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What is high-fructose corn syrup and why is it bad for you? Here are 4 things to know

High-fructose corn syrup is like “Chicken Man,” a comic radio spoof from years ago. When the segment was introduced each day you would hear, “Chicken Man, Chicken Man, he’s everywhere, he’s everywhere.”

And so it is nowadays with high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener made from corn starch, which has become a modern day plague. Unfortunately, the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup is a complicated topic not easily understood… They represent useless, “hollow” calories. What’s more, these “hollow” calories, when consumed in large amounts, overload us and promote obesity. The greatest offender is food items sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, especially soft drinks.

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Featured

  The deadly legacy of America's fields of gold

Corn syrup is blamed for the rise in obesity and related diseases

  Use These Healthy Ketchup Brands Instead of Heinz

Ketchup can be loaded with high fructose corn syrup and added sugar. Here are the brands that aren’t.

  Is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) Worse Than Sugar?

What should be taken away is that the issue of sucrose versus HFCS is one where we are trying to find the lesser of two evils, and both seem to be about the same. Additional calories in the form of sugars do tend to increase the risk of obesity when not controlled for, but beyond this the only differences lie in fructose content. Since sucrose and HFCS are very similar in regards to how much fructose they contribute, they are essentially equivalent.

 Dark Sugar

High-fructose corn syrup first started trickling into our food supply about 40 years ago; by 1984, it was flowing from just about every soda fountain in the country. These days HFCS accounts for almost half of all the added sugars in the U.S. diet, but the corn Niagara may soon be over

 High-fructose corn syrup vs. sugar: Which is actually worse?

High-fructose corn syrup has been a scapegoat for American obesity for the past decade and a half, so you might be surprised to learn that natural sweeteners like sugar and honey both have more fructose than high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

 Meet High Fructose Corn Syrup's Sneaky Cousin: High "Maltose" Corn Syrup

In short, say experts, it's a very, very similar "cousin" to high fructose corn syrup. Unfortunately, there is zero scientific research on this lab-altered sweetener, which means we don't really know what the risks are. Still, we can deduct a few things about it, since experts say it's very similar to HFCS:

Articles of Interest

Don't Sugar-Coat High-Fructose Corn Syrup

The history of corporate marketing efforts and the obesity epidemic make the corn-syrup name change a crime.

For Corn Syrup, the Sweet Talk Gets Harder

Hunt’s ketchup is among the latest in a string of major-brand products that have replaced the vilified sweetener. Gatorade, several Kraft salad dressings, Wheat Thins, Ocean Spray cranberry juice, Pepsi Throwback, Mountain Dew Throwback and the baked goods at Starbucks, to name a few, are all now made with regular sugar.

Hershey considers removing high-fructose corn syrup from products in favor of sugar

Chocolate maker looking at replacing the high-fructose corn syrup in some of its products with sugar, joining Gatorade and Yoplait.

Is High-Fructose Corn Syrup Really Good for You?

The answer is somewhere in between, but high-fructose corn syrup is finding defenders from unusual corners. The American Medical Association recently announced at its annual policy-making meeting in Chicago that high-fructose corn syrup does not contribute more to obesity than sugar or other caloric sweeteners.

Is regular sugar greener than high-fructose corn syrup?

As your mom, your dentist, and the Lantern has told you time and time again, take all things in moderation and you’ll probably be fine—that goes for sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, as well. And cutting down on our overall sweetener intake makes a lot more sense than simply switching one for the other. After all, if we all boycotted HFCS and instead ramped up our consumption of cane sugar, where would we find enough hot, humid land to put all those additional cane fields?

New study links combination of fructose, glucose in high fructose corn syrup to heart health risks

When it comes to health risks, sugar in the form of fructose is clearly the bad guy. This is because a majority of fructose consumed ends up in the liver. When there is too much fructose, the liver produces uric acid and fat in the form of triglycerides, which increase the risk of fatty liver, heart disease and gout.

Sickly sweetener

Americans are losing their taste for a sugar substitute made from maize.

Study: Countries That Use More High Fructose Corn Syrup Have More Diabetes

The 20 percent increase in type 2 diabetes is independent of total sugar consumption and obesity.

Study: In Weight Loss, High Fructose Corn Syrup Is No Worse Than 'Real' Sugar

Low-calorie diets that included high fructose corn syrup yielded the same progress in terms of obesity indices as diets with equivalent amounts of table sugar.

The Evils of Corn Syrup: How Food Writers Got It Wrong

We can ridicule the Corn Refiners Association's image overhaul till the corn-fed cows come home but, according to studies published in leading journals, considerable evidence suggests that HFCS is being blamed for the expansion of the American gut with data that is, at best, inconclusive.

The Science Behind High Fructose Corn Syrup

Here's why processors prefer high fructose corn syrup over regular corn syrup.

The Sour Politics of High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Cheers to the FDA. It just said a firm no to the Corn Refiners' petition to be allowed to call High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) "corn sugar."

Resources

4 Shocking Places High Fructose Corn Syrup Is Hiding in "Healthy" Foods

If you're trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup (you know, the stuff that's been linked to belly fat and other health issues), you might be surprised at where it's hiding.

FDA

We are not aware of any evidence, including the studies mentioned above, that there is a difference in safety between foods containing HFCS 42 or HFCS 55 and foods containing similar amounts of other nutritive sweeteners with approximately equal glucose and fructose content, such as sucrose, honey, or other traditional sweeteners.