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EATING 06.27.2008 BY WEETABIX

the high fructose corn syrup publicity machine is beginning

Whoopsie, apparently all of our (and Michael Pollan's) hating on high-fructose corn syrup is starting to ruffle some feathers, specifically those of the people who make their money selling high-fructose corn syrup. They're fighting back with a major PR campaign that is trying to convince worried moms that corn syrup is as natural as honey. Really? I know, I didn't believe it either, but here's what they had to say in their press release:

HFCS, like table sugar and honey, is natural. It is made from corn, a natural grain product. HFCS contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives and meets FDA's requirements for the use of the term "natural."

Hmmm... to get honey, you fight your way through some bees and crack open a honey comb and blammo, you've got your honey right there. With maple syrup, you tap some trees and then condense it down through boiling and blammo, maple syrup. Pretty much the same process with sugar beets and sugar cane, although you have to mash those first and then throw them into a colander to strain them. In fact, if you had the raw ingredients, you could totally make beet sugar or maple syrup in your own kitchen. But corn syrup? Here's the recipe from Linda Joyce Forristal, in case you want to make it at home (except, well, you probably don't have an industrial factory for a kitchen).

First, cornstarch is treated with alpha-amylase to produce shorter chains of sugars called polysaccharides. Alpha-amylase is industrially produced by a bacterium, usually Bacillus sp. It is purified and then shipped to HFCS manufacturers. Next, an enzyme called glucoamylase breaks the sugar chains down even further to yield the simple sugar glucose. Unlike alpha-amylase, glucoamylase is produced by Aspergillus, a fungus, in a fermentation vat where one would likely see little balls of Aspergillus floating on the top. The third enzyme, glucose-isomerase, is very expensive. It converts glucose to a mixture of about 42 percent fructose and 50-52 percent glucose with some other sugars mixed in. While alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are added directly to the slurry, pricey glucose-isomerase is packed into columns and the sugar mixture is then passed over it. Inexpensive alpha-amylase and glucoamylase are used only once, glucose-isomerase is reused until it loses most of its activity. There are two more steps involved. First is a liquid chromatography step that takes the mixture to 90 percent fructose. Finally, this is back-blended with the original mixture to yield a final concentration of about 55 percent fructose--what the industry calls high fructose corn syrup.

Sounds pretty straight forward, huh? All enyzme-y and natural? I think it would be easier to make your own Legos from scratch, honestly, but let's see how gullible the average consumer is, shall we?

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6 Comments

G.G. said:

Yeah--cocaine is a natural product, too, and so is its more concentrated relative--crack. All natural! The only problem with them is that pesky legality issue. Maybe they need a PR campaign or something.

June 27, 2008 2:33 PM

bee said:

oh, i have to say that campaign makes me laugh, big-time. sorry, HFCS folks, you're never going to convince me (and hopefully no one else) that your product is similar to honey.

oh lordy, good for a laugh, though.

*wipes tear from eye*

June 27, 2008 2:51 PM

whyme63 said:

Meh. Their ad campaign doesn't impress me.
I get my propaganda closer to home--my two older brothers are executives at a corn refinery.

I thought my politics pissed them off, but that is nothing to the way they get riled up about my stand on HFCS.

June 27, 2008 11:30 PM

M. said:

Why is it the day I searched your site for Michael Pollan, it came up with no hits? Then I proceeded to blather on about him in like 4 responses. And now I see this. Hahah. Oops. Someone should have told me to STFU... :-P

(I mean, I appreciate the kindness, but it must've been annoying. I am really sorry!)

June 29, 2008 11:04 PM

Jason said:

This campaign completely misses the point. It argues only that corn-syrup is natural because it comes from corn, a natural product. This is as effective arguing that polka is indeed a real form of music because it has both pitch and rhythm. I still don't want to listen to it.

These statements fail to address the two reasons for which I hate corn syrup:

1. Corn syrup is still a sugar and is loaded with empty calories.

2. Products made with corn syrup do not taste as good as those made from cane sugar. In fact I think corn syrup has a slight aftertaste.

Comparing corn syrup to honey because they're both natural sweeteners? Give me a break! If I may refer back to my previous analogy: Polka, then, must be on the same level as Beethoven's symphonies since they're both music of German origin.

June 30, 2008 6:33 PM

Jen said:

I think the biggest problem with HFCS is that it's so cheap that food factories just pump food full of the stuff. Everything is so incredibly sweet that we lose our taste for normal food. And the 50-gallon-drum-sized sodas and unlimited refills didn't make their appearance until after HFCS. So maybe it's not that the stuff is so unhealthy in itself as much as it made a lot of unhealthy phenomena possible.

Still, I think sodas tasted better when they had regular sugar in them. Something about HFCS leaves a sour taste in my mouth afterward. I'm not convinced it's NOT bad for you. And avoiding it is so difficult that you're bound to cut out a lot of junk food if you try.

But yeah, all natural = healthy? Arsenic is all-natural too, and I still don't want it in my breakfast cereal.

July 2, 2008 10:22 PM

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