Summary: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a sweetener whose use has become controversial due to the hypothesis that it may cause obesity. For this reason, many are avoiding products sweetened with HFCS and are choosing sucrose- (table sugar) containing products instead. What is the evidence to back this claim? What does current science tell us? Should we all join together in the ban against High Fructose Corn Syrup? Let’s play the detective and see where the evidence leads us!<br> [divider]<br> High Fructose Corn Syrup – Podcast Transcript<br> Hi and welcome to Nutritionally Speaking, I am your host, Michaela Ballmann. On today’s episode we are going to be discussing the controversial sweetener High Fructose Corn Syrup. HFCS has been the center of much discussion due to its proposed role in the current epidemic of obesity. We’ll talk about this hypothesis and the research it spurred later in today’s episode.<br> <br> Brief background on High Fructose Corn Syrup<br> How did HFCS come to be a major sweetener in the United States compared to other countries. Why are corn-based sweeteners so prevalent here? Well, there have been extensive government subsidies of corn farmers and a plethora of US farm policies focused on promoting an increased production of inexpensive corn. The result of this is that the price that consumers, like you and me, pay for both corn and its byproducts has stayed less than production cost. In other words, we are paying much less than we should be for these products because the government is taking care of some of the cost. Having a lower cost has allowed for larger serving sizes that only cost slightly more money for the consumer. That is how we can “super-size” our meal for just cents more and get a lot more food and calories. So that is in a nutshell why high-fructose corn syrup (and lots of it) plays a key role in many food products.<br> Now that we know why HFCSHigh Fructose Corn Syrupis made, it’s natural to ask HOW is it made? High Fructose Corn Syrup is made by enzymatic isomerization of glucose to fructose, where basically one molecule is transformed into another molecule that has the exact same atoms, but the atoms and bonds are rearranged. Through this process, the starch in corn can be converted to glucose and then to various amounts of fructose. The most common formulations are HFCS 55 which contains 55% fructose and 45% glucose, and HFCS 45 which is the opposite, 45% fructose and 55% glucose.<br> <br> High Fructose Corn Syrup and Sucrose<br> So, you’re probably thinking, what is the composition of table sugar otherwise known as sucrose? Sucrose is made up of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. What?! I thought that they would be really different? Nope, they are in fact very similar in composition. This is important to remember because we’ll be coming back to this point later in this episode.<br> Now back to the hypothesis that I briefly mentioned earlier. The hypothesis that HFCS caused and is continuing to cause obesity was based on the observation that High Fructose Corn Syrup began to replace sucrose in soft drinks at about the same time that obesity rates in the United States began to rise sharply. It also relies on the notion that HFCS-sweetened beverages especially lack satiating power even more than other caloric beverages. This stemmed from many studies done on pure, as in 100% Fructose, which showed that fructose doesn’t stimulate satiety factors, but none of this research was on HFCS. Since then much research has been done comparing HFCS to sucrose (or table sugar which used to sweeten sodas in the US). We’ll look at this research shortly.<br> <br> Weight Gain and High Fructose Corn Syrup<br> But Before we do, let’s go a little more in depth into the purported mechanism through which HFCS may cause obesity or weight gain. The hypothesized mechanism by which this occurs is through a lack of satiating pow...
