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HFCS: A ban worth getting excited over

Posted on February 6, 2008 by Staff

Rebekah L. Cowell

I was thrilled to read Weaver Street took a stance against high-fructose corn syrup!
This January — new year, new resolutions, yadda, yadda — Weaver Street issued a newsletter stating that they would no longer carry any products that had HFCS in them — hip-hip-hooray for Weaver Street, right?

Well, I certainly thought so. I mean, now instead of having to read labels and carefully comb the aisles, I can be assured everything I drop into my cart is HFCS FREE — meaning it takes some of the work out of my grocery shopping, which is a wonderful thing when I’m toting along a very busy toddler who does not appreciate my efforts on her behalf — nor all that label reading!

I’ve been polling friends and neighbors and getting feedback from them on the radical new developments over at the Weave.

Seems some folks don’t appreciate the loss of Orangina — in fact, one friend eschewed Weaver Street’s ban as something akin to free speech, and book burnings, and, oh god, we don’t need to go there! Most everyone didn’t mind the removal of beets from the salad bar. I have a faint suspicion beets are not a make-it or break-it type of food…. I could be wrong….

So for everyone who wants to know why? Weaver Street has taken a stance against HFCS because they are committed to our community. You see, unlike white sugar, HFCS is digested differently when we consume it. High-fructose corn syrup is an additive that was put into use in the 1970s. It has now been discovered to go straight to your liver where it releases (get this!) an enzyme that instructs your body to store fat! The authorities on this research are now claiming it has aided the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. Bottom line, HFCS is an artificial additive that our bodies cannot properly break down and digest. Furthermore, HFCS is in more products than not. I challenge you to go to Harris Teeter and randomly pick up groceries and read the labels — ketchup, pickles, crackers, cereals and so on. What Weaver Street has done for me and you as informed consumers is take the guesswork out of purchasing HCFS-free foods. Back in the 1980s, my mother herself was on an organic kick and would only use honey to sweeten our foods. I’m not proposing such extreme measures, and I certainly like to use my sugar for baking and (ahem) coffee. But I think this type of consciousness about the foods/sugars we ingest is going to be vital for making our children’s futures’ healthy.

Good for Weaver Street and, hey guys, you can get your Orangina over at Whole Foods!

Rebekah Cowell is a mother, writer and graduate of UNC who resides in North Chatham.

14 thoughts on “HFCS: A ban worth getting excited over”

  1. Carrie says:
    February 7, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    I always think it is great for consumers to have options so they can avoid ingredients that they do not like…especially ingredients that we should limit in our diets (like sugar). But I don’t think that anything has been proven about HFCS causing your body to store fat.

  2. Sherry says:
    February 9, 2008 at 6:14 am

    I would certainly shop at a store banning HFCS! It is extremely difficult to eradicate this from one’s diet. Just recently I found Worcestershire sauce and “pure vanilla extract” with high fructose corn syrup in them! If you go to my web site, highfructosehigh.com, I have a list of foods that do NOT contain HFCS – the list will be ever-growing, I hope.

  3. KC says:
    February 14, 2008 at 3:07 pm

    I WISH MY MARKET WOULD SO THAT! tHIS GARBAGE IS EVERYWHERE EVEN WHERE THERE IS SUGAR SO I AM EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS.

  4. Natalie says:
    October 29, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    Rebekah is right on! If one studies body chemisty, HFCS does indeed trigger the liver to store fat, as opposed to sugar which tells the liver to trigger insulin. White sugar is the least of the 3 “sweetener” evils, number 1 being Aspertame, a neurotoxin and number 2 being HFCS.
    Sugar elevates cholesterol levels (not eggs or meat) by its interaction with the liver, but elevated cholesterol levels are far less deadly than carrying around more weight. Why do you think America is so fat?? It is because HFCS has replaced healthy oils in most products, especially those labeled “fat-free”. Yeah, right, drink more soda, it’s fat free. What a bunch of morons the average Americans have become. And don’t forget to take those Statin drugs!

  5. Terri says:
    November 2, 2008 at 5:58 am

    If you have a cat, and especially if you feed dry food, please check the ingredients. Cats have even less capacity for processing HFCS than humans do. “Diet” dry foods are the worse offenders. Feline diabetes is epidemic.

  6. Taylor Johnson says:
    December 16, 2008 at 8:01 pm

    I’m just doing a science project for my high school chemisry class but i have a problem with what you said. You said HFCS has an “enzyme” that tells the liver to produce fat, all sugars will do that without proper exercise, that’s why we eat, to create energy, if that energy isn’t used it creates fat.
    Both HFCS and white sugar have nearly the same composition, the only difference is that HFCS is 55% fructose 45% glucose, and white sugar is 50% fructose 50% glucose,so the only difference is 5% more fructose, a sugar found in fruits and honey. It is true that fructose can slow down the production of insuline, but glucose speeds up that production and throughout a meal we take in more glucose than fructose. I’d also like to add that Weaver Street may have changed to white sugar because of the rising price of corn.

  7. Wonderbird says:
    February 4, 2009 at 9:15 am

    My understanding is that sucrose is broken down into fructose and glucose inside the human body through the use of the enzyme sucrase.
    Apparently HFCS “bypasses” this regulatory mechanism. (throwing fructose and glucose into the body that are pre-separated so the body’s control mechanisms can not regulate it appears to be a significant part of the problem.)

    Pumping “natural gas” into your house through the windows bypassing the normal pipes and valves that control where in your house you want it and when (ie: stove, hot water heater, oven, etc.) can be a disaster. Pointing out that the BTU content of the natural gas coming through the windows is the same as that coming through the pipes completely ignores the fact that houses were not designed to accommodate gas being fed in through the windows.

  8. Sophie King-Lowe says:
    February 6, 2009 at 3:09 am

    Does anyone have a citation on the original scientific study that supports all these claims of the harm this stuff causes?

  9. Audrae erickson says:
    February 6, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    High fructose corn syrup may have a complicated-sounding name, but it’s actually a simple sweetener, made from corn, that is nutritionally the same as sugar.

    The American Medical Association in June 2008 helped put to rest misunderstandings about this sweetener and obesity, stating that “high fructose syrup does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners.”

    Even former critics of high fructose corn syrup dispel long-held myths and distance themselves from earlier speculation about the sweetener’s link to obesity as the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition releases its 2008 Vol. 88 supplement’s comprehensive scientific review.

    Many confuse pure “fructose” with “high fructose corn syrup,” a sweetener that never contains fructose alone, but always in combination with a roughly equivalent amount of a second sugar (glucose). Recent studies that have examined pure fructose – often at abnormally high levels – have been inappropriately applied to high fructose corn syrup and have caused significant consumer confusion.

    High fructose corn syrup is not sweeter than sugar; and high fructose corn syrup, sugar and honey all contain the same number of calories (four calories per gram).

    Like table sugar and honey, high fructose corn syrup contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives.

    Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at http://www.HFCSfacts.com and http://www.SweetSurprise.com.

    Audrae Erickson
    President
    Corn Refiners Association

  10. dom youngross says:
    March 5, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    Yeah, there it is again, Audrae Erickson’s blah-blah-blah about HFCS. She must have known a month ago what I just found out, that Pepsi is coming out with pop in the US that has sugar instead of HFCS.

    I’ll bet a lot of people like me have applied simple scientific methods to foods containing HFCS and concluded HFCS is no good — just by using their taste buds and eyes.

    Neither Coke nor Pepsi with HFCS taste as good as the stuff was when I was a kid. If the new stuff from Pepsi does ring a bell with me when I try it, bang, it’s the end of HFCS. Once people in my age bracket get reminded of what pop should taste like, and those born after New Coke take a swig, HFCS use as a sweetener in foods and beverages will fall like dominos one right after another.

    And particularly in ketchup. When it was packaged in glass bottles it came out in glops, and you had to slap the back of the bottle with your palm to get it out. On your plate it wasn’t all plasticky looking, shiny and smooth, like ketchup looks today. And most importantly, the taste pre-HFCS was satisfying.

    My own experience suggests that HFCS makes you want to eat more, because somehow it is just not satisfying. That reminds me of the movie “The Stuff” with Michael Moriarity and Garret Morris — they couldn’t get enough of The Stuff and it consumed them.

    Yeah, sugar is bad for you, yada, yada, but I think HFCS is worse.

  11. Adam Holt says:
    March 30, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    @Audrae Erickson
    President
    Corn Refiners Association

    You do realize we know it is YOUR JOB to sell us your subsidized farm products by whatever means necessary.
    I am by no means 100% on board the anti HFCS train yet, BUT every time I see an AD purporting the benefits of HFCS by a Corn Refiners Association representative, I have to wonder why they are fighting so hard to prove their product is safe. Seems oddly analogous to cigarette manufacturers in recent history .

    It’s your job to sell your products and keep your businesses afloat, by whatever means. Your job is not to keep us healthy. I will prefer to get my ‘facts’ from scholarly studies and 3rd party peer review. Not some propaganda site trying gloss over legitimate concerns about this Generaly Regarded As Safe food additive.
    And currently its leaning towards you guys are full of garbage.

  12. Timothy Narron says:
    August 11, 2009 at 9:01 pm

    Both of the websites Erickson referred us to are sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association. Not exactly an unbiased scientific organization. i am also equally certain the “experts” are in some way or other well compensated for thier “opinions”. The biggest question to me is why in this age of “free trade” does the sugar tarifs remain in place? Lobbiest working for the Corn Refiners make sure it stays in place. The truth is Sugar is far cheaper and far more healthy but the US is the only country where we pay more for sugar than HFCS. In other words our tax dollars subsidize an unfair market. HFCS is like giving yourself a IV of sugar and bypassing the bodies ability to NOT convert sugar when to much is consumed.

  13. Rolando Martinez says:
    March 31, 2010 at 1:21 am

    The corn refiners cling to the 2008 AMA report with everything they can muster!! I can only imagine how much lobbying and money they spent to skew that report.

    I wonder how they plan to deal with the recent studies that show that their “safe” product contains dangerous levels of mercury. Just buy a mercury test kit and a bottle of Coke, then ask yourself how thirsty you are.

    Oh yea, and another study that proves that HFCS suppresses the hormone that tells the brain you’re full. Ever eat an 8 oz. container of yogurt only to find yourself eating 4 or five more?

    I am a research student specializing in the study of this horrible product, my group has found that if you simply cut out HFCS from your diet, you will lose 15% of your body weight within 3 months. Just remember, HFCS must be eliminated in all of its forms for a healthy diet. (corn starch, modified food starch, corn sweetener, modified starch)

    One more VERY important tip, when looking for HFCS in the ingredients list, be mindful of the end of the list, remember, even trace amounts will suppress your full feeling keeping you hungry!

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