I'm not surprised.

I can't imagine many people are, except maybe the corn industry with their SNL parody-like commercials defending the virtues of HFCS.

Good info to know. And now I really know why they are playing those TV spots about HFCS. I have watched those commercials with obvious skepticism. Whenever a product that has never had to advertise itself before starts paying for prime time ad space, you've got to know they feel threatened.

Those HFCS commercials were ridiculous and offensive. I hope they didn't actually succeed in misinforming anyone.

Hold on, I have my doubts here. 'The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas.'

I know if i eat something that's kind of sweet i end up eating more to try and get the same level of sweetness fulfilment as something that's really sweet. For instance: I can only ever eat one slice of cake, but if i ate something less sweet (like hersheys chocolate) i could eat much more because i'm not hitting that 'sweet cap' as quickly. I think the rats gained weight because they were ingesting the stuff twice as much trying to reach the same level of satisfaction.

As a disclaimer, i'm British, though a regular visitor to the states, so i HAVE tried both sugar and high-fructose corn syrup versions of the same products. And i think while the reasons for the US adopting HFCS are stupid (no trade with South America) i don't think HFCS deserves the bad rep. it gets.

Ryan, fructose is sweeter than sucrose, so it takes less of it to make something just as sweet. That might be why.

Your comment on sweetness, RyanTimes, could be on to something... if not for the fact that fructose is regarded as 173% as sweet as sucrose. (If you don't believe me, check the wikipedia entry on fructose). If anything, this should bias the results in the OTHER direction.

However, I admit that the wording IS a little sketchy. If "the concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks", does that mean that the sucrose REPLACED the sucrose and fructose in the soft drink? I.e. if a soft drink has 5g sucrose and 30g fructose, did they use 5g sugar or 35g sugar? Did they use 15g fructose or 17.5g fructose?

I have started seeing "High Maltose Corn Syrup" on a lot of my labels...anybody got the skinny on this?

This is scary! I've avoided HFCS as much as I can, but it seriously is in EVERYTHING. Even some canned tomato paste at the grocery store has it in it. I have to search for the brands that only list tomatoes under ingredients.

Maltose & Fructose differences.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5412157_high-high-fructose-corn-syrup.html

The section stating sucrose at common soda levels, yet fructose at half concentration does need more explanation before I will believe their findings. Why did they do this? I don't care for your suppositions. I would like to know the actual reason from the researchers.

As for the comment "...the reasons for the US adopting HFCS are stupid (no trade with South America)..." - where pray tell did you come up with that one? US manufacturers adopted HFCS due to price, nothing else.

And finally, "(If you don't believe me, check the wikipedia entry on fructose)." - thanks for the laugh....

I'm Canadian and have spent a substantial amount of time in the US. It's seriously in everything -- even sour cream. I generally check labels anyway, but I never would have thought it'd be appearing in yogurt and sour cream.

In Canada, it's in a lot of things, but not nearly as many.

Buying organic when possible helps -- HFCS isn't permitted for use in edible organic products.

Daniel24, there are commercial soft drinks that are sweetened with cane sugar. I'd imagine that they used those figures, for the sucrose solution.

I hope this is the start for more research on HFCS. It really needs to be completely understood before we put it into our bodies. Sadly, it wasn't.

Disregard my last comment. Cane sugar has fructose in it, more research for me to do.

d4kk1ss3n, i am aware of this, but it is stated in the experiment that 'The concentration of sugar in the sucrose solution was the same as is found in some commercial soft drinks, while the high-fructose corn syrup solution was half as concentrated as most sodas.

As Daniel said, the wording is somewhat sketchy, i am led to believe they engineered the sucrose in the sucrose solution with the concentration of sugar in soda in one test, and substituted that with half the HFCS concentration of soda in the other. So the second is more of a 'HFCS solution' than a sucrose solution. My point was that while one solution is like drinking a can of soda, the other is like drinking watered down soda. Leading me to believe that the rats would require twice the amount of drink to get the sweet nutrients they are after. All that gained weight is 'water weight' it seems.

For another example, imagine you are fed stew through a tube (a dire thought indeed) one stew has the standard about of stew ingredients and the other has half that but replaces the the missing volume with water. In order to survive you would need to eat twice the amount of stew in the second case, thereby taking on twice the amount of water.

tsbbq, you're right that US foods use HFCS is that it's cheaper, but RyanTimes is right about trade.

The reason HFCS is cheaper is twofold: 1) The federal government places restrictions (tariffs/quotas) on imported sugar, in order to keep sugar prices high for domestic sugar producers. 2) The feds also subsidize corn, making HFCS cheaper to consumers (of course, taxpayers are picking up the real tab).

tsbbq, sorry if you have an axe to grind, but the wikipedia article cites its sources from TWO places. Just google "fructose sucrose relative sweetness" and the top two hits are NON-wikipedia sources suggesting that fructose is (a) the sweetest naturally occurring sugar and (b) sweeter than sucrose by a factor of between 120% and 170%. Wikipedia isn't a disseminator of misinformation, you just have to be a critical reader with respect to what you find there.

Nevertheless, I totally agree with you: their methodology seems less designed to actually test something scientifically and more to "prove" a point, so to speak. I feel like the idea was there - I'd be interested to see how this plays out in the context of further research on the topic - but the procedure may need some rethinking.

I haven't actually READ the study yet (actual work to do) so, you know, take everything I say with a grain of salt.

tsbbq,
1. I too would like to hear the reasoning for this, until then i will take the conclusion as they have conducted the experiment, heavily biased against HFCS.

2. I was referring to political relations between the two countries, and its corresponding impact on US sugar prices as opposed to, for instance British sugar prices are at 75p/kg

there are lots of assumptions on here without anyone reading the actual study.

which i cannot seem to figure out how to find. I've gotten to the abstract w/ graphs but that's it so far.

Now i need to get back to my job and hopefully remember to look at this more at home.

I checked out the article on the other website and this is signifigant :

"rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup -- a sweetener found in many popular sodas -- gain significantly more weight than those with access to water sweetened with table sugar, even when they consume the same number of calories"

All that gained weight is 'water weight' it seems.

No it doesn't.

You're assuming that scientist conducting an experiment wouldn't have thought about overall water/food quantities. They're conducting an experiment on diet, you can be pretty sure that they specifically measured out not only the amount of food given per day to the rats but also the amount of water. That's simple due diligence that should be expected from a scientific study.

I won't say it always happens, there are plenty of flawed studies, but you can't dismiss this one out of hand without first seeing the research.

Your second example is flawed because you're assuming that the solutions involved wouldn't have been the same overall volume. Again, we don't know that until we see the actual study data. Plus, the example of stew (and I realize it's just an example) supposes a single nutrient source which was not the case in this study. The only difference (at least in the first experiment) between the control and experiment group was in what they were drinking, not what they were eating.

The scientist are asserting that their experiments show a link between high-fructose ingestion and weight gain, I can't say for sure that it does because I haven't gotten to read the actual study. However, I wouldn't doubt that it could because I have quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that points in that direction.

prices, which are*

my apologies.

lew!, studies like this are generally 'released' under peer review, and then by publication into a book or journal, so the general public will only get snippets like this unless they track a copy of the journal or book down.

I find I must respond to the assumption by RyanTimes "the rats would require twice the amount of drink to get the sweet nutrients they are after."

If you go up and reread the article, you'll find that the rats were "given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in addition to a standard diet of rat chow". Further, as the scientists were specifically looking at the intake of calories versus the weight gain, the rats would not have been given unrestricted access to however much food and drink they wanted to gobble up, but to a specific measured quantity. It would be very difficult to conduct a serious scientific trial otherwise. The assumption that the rats would simply consume twice as much is thus flawed.

That said, if it were in real life instead of a scientific trial, I believe that you are on to something. People (and, in my opinion, Americans especially) are used to excessive sweetness, and once someone is conditioned to like a certain level of sweetness, unless they recondition themselves, they would naturally seek it out to feel that satiation.

I just watched the very informative YouTube video
"Sugar: The Bitter Truth" and I urge everyone who is at all interested in this topic to go check it out if you want to understand WHY HFCS is a problem beyond just anecdotal research evidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

It's an hour and a half and if you're not a chem/sci geek it might be a little thick in places, but the supremely important basic points are clear and easy to understand, and it's just about the most useful time I've spent all year. Really. On par with my post "Omnivores Dilemma" life.

The full article is available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0N-4YGHGM1-1&_user=972130&_coverDate=02%2F26%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000049653&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=972130&md5=ef73dc731f4b20c562da713087e608eb.

I've only skimmed it, but it looks like they allowed the rats to eat (regular chow) and drink (sugar/HFCS solution) as much as they wanted, but carefully measured their intake. In the end they found that the two groups consumed the same number of overall calories, but the HFCS group consumed fewer calories from HFCS than the sucrose group consumed from sucrose. It also specificaly says that the HFCS group drank less volume than the sucrose group. In other words, it appears that the HFCS group consumed *more* regular chow calories. In my mind this is another strike against HFCS -- it's been said time and again that this high concentration sweetness stimulates hunger without providing satiety, so that we're more likely to consume more calories without feeling full.

Incidentally, the HFCS solution was 8% and the sucrose solution was 10%.

Steve,
While 'they specifically measured out not only the amount of food given per day to the rats but also the amount of water. That's simple due diligence that should be expected from a scientific study.' is completely true, there is no information on the amount consumed by the rats, while they may have been given x amount each day, it would not be unheard of for one group to drink y (y<x) amount of one instead, and the full x amount for the other.

The stew example is purely illustrative, the experiment clearly states the food given to the two experiments was the same, it was just to relate to commenters the rats dependence on experiment variables for survival. I realise now a much better example would have been tube fed coffee with caffeine content as the variable. ;)

Kitchn headline: "Scientist Finally Prove..."

Article uses words like 'give insight into' and 'suggest'

I never saw the word Prove in the cited article?

You know what your audience wants to see?

Since I work for a university I have access to the original publication for this study. To clarify the HFCS and sucrose solution debate, they say "HFCS was an 8% solution (Nature's Flavors®, Formula 55, v/v dissolved in tap water, 0.24 kcal/mL), and sucrose was given as a 10% solution (Domino® Granulated Pure Cane Sugar, w/v, dissolved in tap water, 0.4 kcal/mL)."

This means that the solutions were about the same sweetness (since HFCS is sweeter than sucrose), although the sucrose solution was more caloric per unit volume.

Also, this discussion of "water weight" is besides the point - they weighed the rats after weeks of treatment, and a rat's body (just like ours) rids itself of excess water very rapidly via urination. The weight gain the rats experienced was from fat, not water. As further evidence of this, they actually dissected the rats and weighed their fat deposits.

I think this study is really interesting. Honestly, I have been avoiding HFCS for some time but my objections were mostly based on my opinions about the corn subsidies that make it cheap. I have been skeptical about claims about the health effects. This study definitely means I will continue to avoid HFCS for health reasons now, as well. However, I don't agree with the title of this post - from a science standpoint, this study supports the idea that HFCS is unheathly for people, but doesn't "prove" it. It's only one study, and it was done in rats, not people.

Oops, I provided a link, but didn't realize that I was getting access to it because I work for an academic institution -- sorry. I guess you'll just have to trust me (and ScienceandtheCity) on what the article says.

Also, I feel I should point out that their sample size was fairly small. In the experiment comparing sugar to HFCS, they had just 9 rats per group. The differences were statistically significant, but still I think the results are fairly limited. As ScienceandtheCity pointed out, there's no *proof* here, but I do think it adds to a body of evidence that HFCS may not be quite as benign as we've always thought.

Haha. You know the hilarious thing is that if you try the script from the corn industry's HFCS ads, it kind of works. There have been times when I've been talking to someone and they say something about HFCS being bad. And if you ask them why it's bad, they just kind of sputter.

Still, I'm not saying that HFCS is good. I'm just saying that many people who say it's bad don't really know why. They've just heard it is and believe it blindly. Which is bad. Obviously, it's nice to have scientific evidence to point to. But now, it's likely that these people will just start saying that there's science behind it, without having seen the actual evidence. As in now, it's that they've just heard there is a study and believe it there is. Oh well.

Irrespective of whether its good for me, i really kind of prefer corn syrup. As i mentioned in my first post i frequent the states, but live in Britain, so i am (of course) used to sugar and corn syrup is a refreshing change, its much smoother and softer than sugar. Sugar sweetened drinks and 'candy' in England can be very harsh on your mouth and almost 'acidic' feeling, (not the right word but it expresses what i am trying to get across) they feel much lighter on your stomach though, a single glass of US Coke will satisfy me, another is hard to finish. UK Coke however is much thinner, its easier to drink multiple glasses of it. But this is purely opinion.

@Wunami That's everything that's ever been studied though.
It doesn't change the facts one way or the other.
Honestly, why would you expect most people to know the difference. Especially since it's so small (hah! molecular scale joke!).

@RyanTimes
I know, my point was mostly that it draws false corollaries which is done far too often when discussing scientific studies.

But I agree with many above who've noted that this doesn't prove anything, but just gives us more data to base other studies on.

@RyanTimes
Also, that's an interesting point with preferring HFCS products over real sugar. Pepsi has recently started releasing their 'throwback' versions of sodas. They basically just replace the HFCS with real sugar. I actually prefer the throwback versions. Maybe it's just a placebo effect.

What are your thoughts about regular corn syrup (not HFCS)?

Steve
I know of the throwback versions, i tried a throwback mountain dew, didn't like it as much, it had that same sharpness that sugar drinks have for me, and as there is no MTN DEW (haha) in England i missed the smoothness of the HFCS version. After that i had a throwback Pepsi, but as i am a Coke drinker i couldn't reliably say the difference between that and a regular pepsi.
When i first heard about it i thought it was just a demand test, seeing if people were willing to foot the bill for sugar instead of HFCS. But then after i tried it i actually thought it was some kind of trick, in that they release (seemingly) inferior sugar versions to make people think (oh, HFCS is actually better.
I'm actually quite interested to experiment with this now, trying a UK sugar pepsi, US sugar pepsi and a HFCS pepsi and comparing them, seeing if the US sugar tastes worse than the UK sugar.

Also, something of note, we in the UK are still cursed with aspartame! It's in everything "diet" and a few regular drinks, can anyone link to the studies that got aspartame essentially removed from the US market?

When I found out HFCS causes weight gain etc., I removed every HFCS-laden item from my entire kitchen.

In ONE week, TEN pounds melted off me (with no other diet/lifestyle changes).

I'll never touch the stuff again.

I think it's funny that a lot of people try so hard to defend hfcs. IT'S NOT FOOD! Corn isn't even food anymore! So many of our foods have been genetically modified our bodies just don't know what to do with it anymore! Hfcs is just a small portion of the overall problem. We need to just get back to real food that people would recognize 100 years ago!

100 years ago? You are going to have to go much further back than that if you want 'real' unprocessed food like you seem to be saying.

Judging by what my coworkers eat, and how overweight they are...I would probably stay away from all over-processed foods regardless of what's in it...blech.

It's good to see lots of productive discussion in the comments. However, to cite an academic study and then use it to write something completely unproven and hyperbolic like "Sure a candy bar packs a punch and for lack of a better phrase, really satisfies you, but it will do more damage than eating an entire tray of cookies fresh from the oven (and then some)" is just stupid. It really makes this blog look uncredible, and it portrays folks who avoid HFCS as a dietary fringe.

The #1 reason that HFCS is so popular today is political. There is mounting evidence that the stuff is worse for our bodies than sugar, but we know very little of the extent to which that is true. So, if we want to actually make the food that's available to us healthier, the last thing we should be doing is looking like a bunch of unreasonable absolutists.

I dislike sweet drinks, but here is advise for those who do enjoy them:
Next week is Passover. Many Jews do not eat corn products during Passover and many major food manufacturers (Even Coca Cola) produce special runs for that market, using cane sugar. Look carefully at the labels.
This is a special opportunity for celiac sufferers as well - albeit the products have different taste. Potato starch is used in place of wheat.

I agree that 'support' should replace 'prove' in the headline. It's one small study, albeit one that 'supports' what a whole lot of people understand intuitively.

@ tsbbq:

if you are really interested with the motives of the researcher then visit their university page & read the abstracts to their research papers: http://weblamp.princeton.edu/~psych/psychology/research/hoebel/index.php

And your response to another comment:
"As for the comment '...the reasons for the US adopting HFCS are stupid (no trade with South America)...' - where pray tell did you come up with that one? US manufacturers adopted HFCS due to price, nothing else."

unfortunately, there is some truth to the trade comment. there is a wonderful (if not dry) book by Professor Jack R. Kloppenburg,that confronts the American obession with corn in a bioethical manner: "First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000 (Cambridge U. Press)."

i do agree that prove was poor word choice for the title of the article.

It is wonderful to read of the dangers of consuming HFCS.

However, I would not put on even an ounce if I ate foods containing it because I have an intolerance to it and my body has to get rid of it one way or the other!

Never have read anything about an intolerance and I know I am not the only person out there with this condition.

Where are the others and why don't they speak up?

I think HFCS is addictive. It took my some time to break my drink, that included HFCS, habit.

To quote the study... "fructose intake might not result in the degree of satiety that would normally ensue with a meal of glucose or sucrose, and this could contribute to increased body weight"

Ars technica also has done an article on a number of issues with this paper:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/does-high-fructose-corn-syrup-make-you-fatter.ars

(Oh, and its published in an obscure journal with an impact factor of 2.7)

I always love that Snapple's tagline is "Made From The Best Stuff On Earth" with the top ingredient generally being HFCS.

I switched to Honest Tea years ago and am never going back to that sugar water that Snapple tries to pass off as iced tea.

We try to eat real food. Anything processed enough to contain HFCS is usually junk. Luckily, I shop at grocery stores that sell real food. It is quite refreshing...

Animals with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained 48 percent more weight than those eating a normal diet. In humans, this would be equivalent to a 200-pound man gaining 96 pounds.

First of all, you're misquoting the article. That last sentence is NOT in the actual piece.

Second of all, it's plain wrong. That's not what "gained 48 percent more weight" means. It means that if the man on a normal diet gained 1 pound, the HFCS eating man would gain 1.48 pounds.

If all the HFCS would be replaced by sugar but people still ingested the same amount of calories I'd be very surprised if there was a drop in obesity. The reasons for obesity are more or less the same everywhere: too much processed food with too much fat and sugar, too many calories, too little exercise, and stress caused by poverty. So, I'm am happy that in Europe we are using mostly sugar, but I don't expect banning HFCS will solve the general problem.

I recommend a blog post on this study by Marion Nestle, author of the books Food Politics and What to Eat, and a professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at NYU. She is skeptical of the way Princeton conducted their HFCS study; and in the comments to her post, one of the Princeton researchers responds to her criticism point by point.
http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/03/hfcs-makes-rats-fat/#comments

For the record, even though I have a lot of respect for Marion Nestle, I just don't trust processed foods. So I avoid HFCS and artificial sweeteners. I'd rather have a little bit of real sugar. Someone else asked about regular corn syrup - I would (and do) use it, but only in baking. (I don't know many people that use regular corn syrup to sweeten drinks.) Regular corn syrup is natural and has not had its sugars converted.

By the way, is agave syrup really better for you than sugar? I've heard that it's actually quite processed, hydrolyzed, and contains a high amount of fructose as well. Could the agave syrup trend simply be a case of good marketing and mislabeling a processed food "natural"?

RyanTimes

What makes you think Aspartame has been removed from the US market? That stuff is in everything diet these days. Gradually we're getting more options, including Splenda and the like, but Aspartame (marketed under the name 'NutraSweet') is very much alive and well. This is unfortunate, as I, personally, can't ingest the stuff without life threatening consequences. I'm far from the only one - there are studies surfacing that suggest the stuff is a lot more dangerous than a lot of others - and while I've not read any of them directly, I know that it is more dangerous for me. In my opinion, it never should have been approved in the first place.

The only sweeteners that were really banned here were Cylcamates - and while they had their own issues, they were, in my opinion, based on what data is publicly available, generally safer than Nutrasweet/Aspartame by several orders of magnitude. The diet soda 'Fresca' was taken off the market when Cyclamates were banned in the late seventies, and has only just returned to market - sweetened with - you guessed it - aspartame.

It should be noted that Cyclamates are still available in Canada.

It's amazing what junk is in food these days - you simply MUST read labels if you're going to try and stay healthy. I have issues with Nutrasweet, and loathe HFCS. My housemate has Crohn's Disease, and is sensitive to beef, and some dyes and artificial flavours - just to start. And a frequent visitor to our home is completely celiac intolerant - you wouldn't believe what all gluten finds its way into.

Overall, the landscape for healthy food is improving, but it's expensive, and sometimes hard to find as yet, and being careful to read those labels is imperative. For my part, I'm phasing out heavily processed foods of all kinds - only time will tell if the effects are worth the added effort and expense.

Regarding the iced tea/snapple debate: Snapple is disgusting. But, instead of buying another type of tea, I just make my own. It's a million times cheaper, generates less waste, and I control it. I make a pitcher full each week, and use the same glass bottle (an old Honest Tea one) to bring it to work. Making tea is really easy.

Cinnabear - I'm right there with you on the aversion to Aspartame. I used to get migraine headaches 3 or 4 times a week during a periodn when I was drinking one Diet Coke a day. I quit drinking diet soda and haven't had a migraine since (that was 5 years ago). But aspartame is hard to avoid - I don't chew gum anymore and stay away from almost all sugar-free, lite, or diet foods.

WOW soapbox much?

Really...use your dollar to get rid of this nasty product once and for all...

Let me read the actual study not an excerpt from a summarized excerpt and make up my own mind.

I would think anything high in calories would cause weight gain...I still see no reason not to eat HFCS in moderation.

Mary @ theECLECTIClifestyle.com: Do you realize that agave nectar/syrup is actually about 92% fructose? That's a higher level than even HFCS. High levels of fructose ingestion can result in hyperinsulinemia, or too much insulin in the blood, which is dangerous for diabetes type II sufferers. Stevia, on the other hand, may be a better choice, as it's been indicated to possibly raise insulin production, but tests are still being done to find a recommended dosage.

RyanTimes: Your perception of the differences in the HFCS vs sugar soft drinks is totally strange to me, because as an American my perception of their tastes is completely the opposite. Drinks made with regular sugar (like Mexican Coke: http://www.lifeofjustin.com/mexican-coke-3043/) taste and feel "smoother" and less harsh than regular American soft drinks (even the difference between Mexican and American Coke). It even tastes sweeter- like the reviewer mentions, the American version even has a more bitter tang. Now having said that ... I do sometimes reach for regular Coke rather than other soft drinks when I do actually want a less sweet drink.

all I've got to say is this. Watch the documentary King Corn, and you will realize why there is so much HFCS on the market.

http://www.kingcorn.net/

1st experiment - OK, you have a point.

2nd experiment - apples vs oranges anyone? The experiment measured a diet of rat chow verses rat chow high fructose corn syrup. There was NO addition of sugar to the non HFCS side of the experiment. All this proves is that eating more calories (and possibly a preference for sweet things which might equate to overeating) equals more weight gain...nothing more.

It is frustrating to see scientists pass this off as something relavent to everyday society. If you're going to eat something sweet...you're going to eat something sweet. The difference is how it is sweetened. This article is misleading. *frown* a first for the kitchn.

I agree with those who are skeptical about the study. I'm very critical of it. Ask any natural scientist to read the article and explain it to you, and they will tell you that the conclusions are premature. The results are inconclusive, actually, and yes, it's "apples to oranges." Check out the charts yourself. STOP reading the articles written by secondary sources and LOOK UP the scientific article released by Princeton. Anyone with a college degree should be able to tell you that the charts don't show you what the abstract and conclusion do. People need to start being more critical of the news, honestly.

HFCS is more expensive to produce than regular sugar (cane or beet). It began to replace sugar as a sweetener in the US as a result of lobbying from the agribusiness consortiums which were looking for new ways to capitalize on their consolidation of control over the corn harvest.

ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) is a major player in this effort. Using millions of dollars in 'persuasion' they got the USDA to impose tariffs on foreign sugar, thus making HFCS 'cheaper' for US food processors. This kind of "cheaper" is the same as the "green" energy that is supposed to save the planet. We all pay much higher prices for power because of obscene subsidies (taxes stolen from all of us and dispensed to the favored few) bestowed on wind and solar to make them "competitive" with coal, oil and other 'fossil' fuels which are then taxed and tariffed to artificially raise their cost to consumers.

This attack on foreign sugar producers and US consumers went mostly unchallenged until ADM managed to 'persuade' the USDA to impose internal tariffs on domestic sugar growers thus shutting Hawaiian sugar out of the market (yes, we can still buy sugar but it's price is much higher than that paid by people outside the US without a subsequent increase in profitability to sugar farmers or processors). Sugar beets used to be a prominent crop in the United States due to domestic consumption but nearly all growers quit and started growing corn because they could no longer compete with ADM subsidized HFCS.

HFCS is dangerous because it raises the levels of undigested sugars in the body while also reducing the sensation of satiety; thus causing consumers to eat or drink more. Artificial sweeteners should include amongst their numbers HFCS because it is artificial (as is agave syrup). The agriculture lobbyists and food processors are to blame for the mess they've made of our food but the true culprit is the USDA and the Congress. These criminals forced this and other poisons on us. We need to avoid poisons in our food by reading labels (a good thing from Congress; having labels to read) but we shouldn't have to pay taxes or read labels to avoid having these things forced, literally, down our throats.

I have been studying the dangers of HFCS for some time. First I want to offer to all readers that this article is a summery of the Princeton findings not the empirical full blind and additional control factors data. So trying to find holes in the test from this very capsulated article are well, a big waste of time. I would like to let Ryan Times know, with no disrespect, that although this is not Oxford, Princeton’s science arm knows full well how to develop an impartial study test of chemical additives such as HFCS. So please… Economics may be the drivers of food manufacturers use of such a derivative substance, as well as government controls of imports, but science still remains science, and there are sound processes used in all such studies, further to this the peers of science, would ridicule any report just based on bad science, in the science journals as well as the dean of the school could come under ridicule and loss of his seat. That is why the word ‘published’ when used not by us who publish our opinions on the internet wherever we may is a much more vetted and serious matter when it comes to the big 10 or any University worth it’s salt when it releases a ‘published’ article of research findings. Further to this you don’t get recognized as a top medical and science University for taking short cuts or ‘fixing’ a test for results.

Now if you think Princeton might be capable of conducting such a controlled experiment then trust the data and take action to stop endorsing the use of HFCS in your Barbeque sauces, drinks, vitamin waters, Gatorade (for athletes, wow!) by not voicing your opinion to the makers, and start having it removed. BTW, Hunts Catsup has already removed it and proudly says so on it’s Catsup bottles. (I guess they didn’t believe those HFCS ads either). Oh and for the record to Mr. Ryan Times as I believe you mentioned you are from the UK. The British Government and EU governments have banned the use of HFCS as a food additive… hmm I wonder why? Perhaps the drain on their National health systems for obesity and cancerous tumors might be more important than allowing food manufacturers to use unnatural ingredients that are created as fuel additive byproducts in their citizen’s food supplies. Should our government not be doing the same? Thanks for reading.

Maybe high-fructose corn syrup (HCFS) is inherently more of a cause of obesity than ordinary cane sugar, but the studies that are commonly cited as evidence are unconvincing. The first Princeton study, which concluded that HFCS is more obesity-producing than corn syrup, is fallacious because the group of rats receiving the high-fructose-corn-syrup solution got a different concentration than those receiving the cane-sugar solution. For the experiment to be scientific, both groups need to be treated the same way in all respects except for receiving the active principals involved. This type of error is very common in many "scientific" experiments these days--especially "double-blind" experiments involving pharmaceuticals (see http://www.chuckrowtaichi.com/DoubleBlind.html).

In the second Princeton experiment, the effects of HFCS were not compared with those of cane sugar.

Instead of worrying about rats, experiment on yourself. Give up all foods with high fructose corn syrup--all. If that means not eating a fast food restaurant, so be it. Drink tea with a little stevia or sugar in it instead of cold drinks.
In six weeks, you will never want to go back to eating junky chemicals again. Just get it out of your system, and see how much better you will feel--and you will probably not get colds or the flu ever again. However, you might feel a little funny at first as your thankful body starts getting rid of toxins when your first start eating healthy.
Give up high fructose corn syrup for your health. If people would not eat it, then companies would get the chemical out of their foods. They do it for high shelf life.

What I found interesting was not only the results from experiment 1, but also experiment 2.

Experiment 1: given the same caloric intake, the rats fed HFCS gained more weight. Ryan suggests that may be water weight, but then . . .

Experiment 2: Rats fed HFCS gained visceral fat and had more triglycerides in their system, compared with rats with a normal diet.

Heightened levels of triglycerides has been linked to coronary artery disease, and visceral fat has been shown to contribute to type II diabetes.

HCFS isn't processed or used by the body the same way that naturally occuring sugars are.

As for taste, I prefer the Pepsi with the HFCS to the 'throwback' stuff. But then, I've cut way back on my sodas these days.

Has it occured to anyone to just simply lay off all the sweets???? And maybe go out for a run. A few miles.

We need to be careful. HFCS producers have petitioned the FDA to use the phrase "corn sugar" in place of high-fructose corn syrup on ingredient labels. THAT is why the commercials started popping up, so the general public would get used to the term and not think much of it when they see it on the label. We may not be able to completely eliminate it from our diets (hey, I still drink soda and have the odd candy bar now and then) but if we keep reading labels and stay informed...we can get/maintain control of what we put into our bodies. These are getting to be scary times. I read today that this year alone 3 new bio-tech crops have been approved for planting this season, funny how that doesn't make the 11 o clock news.

I check everything for HFCS and don't buy it. I bought some Ken's salad dressing last year. recently I read the ingredients. Tops on the list was HFCS. I called them and told them to record my call and listen while I poured an unopened down the drain. I discovered some Kraft BBQ sauce with HCFC in it. Damn! I was pissed. I call them chewed them out. I told them to play the tape for the company hochos 'cause I chewed asses like an army DI--language included, and that felt great. I buy Mexican Cokes when I can get there, and Jarritos at the grocery store close by. Regular coke tastes like swill now.

A few years ago i was informed about the possible affects of HFCS. I started then to be more aware of the ingredients hiding on a label. Since changing my diet to consume less...my overall health and well being have made a turn for the better. i haven't felt this good in years. It takes determination and sacrifice. i completely became to what is referred to as a "health-nut". I try at all possible to avoid all and any processed foods, which is EXTREMELY hard. I also tried to drink more water, sleep more, exercise more. And in turn i have lost 20+ lbs, and never felt more alive.

For someone who wants to stir the pot of debate on the consumerism of processed foods, watch the movie: FOOD INC. Its a good one to think about and decide for yourself. You can buy it online pretty cheap, or if you have netflix..just instant queue it up.
It helped me reassure myself even more that i am making the right decision with my food/diet decisions.

As far as the article using the word 'prove' in the title, and by no means am I some scientist or toxocologist type of thing, I think it's fine. I simply interpret that the study fed some rats 'X' diet sweetened with table sugar, and other rats were fed 'X' diet sweetened with HFCS. If the rats who got the HFCS gained 48% more weight than the other rats, then to me that proves HFCS is worse, as gaining weight is a serious health risk. Now that part where they say that means a 200 lb person would gain 96 lbs is absolutely off base. Yes, 48% of 200 is 96, but that wasn't the point, so stating that is very wrong. As an earlier post pointed out, it just means that the rats who got the HFCS gained 1.48 more than those that didn't. So if a rat who didn't get the HFCS weighed exactly 1 pound, and after the experiment let's hypothetically say gained another quarter of or .25 pounds, then a rat who also weighed exactly 1 pound who did get the HFCS, after the experiment then gained .37 pounds. You multiply the 48% by the amount of the weight gain. You don't multiply the 48% by what the subject totally weighs.

Now realizing anyone can say anything they want online about anything, I take it all at face value, unless it can be concretely verified by other reputable sources. Then, I would truly believe what is written. With that being said, everytime I read someone say when they use to eat loads of HFCS, and then eliminated HFCS from their diet, they ALL say their bodies/health are substantially noticiably better from losing weight, to less acne, to more energy and so on it goes. NO ONE says if they start using HFCS/begin to add HFCS to their diet, and/or consume more HFCS in their diets that they're losing weight, becoming healthier, etc. And the minority few folks it seems who are defending HFCS, clearly have a conflict of interest. When 60 minutes interviewed the corn farmer, my own gut feeling is the guy deep down really didn't want to do the interview, and was lying through his teeth. To me, if I was part of producing a good product, and it was getting a bad rap, I'd welcome you doing an interview with me and say hit me with your best shot.

The facts I know first hand that are true, is that HFCS is found in all the junk food, all the processed food, all the unnatural food. I too am amazed where I found HFCS in the stuff I use to eat from pop tarts to Jack Daniels BBQ sauce. I never use to drink soda. Instead, I use to drink juice, and the acid was getting to me, so I switched to soda. The stuff was like addictive, and no matter how much I drank, I just kept sucking down 2 liter bottles like nothing. I began to crave the soda, and seemed like I could drink it endlessly. Here's where I can see first hand how the companies using HFCS in their products love and want to protect it, because it not only costs them so much less as has been clearly pointed out, it's not satisfying and does ABSOLUTELY get you to consume more which equals vast amounts of more profit. Always wondered how a 2 liter Coke is still only like a dollar. Consuming more junk, getting fat, more folks having medical problems than ever before it's black and white to me. Do I have to be chemist to logically deduce that if there is all this HFCS in what people are eating verse before, and diabets and heart disease is skyrocketing verse before, that HFCS is deadly?

Am wondering what if any responsibility we feel the stores/supermarkets should take that sell products loaded with HFCS and things like cigarettes. I understand it's a free market/society and that they're allowed to make profit, yet somehow I think they should do more in alerting their customers about unhealthy stuff. Like the cigarettes are behind the counter, and have a warning label, perhaps the junk food/HFCS needs similar treatment. If you get lung cancer, I don't blame the tobacco company that warned you, or the supermarket that didn't have the pack on the shelf. I am all for freedom and choices and the ability to decide if I want to smoke or have a soda. Just please have the company & store openly and clearly tell me that if the product being made/sold is not healthy for my body. That way, if I want to sacrifice my body/health for some pleasure, I am the one responsible and not you.