Danger: High fructose corn syrup -- Best Recipes

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Date Posted: 07/12/04 10:32:05pm
Author: CB
Subject: Danger: High fructose corn syrup

High fructose corn syrup is like a sweet bite in a dark restaurant. You can�t see it. But one taste leads to another.
The secret ingredient is not the same as plain corn syrup � not to be found by the bottle in the grocery store, alongside the pancake mix.
Plain corn syrup is like Peter Parker. High fructose corn syrup is like Spider-Man, tingling with super powers.
Had some today? Almost for certain, even if you don�t know it.
That breakfast bagel, for example � and the jelly on it � those are likely sources. In fact, the manufactured sweetener is so commonly used in so many foods, it�s hard to avoid. In a sticky-sweet cola? You probably knew that. In a buttery-tasting dinner roll? Surprise!
More and more, high fructose corn syrup is a bubbling controversy. In Arkansas, it flavors the current debate over Gov. Mike Huckabee�s refusal to ban soft-drink vending machines in the state�s secondary schools.
Most regular soft drinks are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. The average American, kids included, gulps about 53 gallons a year (the industry�s figure).
A 12-ounce can of regular Coke is 140 calories � times 53 gallons, about 79,000 calories a year.
Kids who drink just one extra pop a day are 60 percent more likely to become obese, according to a study from Children�s Hospital in Boston (2001).
This year, the British Medical Journal reported another study: Children who cut back on soft drinks for a year lost weight. But a new statement from the National Soft Drink Association argues against blaming the product or the sweetener.
High fructose corn syrup "essentially has the same composition as table sugar," the association insists. People get fat because of "too many calories and not enough exercise," and "no one sweetener or single food" is the culprit. The governor has said he wants proof that vending machines cause kids to gain weight.
Meantime come allegations that high fructose corn syrup is unnatural � a Frankenberry�s monster.
And there are counterclaims in defense of this embattled sweetener once known as "honey from corn."
"Fitness and nutrition publications feed the �magic diet� craze by continually touting new and different diets or a new �evil food� to eliminate," according to the Corn Refiners Association Inc.
The association�s members refine about 24 billion pounds of high fructose corn syrup a year. They object to its becoming the "latest target," declaring:
"First and foremost, HFCS [high fructose corn syrup] is safe."
But some people don�t like it anyway.
"High fructose corn syrup is one of the baddies," Suzanne Stillman says at Old Fashioned Foods, a natural foods store in Fort Smith. "It doesn�t have any nutritional value. It�s just sweet."

STICKY SUBJECT

High. Fructose. Corn. Syrup. Huh?
The words don�t fit together.
It helps to start with corn, one of the world�s most versatile grains. Arkansans know corn. The state grows nearly 300,000 acres of it, according to the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
Corn looks its best at the farmers market � sweet, golden ears, ripe for the pot or the grill.
But corn goes into lots of things that don�t look at all freshpicked, from corn flakes to corn dogs, corn oil, corn whiskey, corn-fed beef and Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Corn is made into cornstarch as well. And cornstarch breaks down into two sugars called glucose and maltose. The process makes corn syrup.
Karo is a 102-year-old brand of corn syrup, the secret to many a Southern pecan pie.
Fructose is another kind of sugar. It is the natural sweetener in fruits and honey, but not corn.
"High" means way more than usual.
High fructose corn syrup � or HFCS, as scientists call it � is cornstarch run through a different refining process than plain corn syrup.
This time, some of the glucose turns into fructose. The result ? Visions of sugarplums! � a syrup sweeter than sweet.
High fructose corn syrup is six times sweeter than cane sugar, according to Greg Critser�s book, Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).
Besides, the syrup protects some foods against freezer burn. It not only makes breads and other bakery goods stay fresh longer, but also imparts a tasty, ovenbrowned look.
Numbers tell how sweet it is: Amount of high fructose corn syrup the average American consumed in 1966: None, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In 1971: Not quite a pound.
In 1981, as the super syrup began pouring into soft drinks: 22.8 pounds.
In 2001: Almost 63 pounds.
Today, that same eater may be trying to cut back on calories. He takes in a little less high fructose corn syrup than five years ago, the USDA reports.
Still, he gulps about 200 calories� worth a day.
Arkansans know fat, too, besides corn. Sixty percent are overweight, according to the state Department of Health. Arkansas tubbed out with a 77 percent increase in the weight-to-height ratio clinically regarded as "obesity"
from 1991 to 2000, the health department reports.
Some experts say America�s belly is sagging with high fructose corn syrup.

FAT CHANCE
Critser�s book, Fat Land, attacks high fructose corn syrup like the movie Super Size Me does the McDonald�s menu. He connects obesity to "the sheer magnitude and frequency of fructose consumption."
And the fructose in high fructose corn syrup, he writes, is not what Mother Nature intended. It is factory stuff, spawned in a Japanese laboratory, "about the furthest thing from natural that one can imagine, let alone eat."
The book is enough to put some readers off their sweetened feed, and to make others gnash their teeth in disagreement.

Amazon.com
posts 63 differing reviews including: "It makes you lose your appetite" and, "The infiltration of the food supply by high fructose corn syrup is an impressive single suspect! Read your food labels and be mortified !"
But also: "He�s just plain wrong about corn syrup�s being a somehow magical chemical that forces your body to pack on fat."
The trouble with fructose, Critser writes, is not only that it heaps on more calories, but also that it seems to be "skewing the national metabolism toward fat storage."
Throw in fears of genetically altered corn, and high fructose corn syrup is likely to stick in the news.
Nutritionist Carolyn Bernthal studies the syrupy issue at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
"We can see why manufacturers love this stuff," she says. "This is an inexpensive way to sweeten things, and it extends shelf life."
Also, "it makes you want to eat more."
She accepts high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener to enjoy in moderation, "but you don�t want 10 to 12 teaspoons a day."
And she worries how easily this "super-sweetened laboratory thing" can add up.
A serving of low-fat fruit yogurt can pack a day�s worth of added sweetener, she says. But it tastes light.
A nice, light breakfast might seem to justify, say, a hearty helping of spaghetti for dinner. But high fructose corn syrup is even in some spaghetti sauce.
And that bread on the side � if it is sweetened, and it doesn�t have at least 2 grams of fiber per serving, it amounts to a slice of sugar and air.
"My main concern is that the average person grocery shopping doesn�t pay much attention to grocery labels," she says.
Finding bread with real nutrition takes a shopper determined to read the labels in search of the healthiest.
"You�ll be in the grocery store 20 minutes looking for bread," Bernthal says.
Her advice is to choose unsweetened applesauce over the kind full of corn syrup � or, in general, to "go with whole foods, things that aren�t processed."

FIRED UP
Stillman, at the natural foods store, doesn�t quote any scientific studies for why she avoids high fructose corn syrup. She says she just feels better.
"You can tell when you eat whole foods, you have more vitality,"
she says.
"Buy it whole, cook it yourself then you know what�s in it.
"But then, you also have to cook."

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