People should avoid high fructose corn syrup AND sugar....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 9-14-2010

Some research on fructose and some other research I’ve seen reports of suggest that high fructose corn syrup is at least somewhat worse for you than regular sugar. Further, if high fructose corn syrup only has 5% more fructose than sugar, when people are eating 20 times too much of it, they are still getting 100 % too much fructose or double the safe amount. And this is what we are seeing all too often today.

But even if it is about the same, people would do well to always avoid high fructose corn syrup, even if the high fructose corn syrup is relabeled as “corn sugar.” (According to a recent news article, it soon will be. The manufacturers hope people will think it’s different or won’t know it’s really high fructose corn syrup or it will sound more “natural.”)

High fructose corn syrup is cheaper and easier to add to foods than sugar. And, the people who sell it make more money if it goes into more foods and drinks and people eat and drink more of them. Those things mean it will go into more foods -- which are then sold aggressively. It also has meant in practice that many foods have more total sugar since the maker can afford to add more high fructose corn syrup than they would have put in with sugar.

Secondly, the foods that high fructose corn syrup goes into often would be best left on the shelf by potential buyers for two reasons.

Many of those foods also contain refined grains, oils high in omega 6, hydrogenated oils, MSG and other glutamates, preservatives, and artificial food coloring.

The second reason is that eating sugar in those foods is something most people should leave on the shelf. So, if that food contains sugar instead, the high fructose corn syrup makers are correct, that the amount is the key issue.

Yikes! But what an issue. The safe intake of extra sugar a day is about 2 teaspoons a day for people who get enough exercise. Since something like 90% of the people today don’t get enough exercise, even that much is not great.

Meanwhile, thanks in part to the aggressive marketing of foods with high fructose corn syrup and sugar, particularly soft drinks, the average American each day is ingesting 22 teaspoons, or seven and a third Tablespoons of sugar instead. And, the 50 % of the people who are badly overweight, obese, or morbidly obese are getting MORE than 22 teaspoons a day of high fructose corn syrup or sugar.

This massive disconnect between what is OK for health and what too many people consume by habit today is every year generating billions of dollars of health care costs and even millions of dollars for fuels to haul the extra weight of these people around.

It seems that much extra sugar, in addition to fattening people, it tends to cause type 2 diabetes and usually increases their levels of triglycerides and lowers their HDL levels. But that, we now know, means that the extra sugar is boosting the levels of the dangerous small particle LDL, just like trans fats do! So, it actively causes heart disease!

So, if people stop buying, eating, and drinking high fructose corn syrup and begin only eating small amounts of foods with sugar or occasionally making home made things with sugar instead, it will cut our health care costs, boost our economy, make people feel better, and enjoy much better health.

Since that becomes more likely every time someone avoids buying a product that contains high fructose corn syrup or corn sugar or a pre-made product made with real sugar, for that matter, that’s a GOOD idea.