The Corn Industry Is Trying To Deceive You!

Many of you may have already seen the ads on TV featuring the couple picnicking on a blanket where the woman asks the man if he wants a Popsicle and he says 'no it has corn syrup and isn't corn syrup bad' and she replies 'it's naturally derived from corn and is no more dangerous than sugar' etc. It's a comical commercial to say the least. I must have had 10 different people call me to ask if I had seen it. The corn industry is putting huge money into trying to convince the public at large that all corn products are good for you when the facts would tell you just the opposite.

Corn is one of the highest sugar content grains and one of the most difficult to digest for most people. It is one of the most unhealthy of all grains and one of the most highly allergenic.

Courtesy of Mercola.Com

SweetSurprise.com offers a number of surprising facts about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). For example, the site tells you that, “Research confirms that high fructose corn syrup is safe and no different from other common sweeteners like table sugar and honey. All three sweeteners are nutritionally the same.”

They also claim that “Though the individual sugars are metabolized by different pathways, this is of little consequence since the body sees the same mix of sugars from caloric (nutritive) sweeteners, regardless of source.

Of course, SweetSurprise.com is a site run by the Corn Refiners Association ... so I suspect there’s a chance they may be biased.

There are two types of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS): HFCS-55 and HFCS-42. HFCS-55 is composed of 55 percent fructose, 42 percent glucose and 3 percent higher sugars, and tastes as sweet as table sugar, while HFCS-42 is somewhat less sweet.

When HFCS-55 was developed, it was specifically formulated to provide sweetness equivalent to table sugar so that consumers would not perceive a difference in product sweetness and taste.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that the consumption of high fructose corn syrup was just over 40 pounds per year, per person, as of 2007. It accounts for roughly 41 percent of all caloric sweeteners consumed in the U.S.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Does NOT Metabolize in the Same Way as Sugar

HFCS is a highly processed product that contains similar amounts of unbound fructose and glucose. Sucrose, on the other hand, is a larger sugar molecule that is metabolized into glucose and fructose in your intestine.

Part of what makes HFCS such an unhealthy product is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar, and, because most fructose is consumed in liquid form, its negative metabolic effects are significantly magnified.

Whereas the glucose in other sugars is used by your body, and is converted to blood glucose, fructose is a relatively unregulated source of fuel that your liver converts to fat and cholesterol.

There are over 35 years of hard empirical evidence that refined man-made fructose like high fructose corn syrup metabolizes to triglycerides and adipose tissue, not blood glucose. The downside of this is that fructose does not stimulate your insulin secretion, nor enhance leptin production. (Leptin is a hormone thought to be involved in appetite regulation.)

Because insulin and leptin act as key signals in regulating how much food you eat, as well as your body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased food intake and weight gain.

Additionally, fructose is also known to significantly raise your triglycerides and LDL (bad cholesterol).

Triglycerides, the chemical form of fat found in foods and in your body, are not something you want in excess amounts. Intense research over the past 40 years has confirmed that elevated blood levels of triglycerides, known as hypertriglyceridemia, puts you at an increased risk of heart disease.

New Evidence That HFCS Contributes to Development of Diabetes

Recent research, reported at the 2007 national meeting of the American Chemical Society, found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with HFCS may contribute to the development of diabetes because it contains high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to trigger cell and tissue damage that cause diabetes.

Chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS were found to have ‘astonishingly high’ levels of reactive carbonyls. Reactive carbonyls are undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules, and are believed to cause tissue damage.

By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar because its fructose and glucose components are “bound” and chemically stable.

Reactive carbonyls are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes and are linked to the health complications of diabetes. Based on the study data, the researchers estimate that a single can of soda contains about five times the concentration of reactive carbonyls than the concentration found in the blood of an adult person with diabetes.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is the Number One Source of Calories in U.S. Diet