done. Thank you.
A few additional points worth mentioning: #1) It’s made from corn … well, that much is true, but the reality is that this is not the sweet corn grown in your garden, but a genetically-modified variety of corn called “Yellow Dent 2”, which a form of genetically modified corn which is subsequently processed with genetically modified enzymes. Actually, 3 different enzymes are needed to break down cornstarch, which is composed of chains of glucose molecules of almost infinite length, into the simple sugars glucose and fructose. First, cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called polysaccharides. Alpha-amylase is industrially produced by a bacterium, usually Bacillus sp. It is then purified and then shipped to HFCS manufacturers (Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and another big agricultural processor based in Farm Belt). Next, an enzyme called glucoamylase breaks these sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose. Unlike alpha-amylase, glucoamylase is produced by Aspergillus, a fungus, in a fermentation vat where one would likely see little balls of Aspergillus floating on the top. The third enzyme, glucose-isomerase, is very expensive. It converts glucose to a mixture of about 42% fructose and 50-52% glucose with some other sugars mixed in. While alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are added directly to the slurry, pricey glucose-isomerase is packed into columns and the sugar mixture is then passed over it. Inexpensive alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are used only once, glucose-isomerase is reused until it loses most of its activity. There are two more steps involved. First is a liquid chromatography step that takes the mixture to 90% fructose. Finally, this is back-blended with the original mixture to yield a final concentration of about 55% fructose–what the industry calls high fructose corn syrup.
HFCS has the exact same sweetness and taste as an equal amount of sucrose from cane or beet sugar but it is obviously much more complicated to make, involving vats of murky fermenting liquid, fungus and chemical tweaking, all of which take place in one of 16 chemical plants located in the Corn Belt.
#2) You are absolutely right that HFCS is not nutritionally equivalent to regular sugar. Every cell in the body can metabolize glucose, buy ALL fructose must be metabolized in the liver. In testing done on animal models, researchers have found that the livers of the rats on the high fructose corn syrup diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, namely that the livers were clogged with fat and cirrhotic – that’s just like fructose found in fruit, isn’t it?
I have come to this conclusion: if I don’t eat anything, I will surely die long before I would if I consumed the factory waste products served to me under the current description of food. Let’s build up our immunity to these products and prove ouselves as worthy human beings by outliving the products shelf life.
Corn ethanol is essentially good ol’ fashioned moonshine, just distilled down to 95% purity or so. Other than that minor quibble, you’re dead on! It’s damned near impossible to avoid that stuff, and it’s just no damned good for you.