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High Fructose Corn Syrup
 Corn syrup is not used a great deal in Europe, this is because Europe does not grow the vast amounts of corn that is grown in North America so there was no economic driver to use it as a source of food sweetening. The process for making the sweetener high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) out of corn was developed in the 1970s. Use of HFCS grew rapidly, from less than three million short tons in 1980 to almost 8 million short tons in 1995. During the late 1990s, use of sugar actually declined as it was eclipsed by HFCS. Today Americans consume more HFCS than sugar.
How High Fructose Corn Syrup Is Made
We have greatly simplified the process here, but in essence high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by processing corn starch to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. It all sounds rather simple white cornstarch is turned into crystal clear syrup. However, the process is actually very complicated. Three 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.
It has been some 25 years since this products introduction. It went from little testing and no epidemical studies at all to widespread use in food. Most of the studies done to examine the effects of HFCS have been financed by the vested interests of the food industry or farming industry and so are flawed, biased and in the case of some studies fraudulent, just as those done for hydrogenated oil, aspartame and MSG, it is a pattern that repeats itself as big money seeks to protect itself.
Health Effects
The medical profession thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic. HFCS contains more fructose than sugar and this fructose is more immediately available because it is not bound up in sucrose. Since the effects of fructose are most severe in the growing organism, we need to think carefully about what kind of sweeteners we give to our children. Fruit juices should be strictly avoided they are very high in fructose but so should anything with HFCS. HFCS puts a large metabolic load on the liver, a load it was not designed to deal with, especially in children.
One of the major problem with fructose is that it depletes the body of copper. Copper is essential to formation of elastin and collagen the sinews that hold the body together. The great increase in the use of high fructose corn syrup during the past 30 years, particularly in soft drinks, fruit juices and other beverages aimed at growing children, children increasingly likely to be copper deficient as modern parents no longer serve copper rich foods to their families, feed them instead food laced with fructose (many tomato sauces including ketchup contain it).
Until the 1970s most of the sugar we ate came from sucrose derived from sugar beets or sugar cane. Then sugar from corn syrup, fructose, dextrose, dextrine and especially high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—began to gain popularity as a sweetener because it was much less expensive to produce. High fructose corn syrup can be manipulated to contain equal amounts of fructose and glucose, or up to 80 percent fructose and 20 percent glucose. Thus, with almost twice the fructose, HFCS delivers a double danger compared to sugar.
- Fructose interferes with the heart’s use of key minerals like magnesium, copper and chromium.
- Fructose also inhibits copper metabolism another example of the sweeteners double-whammy effect. A deficiency in copper leads to bone fragility, anemia, defects of the connective tissue (which may explain the big rise in connective tissue disorders like Lupus), arteries, and bone, infertility, heart arrhythmia, high cholesterol levels, heart attacks, and an inability to control blood sugar level.
- HFCS has been implicated in elevated blood cholesterol levels and the creation of blood clots.
- HFCS has been found to inhibit the action of white blood cells so that they are unable to defend the body against harmful foreign invaders.
- Fructose contributes to diabetic complications more readily than glucose.
- Fructose browns food seven times faster than glucose, resulting in a decrease in protein quality and a toxicity of protein in the body, this is due to the loss of amino acid residues and decreased protein digestibility and our bodies are already ready lack many digestive enzymes (resulting in the huge increase in indigestion and reflux problems).
- HFCS Inhibit the uptake and metabolism of free amino acids and other nutrients such as zinc.
- HFCS causes an iIncrease in the concentration of uric acid; the opposite after ingestion of glucose, no significant change occurs.
- Fructose ingestion increases in blood lactic acid, especially in patients with pre-existing acidotic conditions such as diabetes, postoperative stress or uremia.
- Fructose interacts with oral contraceptives and elevates insulin levels in women on the pill.
- There is increased rate of Iron, magnesium, calcium, and zinc excretion in people consuming HFCS, these mineral are absolutely vital to health, and our diets are already short of many of these elements.
- Because it is metabolized by the liver, fructose does not cause the pancreas to release insulin the way it normally does. Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. This may be one of the reasons Americans continue to get fatter faster than Europeans (the USA uses more HFCS in more products than any other nation)
The Effect On Children
Between 1970 (when HFCS was introduced) and 2000 (when average yearly consumption of the ultra-sweet liquid sugar hit 36.7 kilos per person in the USA and 20 kilos in Europe), the prevalence of obesity more than doubled, from 15 percent to almost one-third of the adult population. Much worse is obesity among children 12 to 19 - who consume a disproportionate amount of the soft drinks, fruit juice, sports drinks and packaged cookies and other baked goods that are sweetened with HFCS - increased from 4.2 percent in 1970 to 15.3 percent in 2000. The implications for our children's future are clear: We know that if it's not caught early, one in three of these overweight children will grow into overweight adults at increased risk for type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke and early death. Children less than 5 probably shouldn't have any sweetened drinks.
Big Sugar - Keep The Profits Flowing & Screw Your Health
What has the sugar industry done in response to the obvious dangers their product poses? They do what any industry does: Hide the facts, then fabricate their own. One trick up Big Sugar's sleeve is hiding nutritional information on food and drink packages. In order to consume 36.7 kilos per person in the USA and 20 kilos in Europe, That means Americans have to eat a teaspoon of sugar per hour every 24 hours, seven days a week. Obviously, people don't actually chew on teaspoons of sugar. Instead, many people unknowingly consume food, drinks, and other food stuffs like Tomato ketchup containing ridiculous amounts of sugar. But if you live in the US don't expect labels to help you determine how much sugar is added. Sugar has all sorts of names: dextrose, glucose, fructose, lactose, corn syrup, maple sugar, honey, invert sugar or malt. In 2002, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) petitioned the FDA (USA) to require food manufacturers to clearly label the amount of added sugar. The petition failed. Michael Jacobson, director of CSPI, attributes this to the powerful sugar lobby.
Big Sugar not only hides the real amount of sugar in foods, they also use their influence to mask the health dangers of sugar in dietary guidelines. Marion Nestle in Food Politics describes how vulnerable dietary guidelines are to the sugar industry's political maneuverings. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2005 Guidelines were recently rephrased from "limit your intake of added sugars" -- a guideline that has been in place for the past five years -- to "moderate your intake of sugars."
While this change appears harmless at first, a closer look at the definitions of the words "limit" and "moderate" explains why Big Sugar invested so much money into the USDA amendment. "Moderate" denotatively means "not excessive or extreme" or "of medium quality." The revised wording suggests that we should eat some sugar -- that a medium amount of sugar is good for you -- but beware of over indulgence. "Limit," on the other hand, is a much more decisive word. To limit sugar intake implies that we're already eating too much and we need to cut it out of our diet. These slight rhetorical nuances aren't a mistake. Big Sugar poured big money into masking the dangers of American sugar intake .
Big Sugar, Corruption & Politicians
How did Big Sugar engineer this change? The rich sugar barons certainly weren't knocking on the doors of USDA scientists. They accomplished all of this with sizable political donations. Between 1997 and 1999, The Flo-Sun sugar company made 21 donations ranging from $2,500 to $25,000 to congressional campaign committees. That's a total of $202,500 to Democrats and $147,500 to Republicans. Those numbers have only gone up in the last five years. During the 2004 election cycle, two Florida sugar companies gave a total of $925,000 to election coffers. With so much money pouring into the hands of lawmakers, it's no wonder they're willing to overlook a little word change in USDA regulations.
Another powerful tool wielded by Big Sugar: Skewed science. The World Sugar Research Organization and the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) are just two sugar-funded science institutes that stand by their claim that sugar is good for you. Last year these organizations were charged with paying off the Expert Consultation on Carbohydrates in Human Nutrition, effectively botching the World Health Organization's research on sugar and its health effects.
It seems the sugar lobby has much more political clout than most are willing to admit. But how exactly did they become so powerful? Their pervasive influence could be explained by the inflated prices Americans pay for sugar. The government restricts cheap sugar imports into the United States, thereby tripling the price of sugar to US consumers. As a result, Big Sugar earns $1 billion a year in excess profits they otherwise would not have.
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