Blog for all health-conscious: Fooducate Blog - FDA Rejects Name Change for High Fructose Corn Syrup

Friday 1 June 2012

Fooducate Blog - FDA Rejects Name Change for High Fructose Corn Syrup

FDA Rejects Name Change for High Fructose Corn Syrup

Posted: 01 Jun 2012 05:13 AM PDT

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Make no mistake about the war between the sugar industry and the Corn Refiners Association. It’s about tens of millions of dollars in annual revenues.

here’s a recap of previous installments:

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a sweetener that has been used for the last 30 years as a cheaper alternative to sugar. It is made from surplus corn. The corn industry is subsidized by the government through the Farm Bill, and as a result beverage and food manufacturers have a cheap sweetener.

Although sugar and HFCS are almost the same chemically, HFCS has a bit more fructose than glucose in it.

Many people prefer not to consume products with HFCS, due to the high correlation with increases in obesity rates ever since the sweetener was introduced in the 1980′s.

Responding to market demand, several big manufacturers have began moving back from HFCS to sugar (sometimes touting their product as all natural). The Corn Refiners Association, which represents the HFCS industry, is seeing its members hurt.

So it decided to change the name ”high fructose corn syrup” to “corn sugar”, a less threatening name. A petition to the FDA was filed in 2010. The sugar folks retaliated with a lawsuit last year.

And what’s new this week?

The FDA said no to the corn refiners’ bid. But not because the chemical structure of the two sweeteners are different. Simply because the FDA defines sugar as a solid, dried and crystallized food — not a syrup, which is what HFCS is.

We have a feeling that we haven’t heard the last of this…

What to do in the supermarket:

From the evidence we have seen to date, there most likely is no difference between sugar and HFCS. Americans are consuming much to much of both. That said, the presence of HFCS is a product is usually a good marker of a cheap, processed food, whose manufacturer probably used other cheap ingredients to maximize profit. No thank you.

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