Also on the health side of the debate.
If you take a look at the composition of HFCS used in sweeteners you'll see that it is composed of Glucose-Fructose in a mixture of 45% Glucose to 55% Fructose. Sucrose is a di-saccharide composed of one glucose linked to a molecule of fructose so its G:F in a ratio of 50:50.
People who claim that HFCS is the devil ignore this fact: the first thing that happens when you eat sucrose and when it is in the lumen of the gut is that it gets broken down into glucose and fructose to be absorbed. The human body is incapable of transporting sucrose you eat into blood without separating it into its two constituents.
So the difference between eating sugar vs eating corn syrup is that you get simple sugars in a slightly different ratio. Recently, the lay press reported a scientific study on
Tumor sugar metabolism . Armchair bloggers point to this stuff to condemn the kernel and praise the cane.
While this study shows something interesting, what the stories and the bloggers who are woefully short on science knowledge don't tell you is that regular sugar will supply the tumor with more than enough fructose to divide. So what the study really says is that people under a tumor load should probably avoid all sugar and stick to complex carbs made primarily of long chain glucose.
Finally as an aside, the carbohydrate composition of HFCS resembles honey. In fact in the less developed world, where labeling is often lax, counterfeiters often trick consumers by selling HFCS with some minor flavoring agents as honey.
I do admit that the sweeteners taste different. HFCS is much sweeter than Sucrose. But North Americans are so used to sweet, I believe that if the food industry switched back to sugar we'd simply demand sweeter products and eat even more sugar than we were under the HFCS era.
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