High Fructose Corn Syrup
July 14th 2010 13:14
There’s a debate going on now about whether or not high fructose corn syrup is partly responsible for the growing obesity and diabetic problems in this country. Those who think so are seeking to ban high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from soft drinks, and extremists want it banned from all foods.
High fructose corn syrup is manufactured when corn is milled to produce corn starch. The corn starch is then treated with the enzyme alpha-amylase, which breaks up the long chain starch molecules into shorter chain sugar polymers called oligosaccharides. Another enzyme, glucoamylase, which is produced by the fungus aspergillus, is added to break the oligosaccharides down to glucose. Then, xylose isomerase, another enzyme, is added to the glucose to convert it to a solution of about 42% fructose and about 50% glucose.
Sugar, as we know it in the crystalline form, generally comes from two sources: sugar beets and sugar cane. Sugar from cane is derived when the cane is chopped, and then crushed in a series of roller mills; a sweet liquid is pounded out of the crushed cane, and the cane is then used to fire boilers. Slake lime (similar to chalk) is added to settle out any dirt and debris from the liquid, and the water in the liquid is boiled off, thickening it. The thickened liquid is sent to another boiling step where more water is boiled off, causing sucrose crystals to form and precipitate out. The crystals and mother liquid are centrifuged to separate the liquid from the crystals, and the crystals are dried with hot air.
Proponents of sucrose (cane and beet sugar) contend that it’s a natural product produced by mechanical means, while HFCS is a manufactured product; it does not exist naturally in nature. Proponents of HFCS argue that sucrose and HFCS are identical once they enter the body because the body breaks sucrose down into fructose and glucose. Proponents of sucrose argue that it is this extra digestion step that makes sucrose healthier to consume because it takes the glucose longer to enter the blood stream from sucrose than it does from HFCS. They also argue that the only reason that food and soft drink manufacturers switched from sugar (sucrose) to HFCS was due to lobbying from the farm sector. Corn is heavily subsidized, making HFCS sweeteners cheaper to use than sugar.
Diabetes is a disease in which a person has high blood sugar, either because their body does not produce enough insulin or their cells do not respond to the insulin that they produce. Insulin, a hormone, causes cells in the liver, fat and muscles to take glucose and store it as glycogen. There are three main types of diabetes: type 1 diabetes results from the failure of the pancreas to produce insulin or enough insulin, and requires the person suffering from it to take some form of insulin. Type 2 diabetes results when the cells become resistant to insulin, that is, they fail to use insulin properly, and blood sugar rises. Gestational diabetes occurs in women who have high blood glucose levels during pregnancy, and it can lead to type 2 diabetes. Obviously, ingesting too much of either HFCS or sucrose will elevate glucose levels in the blood stream, and doing so over long periods of time can result in type 2 diabetes.
When I worked (I’m retired now), people were constantly streaming into the lunch room, purchasing snacks and drinks to take back to their desks from the vending machines that lined the walls. None of the machines contained healthy foods; there were machines for carbonated, HFCS containing drinks from the major bottlers, candy machines, sandwich machines, and fruit drink machines that contained bottles of 10% fruit juice/HFCS mixtures. Every morning, the vending operator filled the machines, and by 3 pm every day, he had to return to refill the machines for the next shift. All of this was very high calorie “food.”
The same thing went on in the public schools in the county where I live. In exchange for a large sum of money, a large soft drink bottler was allowed to put soft drink and snack vending machines in all of the public schools. The school board viewed this as less onerous than going to the property owners and announcing a tax increase to support the school system. Children, instead of buying their lunch from the school cafeteria (which was supposed to serve a balanced meal) or bringing their lunch from home, were buying very high calorie junk food and drinks from the vending machines. Even the milk was sweetened and colored (chocolate and strawberry).
I’m not for or against one sweetener over the other. I believe that neither one is inherently evil nor will either one prove harmful when use sparingly. The problem is that humans love sweet things, and HFCS makes sweet things cheaper to acquire and more prevalent in our environments. The farm lobby argues that it needs government subsidies to keep corn cheap so everything else will be cheap, from ethanol (which is produced from corn and which is also federally subsidized, resulting in a double subsidy), plastics, and beef (which used to eat grass but now are fed cheap corn, hormones and antibiotics so they get fat instead of muscular) and other animals.
What would happen if corn was not subsidized? Fewer farmers would grow it; they would find a more profitable crop to grow or go out of business. The price of everything that uses corn would rise, prompting people to use less of those products. After a while, an equilibrium would be reached, just like there is now with the subsidies. But, this will never happen, not with people like Chuck Grassley in the Senate, who almost blocked President Obama’s nomination for the Ambassador to Brazil, when the nominee, Thomas Shannon, suggested that it would be more beneficial to import ethanol made from sugar cane from Brazil than it would be to make it from corn (sugar cane produces more ethanol per acre cheaper than corn farming does). Grassley, who is the Republican/Conservative Senator from Iowa, the most productive corn producing state, was threatening to block the health care initiative as well; he got the President to back down and promise that the $.54 per gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol would not be lifted.
Grassley works for the benefit of less than 1% of the population (corn farmers), not the other 99%. That’s typical of our elected officials and why there is so much dissatisfaction with them. It is also why our asses and guts are getting much larger, and why diabetes is becoming more prevalent in young children.
High fructose corn syrup is manufactured when corn is milled to produce corn starch. The corn starch is then treated with the enzyme alpha-amylase, which breaks up the long chain starch molecules into shorter chain sugar polymers called oligosaccharides. Another enzyme, glucoamylase, which is produced by the fungus aspergillus, is added to break the oligosaccharides down to glucose. Then, xylose isomerase, another enzyme, is added to the glucose to convert it to a solution of about 42% fructose and about 50% glucose.
Sugar, as we know it in the crystalline form, generally comes from two sources: sugar beets and sugar cane. Sugar from cane is derived when the cane is chopped, and then crushed in a series of roller mills; a sweet liquid is pounded out of the crushed cane, and the cane is then used to fire boilers. Slake lime (similar to chalk) is added to settle out any dirt and debris from the liquid, and the water in the liquid is boiled off, thickening it. The thickened liquid is sent to another boiling step where more water is boiled off, causing sucrose crystals to form and precipitate out. The crystals and mother liquid are centrifuged to separate the liquid from the crystals, and the crystals are dried with hot air.
Proponents of sucrose (cane and beet sugar) contend that it’s a natural product produced by mechanical means, while HFCS is a manufactured product; it does not exist naturally in nature. Proponents of HFCS argue that sucrose and HFCS are identical once they enter the body because the body breaks sucrose down into fructose and glucose. Proponents of sucrose argue that it is this extra digestion step that makes sucrose healthier to consume because it takes the glucose longer to enter the blood stream from sucrose than it does from HFCS. They also argue that the only reason that food and soft drink manufacturers switched from sugar (sucrose) to HFCS was due to lobbying from the farm sector. Corn is heavily subsidized, making HFCS sweeteners cheaper to use than sugar.
Diabetes is a disease in which a person has high blood sugar, either because their body does not produce enough insulin or their cells do not respond to the insulin that they produce. Insulin, a hormone, causes cells in the liver, fat and muscles to take glucose and store it as glycogen. There are three main types of diabetes: type 1 diabetes results from the failure of the pancreas to produce insulin or enough insulin, and requires the person suffering from it to take some form of insulin. Type 2 diabetes results when the cells become resistant to insulin, that is, they fail to use insulin properly, and blood sugar rises. Gestational diabetes occurs in women who have high blood glucose levels during pregnancy, and it can lead to type 2 diabetes. Obviously, ingesting too much of either HFCS or sucrose will elevate glucose levels in the blood stream, and doing so over long periods of time can result in type 2 diabetes.
When I worked (I’m retired now), people were constantly streaming into the lunch room, purchasing snacks and drinks to take back to their desks from the vending machines that lined the walls. None of the machines contained healthy foods; there were machines for carbonated, HFCS containing drinks from the major bottlers, candy machines, sandwich machines, and fruit drink machines that contained bottles of 10% fruit juice/HFCS mixtures. Every morning, the vending operator filled the machines, and by 3 pm every day, he had to return to refill the machines for the next shift. All of this was very high calorie “food.”
The same thing went on in the public schools in the county where I live. In exchange for a large sum of money, a large soft drink bottler was allowed to put soft drink and snack vending machines in all of the public schools. The school board viewed this as less onerous than going to the property owners and announcing a tax increase to support the school system. Children, instead of buying their lunch from the school cafeteria (which was supposed to serve a balanced meal) or bringing their lunch from home, were buying very high calorie junk food and drinks from the vending machines. Even the milk was sweetened and colored (chocolate and strawberry).
I’m not for or against one sweetener over the other. I believe that neither one is inherently evil nor will either one prove harmful when use sparingly. The problem is that humans love sweet things, and HFCS makes sweet things cheaper to acquire and more prevalent in our environments. The farm lobby argues that it needs government subsidies to keep corn cheap so everything else will be cheap, from ethanol (which is produced from corn and which is also federally subsidized, resulting in a double subsidy), plastics, and beef (which used to eat grass but now are fed cheap corn, hormones and antibiotics so they get fat instead of muscular) and other animals.
What would happen if corn was not subsidized? Fewer farmers would grow it; they would find a more profitable crop to grow or go out of business. The price of everything that uses corn would rise, prompting people to use less of those products. After a while, an equilibrium would be reached, just like there is now with the subsidies. But, this will never happen, not with people like Chuck Grassley in the Senate, who almost blocked President Obama’s nomination for the Ambassador to Brazil, when the nominee, Thomas Shannon, suggested that it would be more beneficial to import ethanol made from sugar cane from Brazil than it would be to make it from corn (sugar cane produces more ethanol per acre cheaper than corn farming does). Grassley, who is the Republican/Conservative Senator from Iowa, the most productive corn producing state, was threatening to block the health care initiative as well; he got the President to back down and promise that the $.54 per gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol would not be lifted.
Grassley works for the benefit of less than 1% of the population (corn farmers), not the other 99%. That’s typical of our elected officials and why there is so much dissatisfaction with them. It is also why our asses and guts are getting much larger, and why diabetes is becoming more prevalent in young children.
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