I'm sure you've seen it. The new campaign for high fructose corn syrup in which the Corn Refiners Association has decided to rebrand and rename their product. Reflecting on changing consumer sentiment around high fructose corn syrup and declining sales, the Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the FDA for a name change to high fructose corn syrup. They want to call it "corn sugar".
The ad campaign is brilliant. Worried, they ask? We are, too, they claim. Only their concern doesn't stem from the epidemic rates of obesity, diabetes and corn allergies that we are seeing, but rather their concern stems from a 20 year low in the sale of high fructose corn syrup and the impact it is having on the profitability of members of the Corn Refiners Association (listed here).
Due to a rapid decline in sales, the Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking that manufacturers have the option of using "corn sugar" as an alternate name for high fructose corn syrup on product labels because "corn sugar" more accurately describes the composition of the ingredient.
High fructose corn syrup, or corn sugar, is a liquid sweetener alternative to sugar. Its introduction into the food supply in 1983 was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in food and reaffirmed that decision in 1996 based on industry funded science that was submitted to the FDA.
Because of its value as a versatile ingredient that adds taste, texture, freshness, and sweetness to food, high fructose corn syrup is not only used as a sweetener but also as a preservative and stabiliser in food products to enhance and prolong their shelf life on grocery store shelves, driving profitability for the food industry.
As stated by the Corn Refiners Association, high fructose corn syrup, unlike sugar, drives profitability for members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association and fulfills non-food roles in the following ways:
• Maintains freshness in condiments
• Enhances fruit & spice flavors in marinades
• Aids in fermentation for breads and yogurts
• Retains moisture in breakfast bars & cereals
• Makes high fiber baked goods and cereals palatable
• Maintains consistent flavors in beverages
• Keeps ingredients evenly mixed in salad dressings
Can sugar do that for the food industry? Not at all.
But high fructose corn syrup does a lot more for members of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. It enhances profitability, increases margins and preserves products on grocery store shelves, reducing the costs associated with the labor-intensive exercise of restocking. Sugar can't do that. Mother Nature didn't design it to be that profitable.
But despite those differences, "sugar is sugar", claims the Corn Refiners Association.
And gas is gas, but the odors my kids emit aren't the same thing that I put into my car to get them to school. To claim that would be irresponsible, and to claim that high fructose corn syrup, by any name, is the same as sugar is irresponsible, too.
So while the industry-funded spokespeople and scientists who serve as consultants may promote the consumption of this product, based on industry-funded science, in an attempt to drive profitability for the members of the Corn Refiners Association who produce it, the fact of the matter is that this corn product is not being used by Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart in the products that they manufacture and sell in other developed countries, especially products marketed to children.
So while the corn industry may encourage us not to worry our little heads about their product, using chiseled "farmers" as spokespeople urging us that, after all, it's just "corn sugar" (and a few other ingredients that get spun into it in a laboratory), the reality is that corn allergies, obesity and diabetes have become increasingly prevalent since its introduction twenty plus years ago.
And while correlation is not causation, no long-term human studies have been conducted on the impact that the novel proteins and allergens now found in our corn are having on the health of our children. So while the biotech corn industry may claim "no evidence of harm", since those long-term studies don't yet exist, American eaters might want to follow the lead of those in other developed countries and exercise precaution and opt out of the manufactured demand that the latest ad campaign is trying to create for the corn industry.
And rather than eat a product that was introduced in 1983 and engineered in a plant to drive profitability for Cargill, ADM and members of the Corn Refiners Association, perhaps, as eaters in other deveoped countries do, we may want to exercise precaution and opt for sugar, as its presence in the marketplace preceeded the epidemics of obesity, diabetes and corn allergies that we are now seeing in our children.
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David Katz, M.D.: HFCS Name Change: Good, Bad or In Between?
Dr. Joseph Mercola: If You Want to Age Gracefully, Don't Eat This
EatingWell: 6 Biggest Myths About Food Busted
Faced with the declining use of High Fructose Corn Syrup, the Corn Corporate Welfare Association has petitioned the Food and Drug administration to change the name of HFCS to “corporate welfare juice.” HFCS is produced from corn by artificially treating it with enzymes to turn corn starch into syrup.
The name change is an attempt to distract consumers from alleged health risks associated with HFCS, which have pushed its consumption to a 20-year low. Various studies have linked this sweetener to problems such as insulin resistance, diabetes, fatty liver disease, obesity, extra limbs, porcelain feet and fig brains. People with corn allergies also have problems as corn syrup has become so widely used.
Refiners originally wanted to change HFCS’s name to the innocuous-sounding “corn sugar,” and the change is still under consideration by the FDA. The CCWA opted to change tactics as an internet petition sprang up to oppose the change, along with a Facebook page opposed to HFCS in general. The association settled on “corporate welfare juice” after rejecting other names such as “tasty poison,” “constipation solver” and “America’s high diabetes elixir.” (continued….)
http://www.thechicagodope.com/2010/09/28/so-long-corn-syrup-hello-corporate-welfare-juice/
Not that I'm defending the FDA, they have become a rubber stamp agency. What they need is funding for independent studies, and a new, legally binding mandate to disengage from the corporations they're supposed to be regulating.
There is no Agency or Department in the Federal government that hasn't been infiltrated by the very corporate interests they're supposed to be overseeing. But it hasn't always been this way.
Breaking up the MMS in the Dept. of Interior in the wake of the Gulf disaster was a start. What we need is a complete house cleaning of these departments and agencies, to eliminate their ties to corporations and industry. Which is a really tall order.
I would jump on the bandwagon of any politician who proposed seriously pursuing that goal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17583-2003Apr22?language=printer
The bottom line is the food industry has a financial interest in believing HFCS is perfectly safe whether it really is or not and we've learned lately how easily business interests will forsake the public interest when a dollar can be made.
Personally, I'll choose to ignore the experts; I operate on intuition and intuition tells me that HFCS is dangerous and probably a factor in the increasing rate of diabetes and insulin resistance. I don't put the poison in my body, and I sure has heII don't put it in my kid's bodies. If I'm wrong, so be it, but my kids are too important to me to take that chance.
There is no more fervent advocate for healthy food in the world than Jacobsen, and he is most definitely no friend of agribusiness. Yet he lets the HFCS people quote him in their ads.
I think you may have identified the wrong enemy. It is sugar, not HFCS.
http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16717
Also, corn syrup is not the same as HFCS. The stuff we use in baking, Karo syrup, aka corn syrup is mostly glucose.
Another problem is that corn syrup is often identified as corn sugar so this name change is deceptive on many levels.
And nothing changes the fact cited by the commenter above (sonhenjz. a biochemist) that HFCS is indeed different from sugar, on the molecular level. Which is in agreement with a number of articles/studies linked on this thread.
Bottom line is, all sugar is refined by a chemical process (except raw sugar you can generally only get at a health food store), but HFCS is by far the worst. For a number of reasons, including the fact that turning a corn product into a sweetener requires a chemical process that involves actually changing the molecular structure of the product.
But the main point of this article is getting lost here, and that is that the industry that creates this product is so alarmed by the "lets educate ourselves about what we're putting into our bodies" movement, that they want FDA approval to change the name of their product, while changing nothing about how the product is created/processed.
This is a blatant attempt to deceive the public, and should *not* be allowed.
A question for someone who may know: I am now seeing "glucose" listed as an ingredient in some processed foods; and looking on the web it appears that China is the world's primary supplier. Anyone knows how this stuff is derived and how this stuff may differ from what we think of sugar?