I've never understood why one kind of sugar is considered more or less healthful than another. Why is fructose demonized when sucrose and glucose are not?

Fructose is not just a product artificially created by processing corn. It is found naturally in fruit, from which it gets its name, which means fruit sugar. Honey, tree fruits, berries, melons, and some root vegetables contain significant amounts of molecular fructose. Fifty percent of the sugar in orange juice is fructose. Could that be considered "high fructose"? Should we be avoiding honey and fruit as well as soda pop?

What I avoid are artificial sweeteners. First because I don't like their taste, but also because I suspect they are the sort of chemicals which aren't good for me.

Jim

Jim, HFCS is not the same thing as natural fructose.

Indeed you are right, Helene. I just learned that after making my post. I wonder if and how the difference is meaningful. I need to study more.

Jim

It's called "high-fructose corn syrup" because plain corn syrup would just be glucose (that's the sugar in corn). To make HFCS, they treat the glucose syrup derived from cornstarch with enzymes that convert the glucose to sucrose, then they mix that with regular (glucose) corn syrup.
This is a complicated industrial process, and I don't know why they do it. Why not just sweeten stuff with glucose? Fructose is sweeter than glucose, so they can use less, but still the economics look a bit puzzling. The processing into HFCS also moderates the blood-sugar spike that pure glucose woud produce.
Sucrose, table sugar, is a molecule made up of glucose and fructose. The body breaks it down into those two simple sugars.

Let me just point out that government interference in markets sets the stage for all of this. We massively subsidize corn growing. We raise the price of sugar with tariffs. Manufacturers respond.

That's a very clear explanation Christine, so far as it goes. I get puzzled at the same point you do.

Your point about subsidies and tariffs is very well made.

Jim

From the albeit limited research I've done, the reason for the "processing" is because HFCS has a longer shelf life than simple glucose. This of course is important on shelf life of products.

I remember many years ago when the cane vs beet sugar controversy was raging and wasn't much different than what we hear today. Beets were going to kill us all!

FWIW, when one sorts out the hysteria, I'm not going to fear HFCS. I don't see enough credible evidence that it's any worse than the alternatives. So far there's suspicion and speculation and nothing more. Kids get fat on sugar too. Ever hear of moderation?

I agree with you cynic. Moderation - and exercize. Kids spend to much time sitting in front of a computer or TV. It does not matter what type of sugar they are consuming if they eat too much of it and not getting any exercize they are going to be overweight.

One of my nieces drove my mom back to the neighborhood I grew up in. They drove by the house my father built in 1956. Then they drove to the grade school I went to. My mom had shown her a picture of me going off to my first day of the first grade. My niece called me later that day and was shocked that we walked to school - 13 blocks from where we lived because I looked so little. Course you could put your first grader out on the street and not have to worry about anything happening to them.

I don't like the taste and mouth feel of corn syrup, (or sorgum for that matter) which is why I don't like foods with a lot of it in. If it is just on the label, you have not idea how prominent an ingredient it is. I wouldn't worry about a small amount. But those "sports drinks" and "energy drinks" and a lot of the kinds of drinks kids and adults consume by the gallon are loaded with the stuff. I don't drink any of that stuff precisely because of the mouth feel of the HFCS and also the way that it makes it super easy to consume gads of sugar. I have to limit sugar so I'd much rather eat a piece of fruit or even a donut with my coffee than those aforementioned drinks. BF would never DARE eat a dessert or drink a soda, but I can see that he is not adverse to downing several bottles of what basically amounts to colored water, HFCS and food coloring, with a couple of vitamins, herbs or minerals thrown in so they can list that on the front and claim it has some kind of benefit. Snake oil, which is what people should be watching out for.

I'm not sure about the taste of HFCS in other products. It might not be bad in ketchup. People should watch out for high sugar products, whatever the sugar. But they just don't get it. It's kind of like the "low fat" craze. All of a sudden everything is marked "low fat" so that it can get thrown into the grocery cart without thinking. Madison avenue is always happy to help Americans rationalize and maintain their addictions.

As mentioned, HC=FCS is in everything, it seems, and if you're trying to avoid more sugar (and thereby empty calories), it's nearly impossible. It's in everything from salad dressings to catsup to soft drinks to canned fruit.

And that's the problem I have with it, it's everywhere, and in things that shouldn't need all that sweetening.

Of course, then we'll get to my pet peeve, which is the fact that parents will pour their children a soft drink at nearly every meal, instead of water or milk. The grandkids get milk or water or juice in their lunches, they seldom get soft drinks unless Grandma takes them out for their monthly junk meal at McDonald's. Some of their friends, though, carry cans of Dr. Pepper or Orange Crush in their lunch boxes.

I hear the same people complain about spending $3 a gallon for milk, but they'll go out and pay $5 a 12 pack for Mountain Dew, go figure. No nutrition whatsoever, AND it's expensive.

Which does not address my Diet Coke habit. About 3 times a week, I'll have a Diet Coke. The rest of the time it's coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and not nearly enough water the rest of the time!

As for cane sugar vs. beet sugar, I'm from Michigan. Big Chief/Pioneer sugar is packaged not too far from me and I've been eating/using beet sugar all my life. I'm not diabetic, have no visible deformities (LOL), haven't been diagnosed with any chronic or acute illnesses and I haven't grown two heads. Yet.

Annie

Of course, then we'll get to my pet peeve, which is the fact that parents will pour their children a soft drink at nearly every meal, instead of water or milk.

I couldn't agree more. That's a huge pet peeve for me. I almost never let my kids drink coke (aka carbonated soft drinks) or other sugary drinks when they were growing up. They drank some at other people's houses - I didn't forbid it. But in our house, we just didn't have it.

I drink about 10 cokes a year, if that. I just don't have a taste for the stuff. However, I get my regular dose of HFCS & other sugars I'm sure. I admit, I don't read labels for that kind of stuff. I probably should be more concerned with those kinds of things but I just can't spend too much energy worrying about it.

Back on topic, will changing the name make a difference? I wouldn't be surprised. If they can somehow convince us through advertising that "corn sugar" is harmless, we'll soon enough forget it was ever called anything else. We have short memories.

Some of their friends, though, carry cans of Dr. Pepper or Orange Crush in their lunch boxes."

WOW! My kids take V8 fusion or water or in their lunch boxes and sometimes will buy milk at lunch in addition to what they brought from home and would never consider taking a soda. I do have Pepsi Throwback and Mt Dew Throwback (no HFCS) in the house and they each are allowed 1 can over the weekend if they want it. And I will admit that I am avoiding more and more products that have HFCS listed in the ingredients. We just switched over to Bullseye for our "emergency" BBQ sauce because it too is made from sugar and honey and no HFCS.

Anyway, I'm certainly not preaching or trying to tell anyone what they should do or feed their own family, I am just passing along the infomation I stumbled across.

Alexa

I remember always having milk in my lunch - never soda. I had some cousins whose mother told them they were allergic to sodas. They didn't know any different until they were in their 20's lol

That's really impressive Alexa!!! Especially when so many kids do have sodas. They've been removing soda machines from schools in Minnesota for quite some time.

One of my sisters had 5 kids and ran a really tight ship. My mother (on the farm next door) was the daycare center. Whenever my mom offered the grandkids a treat, they always insisted on calling their mom first.

Soda's are NOT allowed in kids lunches and all kid access vending machines were removed from the schools. Until High School..then it's "fake" sugar sodas and gatorades and flavored waters.

My kids take 100% juice boxes or chocolate milk in theirs...

I avoid HFCS..and most corn products that are NOT organic.

Our schools are the same as Terri's - soda's aren't allowed at our local public school, and by law, if a school is accepting government $ for school lunches, they can't have competing foods sold on-side.

At a high school level that all goes away, although I'm not sure the law does, I think some schools just chose to ignore it. Our school system has so few kids on subsidized lunch that they've chosen to give up the few dollars and not fill out all the paperwork.

Even in my kids' school, which isn't the local public school, I'd be shocked to see a soda in a child's lunch box. My kids drink water for lunch and water or V8 fusion at home, or diluted gatorade at sports.

But my kids, and my local school system is the exception, not the norm.

I avoid anything with HFCS and most things with added sugar or fake sweeteners. HFCS is a condensed sweetness, meant to extend shelf life and add more sweetness for less cost. This heightened sweet taste elevates our threshold making us crave sweeter and sweeter foods. It's the opposite of when I weaned myself off of artificial sweeteners in my coffee. I started with 3/4 of a packet of Equal and worked myself down to no sweetener at all. This heightened taste for sweet leads to more extra sugar in the diet. Additionally, your cells have a hard time recognizing and processing the altered chemical structure of HFCS, so, like all extra nutrients that the body can't immediately use, it get stored in adipose tissue, as fat.

Just for my own curiosity, I checked with my middle school son about the availability of soda at school or does anyone bring soda. He literally laughed and asked me if I was kidding! No one brings soda and no it isn;t sold there. Among his peers, they are all so aware of HFCS they check and compare packages of food that is brought from home. He said most of his friends will toss out anything that lists HFCS on the label and would rather go hungry than eat it. The one exception is Twinkies, it seems Twinkies have attained food of the Gods status and can be traded for any other food brought from home or bought in the cafeteria LOL! I never said they were perfect LOLOLOL!

Alexa

Here there are no soda machines in the lower grades, Makayla is in 2nd grade, but the kids all bring them from home.

All the kids get a letter sent home the first day of school telling parents that they should send "healthy" snacks and drinks, but it doesn't happen. My own sister thought that Capri Sun was "juice". She never reads labels either.

So, how are the schools going to regulate what a 2nd grader brings in their lunch from home, absent a danger like having a kid allergic to peanut butter?

And it's not the school's problem anyway, or even the government's problem, it's the parents who should take the responsibility of be regulating what their child eats. Or drinks.

Makayla and Bud are currently taking a juice box that they love called Apple and Eve Fruitables. It's at least better than Dr. Pepper or Makayla's favorite, YooHoo.

Annie

This is where the consumer has to be pretty vigilant, because it's not just soda pop that is loaded with HFCS, many so called "healthy" alternatives are full of it too, like gatorade for example. It could say "natural healthy vitamin drink" on the label and then when you look at the ingredients you see that it is water, usually various sugars (better to confuse the consumer by), food coloring, and maybe a few vitamins thrown in so they can claim a health benefit. The vitamins might have been totally oxidized by the time they were added though, so might not be acitve in the drink anymore. This is why I hate shopping lol, the label reading . . . ! It takes me a good ten minutes to make some purchases, like salad dressing for example. Compare ingredients, compare prices . . . and all because I am usually too rushed at dinnertime to make my own!

at age 75 (yesterday) I've quit worrying about what HFCS is gonna do to me ... But I don't eat or drink it if I can help myself 'cause it tastes TOO sweet.
Have always wondered why sugar substitues taste sweeter than sugar -- of course being from the South, it's cane sugar all the way. Don't know if I've ever had beet sugar, but I do like beets.

kay

I recall the scene in the movie "King Corn" where they made high fructose corn syrup in their kitchen. It looked like they were making meth! Oh the nasty chemicals they had to use!

off topic, but happy birthday Kay. Hope you celebrated your birthday with a delicious, cane sugar cake!
Jo

The other thing I laugh at is now that one of the "healthy oils" is now called "canola" oil, but when it was called "rapeseed oil" it was another killer that people wouldn't touch. But people are afraid of CFL light bulbs too!

I have a big peeve with trying to buy iced tea that is unsweetened. I like it for the tea taste, not the sugar or artificial sweetener taste. Same thing with lemonade and other beverages. It doesn't have to be so dang sweet!

The best way to avoid HFCS, or "corn sugar" is to not buy processed foods, but I guess that's nearly impossible for most people. I do buy bread at the store during the summer, since it's just too darn hot to bake my own bread, and I do buy frozen pizza, which is probably chock full of HFCS, but I do my best not to read those labels. I should make my own pizza dough, but sometimes I'm just too lazy or don't have the time. Other than those few things, oh, and mayo and mustard, I don't buy processed foods. I would even make my own mayo, but I don't eat it enough to make it worth it, as it doesn't keep as long as store bought.

What I've read about HFCS, and I believe it was in Pollen's book, is that it's been processed to a point that makes it worse for our bodies than regular sugar. I don't remember the details since it's been so long since I've read his book, but there's supposed to be some kind of scientific reason it being worse for us than sucrose or regular fructose. But as all the above posts have pointed out, sugar in any form, when over consumed, is bad for us.

I drink maybe one or two sodas a year, and I have to really be in the mood for it. It usually happens when it's really hot, I've been doing hard work, and I'm sick and tired of water. Of course, that's when I usually reach for a beer, lol!

Sally