For years, the health community has been railing against high fructose corn syrup and how you shouldn’t eat anything with it in it. Recently, the Corn Refiner’s Association decided to air a series of television commercials plugging high fructose corn syrup as (and I quote) “is natural”, “has the same calories as sugar or honey”, “is nutritionally the same as sugar”, and “is fine in moderation”. (If you haven’t seen the ads, head to YouTube and search “high fructose corn syrup commercials”.) Clearly, it appears that the public at large doesn’t actually know what high fructose corn syrup is or what the hullabaloo is all about. Is it bad? Worse than sugar? Better than sugar?

So let’s set the record straight. The commercials are correct: high fructose corn syrup is pretty much a sugar substitute made from corn. It is used mostly because it is cheaper in the States due to a bunch of legislative stuff I won’t get into here. Being that is a processed product made from a natural ingredient, it isn’t exactly “natural” but it isn’t truly artificial either as it is a crazy concentrated amount of naturally occurring sugars in corn.

Here’s the real issue: high fructose corn syrup is ubiquitous in processed foods. If you went to your fridge right now I bet you could find it on at least nine out of every ten items of pre-made, packaged, or processed foods in there ranging from breads to peanut butter to yogurt. Usually it is listed as one of the first four ingredients. Quick fact: the FDA requires ingredients to be listed from highest to lowest weight of the product. So if high fructose corn syrup, or sugar for that matter, is in the top three or four, you’re mostly eating sugars.

So, yes, like sugar, high fructose corn syrup is fine in moderation. But moderation needs to be defined. For the average human adult, 2,000 calories is considered a good goal. 300 grams of carbohydrates (sugars, essentially) falls in that recommendation. One medium banana provides 27 grams of carbohydrates. One 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola provides 40.5 grams of carbohydrates. Two regular slices of whole wheat bread gives 24.6 grams of carbs. If I just ate those three things, I’m already nearly a third of the way to my daily limit of 300 grams.

So how much do you think is moderation?

I don’t think we should blame high fructose corn syrup. Let’s face it, they make Big Sticks taste really good on a hot summer day! Instead I think we need to be redefining the American diet and really considering what we are putting in our refrigerators and thus in our bodies.

What are your thoughts?

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Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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