| I appreciate your asking the questions that a lot of people have when they hear that HFCS is "evil". Generally, if people have been taught that there is more than one kind of sugar (yeah, I know), they learn about sucrose, glucose, and fructose, at most. The name 'fructose' doesn't help clarify this situation. We are told that we (rightly) should eat more fruits and vegetables. But those juicy peaches and other fruits and fruitish foods (berries, etc.) are sweet. As a result, we make a very direct connection between fructose and fruit, which is enough to create confusion about the HFCS messaging.[1] Points as well for knowing that honey contains a boatload of fructose. Honey's also good for us, or else they wouldn't point out that things are sweetened with honey instead of 'refined' sugar, right? As with many issues, there's a bathtub curve of understanding. The completely ignorant and the very-slightly informed people are not confused. Nor are people with a high level of understanding about the combination of chemistry and human physiology. It's that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" zone that has trouble. You have a better than average understanding of the chemistry and the biological processes, but are having trouble putting together the whole picture. How the heck are you going to advise your kids on what to eat without laying down fiat rules? I think you were treated unfairly in the reply to your post but it does contain some useful information. For the last laugh[2], I would suggest that after you get the understanding you need on the issue, you write a post/page/paper on the topic, targeting your current self as an audience. Post it here knowing that HN is a culmination of people who are in the bottom of that bathtub on just about every issue, with some awesome representation of the "heavily informed". You'll help a lot of people and get some actionable feedback. Just filter out the emotion[3] and revise as needed and you'll have a citation handy the next time this sort of thing comes up. Then you'll be that guy on the right hand side of the curve and can have the last laugh by encouraging education instead of discouraging the exposure of innocent ignorance. [1] The Corn Growers' Association has created some biased but unintentionally hilarious examples of pro-HFCS messaging. http://sweetsurprise.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ-ByUx552s [2] and because I am lazy and want people to do things for me [3] OMFG, he didn't talk about sucralose, galactose, maltose, and zymurlose! |