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by biomcgary 856 days ago
Profits drive use of HFCS because fructose is sweeter than glucose. A pinch of enzyme converts glucose to fructose and saves a bunch of money.

Fructose interferes with glucose use and regulation. The real comparison to be made is between normal corn syrup (only glucose) and HFCS (about half fructose), not sugar (about half fructose).

When using crude tools to evaluate metabolism like the glycemic index, which only considers blood glucose, it appears that fructose is better. The modern Western diet leads to obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver disease (NAFLD) because fructose metabolism collides with lipid metabolism in the liver.

2 comments

HFCS has about the same amount of fructose as its usual substitute, sucrose. I don't see very many products around me sweetened with pure glucose
The HFCS scare reminds me of the seed oil scare: people over-eating thousands of calories of highly palatable foods looking for one evil ingredient that is causing their problems instead of questioning their huge calorie intake.

As if replacing canola with butter and HFCS with sucrose in their junk food will cure them of their over eating.

Thats the thing that annoys me about it. It reminds me of how table salt is toxic when eaten in massive quantities. People love to throw up all these studies and fear monge...shoot when your driving your car, all the cars around you have exhaust that you are breathing in. Sure if you are knocking back a liter of coke a day, maybe HFCS is materially worse than cane sugar but I would agrue the greater threat is consuming that much sugar.

Don't get me started on seed oils......

This still does not really convince me that it is materially different at scale. I think what I said still holds true.