Why High Fructose Corn Syrup Is Evil
February 7, 2010 · Print This Article
Much has been made of the food industry’s overuse of High Fructose Corn Syrup as an ingredient in… well, pretty much everything (especially in America). Is it unhealthy for you? Dangerous? Or simply a natural sugar replacement that, just like anything else, can and should be enjoyed in moderation?
For the answer, I urge you to watch Robert H Lustig’s lecture “Sugar: The Bitter Truth”. While not singling out HFCS, it makes a very compelling argument against high fructose corn syrup, and for cutting foods with HFCS (and that includes most bread you buy these days) out of your diet.
Wondering why HFCS is bad for you? And in fact worse than regular table sugar? The short answer is “because it’s ubiquitous and metabolizes like fat and a toxin”, but I suggest you watch these videos for a much more comprehensive answer. It takes 70 minutes (don’t worry, I promise you’ll get hooked), and will help you make much better food decisions in the future.
We are all gonna die sometime of something.
Another good read about this is Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Did you not actually watch the video? That’s not what he says.
HFCS is typically 55% fructose. Sucrose is 50% fructose bonded together, but the body easily shreds that bond, so they’re absorved the same. Where the problem is fructose, HFCS IS NOT MEANINGFULLY WORSE THAN SUCROSE! THEY ARE BOTH EQUALLY A PROBLEM!
Jump off the HFCS hating bandwagon, since all it’s doing is driving people back to table sugar. If Dr. Lustig is correct, we need to cut them both out.
If you read my posts I make it pretty clear that sugar in general is bad. HFCS is worse not just because of its composition, but because of its ubiquity and inclusion in everything. When I have to check every bag of *bread* at the grocery store to ensure that it doesn’t contain HFCS, that’s a bad sign.