Wheat-dogg's World

The idea for this entry came from one of my ninth graders, who was trying to convince a fellow student that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is bad for you. He thinks it’s some kind of “liberal” thing, and wanted more evidence.

M. (the anti-corn syrup student) looked to me for support. Since biochemistry is not my strong suit, I demurred, but said I had heard that HFCS created some health problems.

Specifically, based on evidence provided by her physician father, M. says HFCS blocks the receptors in the brain that tell the body when it’s had enough to eat. Eating or drinking food with HFCS as an ingredient fools the body into thinking it’s still hungry. Thus, M. says, there is a causal link between HFCS consumption and over-eating. (Well, she didn’t exactly put it that way, but it’s what she meant.)

I wish her luck convincing A., her classmate. After poking the Internet for verification of this causality, I’m sure of two things. One, I’m glad I don’t do nutrition or biology research; there are too many variables. I’ll stick with physics, thank you. And two, lay readers take scientific research and extrapolate and/or exaggerate the findings to suit their arguments. Thus, any claims about the risks and rewards of HFCS have to be taken with a grain of salt.

On a personal note, I have noticed that if I drink too much soda pop, I develop a dry cough that takes weeks to go away. That’s anecdotal evidence, but I cut down my soda consumption years ago just the same. So, I’m willing (or wanting) to believe that HFCS is bad for you, despite the less than conclusive evidence.

Regular corn syrup has been a staple of US grocery shelves since the late 1800s, after food chemists developed an easy way to convert corn starch to corn syrup. Manufacturers take corn starch (from milled corn) and heat it under pressure in a weak solution of hydrochloric acid, producing corn sweeteners.

Corn syrup produced in this way is primarily dextrose (or D-glucose, C₆H₁₂O₆), a simple sugar that is somewhat less sweet than sucrose. For most food products, the more moderate sweetness is not a problem, since sucrose can overwhelm the other ingredients’ tastes.

Sucrose (or table sugar, C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁) is a disaccharide, in which glucose and another simple sugar, fructose, are chemically bonded together. Fructose is about twice as sweet as glucose, giving sucrose its characteristic sweetness. Most sucrose in the US comes from sugar beets. In warmer climates, sugar is more frequently produced from sugar cane. No matter which plant is used, the process is basically the same as it has been for millennia: boil the cane or beets in water to extract the sugar, then evaporate the resulting liquid to crystallize the sugar.

In 1957 US food chemists developed a method to convert, using enzymes, some of the dextrose in corn syrup into fructose. Japanese scientists improved the process in the 1970s, creating in essence a corn-based clone of sucrose: high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

All things being equal, it would seem to the uninitiated that producing corn syrup (or HFCS) is a heck of a lot harder than producing beet sugar, requiring more equipment, more chemicals and more steps to reach the final product. In the US, however, two economic factors dictate otherwise.

First, the US limits sugar production within its borders and simultaneously applies hefty tariffs on imported sugar products. The result artificially raises the average price of sugar in the US to several times the price residents of other countries pay. That alone would encourage US food producers to find a cheaper alternative to sucrose.

Second, the US also subsidizes corn farmers, which means corn prices are unusually low and corn crops are relatively abundant. Economically speaking, it makes much more sense to use HFCS than beet sugar. Production costs are lower, which means retail costs are low, too. Or to put it in pithier terms, Coke and Pepsi can still turn a profit on a 65-cent can of soda, while Jones Soda (and other non-HFCS soda makers) have to charge at least twice that to break even.

So, for food manufacturers, HFCS was the magic bullet. Once they convinced the Food and Drug Administration that it was a safe food additive, it found its way into practically every food product that contained (or could contain) sugar.

And herein lies the rub. There is a correlation between the increased use of HFCS in US food products beginning in the mid-70s and the rise in diabetes and obesity in the US population. The question is whether HFCS is the cause of those health problems.

Beginning in the 1960s, some researchers’ lab studies suggested that fructose and HFCS could have some health consequences: higher levels of cholesterol and lipids in the blood, resistance to insulin and other effects. Researchers for HFCS producers countered with their own studies that showed no appreciable difference in health consequences between sucrose and HFCS consumption.

At the risk of oversimplifying matters, there is a group of people in the US who are predisposed to mistrust big agriculture, the food chemistry industry and government regulation in general. Without too much concern for verifying their arguments with evidence, any suggestion that HFCS might be bad means to them it is bad.

So, googling “high fructose corn syrup health effects” generates a huge number of sites arguing that HFCS causes obesity, high cholesterol levels, diabetes, fallen arches and who knows what. You have to dig really deep to find the original research on which these claims are based.

I found scores of citations to studies on HFCS and fructose consumption. Not having access to these professional journals and distrusting some of the wholistic-health type journals, I settled on what I figured was a responsible online source, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , for the definitive word on the healthiness — or lack thereof — of HFCS.

There isn’t a definitive word. While some nutrition experts argue there is a causal link between HFCS and obesity, others say there is not. So the food nazis are overstating their case. HFCS in and of itself is not to blame for America’s health problems. Maybe (gasp!) HFCS producers and the FDA are correct; it’s a safe food additive.

In moderation. That’s my take on our nation’s food paranoia. We’re looking for easy answers to a complex problem. HFCS is not intrinsically bad, despite its chemistry-set origins. It’s the amount of HFCS we consume that’s bad.

Like caffeine or alcohol, two other food ingredients that are healthy or not depending on which study you believe, too much of a good thing is not necessarily better. A little cuppa Joe, a glass of wine, a Coke, once in a while, might be benign if not actually healthy. But consume a lot of caffeine or a lot of alcohol and you’re asking for trouble.

Caffeine and alcohol are only in certain beverages. So tempering one’s consumption is easy to regulate. Not so HFCS; it’s practically everywhere.

Read a food label. HFCS will likely be an ingredient. It’s in most sodas made in the US, and we already know we drink too much of those. It’s also in spaghetti sauce, pickles, catsup, juice cocktails, prepared foods, baked goods, to name just a few products. The typical fast-food meal will have HFCS in the soda, the condiments and the bun. Food makers know that HFCS is an easy (and cheap) way to make tasty foods that consumers will buy, so they use it. A lot.

It may very well be that human physiology is just not capable of handling repeated doses of glucose and fructose in practically everything we eat and drink. After all, we did not evolve around cans of soda pop and Milky Way bars.

So, until some carefully designed scientific study shows that HFCS is doing me serious damage each time I consume it, I figure it’s OK to indulge once in a while. I just have to spend a lot of time reading food labels.