[Maverick]

HFCS high fructose corn syrup is responsible for a dangerous epidemic of obesity and diabetes. People under the age of 45 are “children of the corn.” Like Stephen King's thriller, they are reaping the consequences...

FROM WIKI:

Jones Soda announced that the company will launch its 12 ounce canned soda (January 2007) sweetened with pure cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. The brand will be called Jones Pure Cane Soda and will be sold as a 12 ounce can package. As of March 2007, a 12 ounce bottle of Jones Pure Cane Soda Root Beer lists in its ingredients "inverted cane sugar", which seems to mean the same thing as inverted sugar syrup, which, like HFCS, is a mixture of fructose and glucose.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! SORRY EVIL CORPORATE AMERICA! I HAVE TO CALL YOU ON THIS BS!! I don't get involved in thinking that corporations are EVIL but THIS IS..they know EXACTLY what they are doing..marketing this to people who DONT KNOW...what INVERTED CANE SUGAR IS....some people ONLY buy SODA WITHOUT HFCS LIKE ME!

So....Was at the store last night..was buying some REAL CANE root beer from Goose Island RB company(which is YUMMMY)...saw the Jones "neat" packaging that said "REAL CANE SODA"...wow..I said..almost bought a case...picked up a bottle and read more..."INVERTED CANE SUGAR"...WOW WAS I PISSSSED! That is PURE EVIL! I will NEVER BUY JONES SODA NOW!...First because they LIE...Second because its made with the SAME CRAP AS HFCS!

[phatch]

Cane sugar itself is sucrose, a 1:1 combined molecule of fructose and glucose.

So creating a syrup out of it doesn't change that. It just frees the fructose and glucose into separate molecules, which is the same thing your body does.

If it's inverted, it seems to be less sweet tasting than standard sucrose so you'd need more for the same sweetness which would not be the best thing for health, true.

However, HFCS can have ratios as high as 9:1 fructose to glucose, but this is usually mixed wtih a glucose corn syrup to createa 55% fructose to 45% glucose solution for use in beverages. This is very close to the standard sucrose, a difference of only 5%, but that 5% is what qualifies it as HIGH Fructose corn syrup. However, fructose tastes sweeter than sucrose so using a slightly higher amount of fructose in syrup saves them money in sweetening.

There have been links shown to high consumption of fructose as risky but a diet enjoying soda in moderation is not poison as claimed so often. On the other hand, many people rave about honey as a healthy sweetener, but it's essentially the same breakdown of fructose to glucose as HFCS55 though there are some trace other sugars too.

Does sucrose (cane sugar) taste better? I think so. Does it have a SLIGHTLY better health aspect. Yes, but it too is a diabetes and obesity risk if consumed in large quantities.

Phil

[BevReview Steve]

I had a biology/chem person e-mail me about this topic a while back. With their permission, I posted their comments. Perhaps that would help this discussion.

[bbay]

EDIT:
wow!
i really need to look at other threads before i post.
sorry.
there's already a 'HFCS' topic running.

[newman8r]

Originally Posted by phatch

Cane sugar itself is sucrose, a 1:1 combined molecule of fructose and glucose.

So creating a syrup out of it doesn't change that. It just frees the fructose and glucose into separate molecules, which is the same thing your body does.

If it's inverted, it seems to be less sweet tasting than standard sucrose so you'd need more for the same sweetness which would not be the best thing for health, true.

However, HFCS can have ratios as high as 9:1 fructose to glucose, but this is usually mixed wtih a glucose corn syrup to createa 55% fructose to 45% glucose solution for use in beverages. This is very close to the standard sucrose, a difference of only 5%, but that 5% is what qualifies it as HIGH Fructose corn syrup. However, fructose tastes sweeter than sucrose so using a slightly higher amount of fructose in syrup saves them money in sweetening.

There have been links shown to high consumption of fructose as risky but a diet enjoying soda in moderation is not poison as claimed so often. On the other hand, many people rave about honey as a healthy sweetener, but it's essentially the same breakdown of fructose to glucose as HFCS55 though there are some trace other sugars too.

Does sucrose (cane sugar) taste better? I think so. Does it have a SLIGHTLY better health aspect. Yes, but it too is a diabetes and obesity risk if consumed in large quantities.

Phil

Yeah it may not seem like a big difference, but when you take a look at the volumes of HFCS containing soft drinks being consumed in the United States, that's where the problems begin.

I'm not sure how the exact proportions of glucose:fructose work out in most soft drinks so I can't comment on that. But you say it's a 5% difference - when you start considering the huge volumes being consumed it can make a bigger difference than you think.

Molecular biology is a complex subject (it's what I majored in), and sure - pretty early on in metabolism (glycolysis) all these sugars become pyruvate anyway. That's not to say there's not something else going on there, the fact that sucrose has to be split into fructose and glucose by beta-fructosidase in the intestinal epithelial cells. may very well be something that's important to health. It could very well be linked to obesity and diabetes, although I don't have anything to support that claim.

It's kind of narrow-minded to say that HFCS is responsible for obesity and diabetes in the US - we live in a fast food nation, people have horrible diets. Unhealthy soft drinks are just one piece of the puzzle.