Corn Refiners ask FDA to replace “HFCS” with “Corn Sugar”
The Corn Refiners Association is asking the FDA to allow a change in the name of their embattled sweetener from High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to Corn Sugar.
Of course they want this change. HFCS is the new trans fat. Everyone thinks HFCS is poison.
For the record once again, HFCS is not poison. It is just a mixture of glucose and fructose in almost the same proportions as table sugar, sucrose.
Mind you, I am not fond of the idea that Americans use 60 pounds of corn sweeteners per capita per year and another 60 pounds of table sugar, and I am not particularly eager to help the Corn Refiners sell more of their stuff.
But you can understand the Corn Refiners’ pain: food companies are getting rid of HFCS as fast as they can and replacing it with table sugar.
This move is driven not only by bad press, but also by the fact that the price differential has all but disappeared. HFCS started out at one-third the cost of table sugar. Growing corn to make alcohol changed all that.
Let’s give the Corn Refiners credit for calling a sugar a sugar. I would prefer Corn Sugars (plural) to indicate that it is a mixture of glucose and fructose. But as long as they don’t call it “natural,” the change is OK with me.
But I’m wondering if it’s too late. Maybe anything with the word “corn” in it will be enough to turn people off? According to the Associated Press, the Corn Refiners are already using Corn Sugar in their advertising, so we will soon find out.
Your thoughts?
Additional historical note: Thanks to a reader, candyprofessor.com, who is evidently a fount of information about such things, for this enlightening tidbit:
In the early 1900s, what we call “corn syrup” was sold as “glucose,” the chemical name for the type of sugar derived from corn starches. Food reformers pointed to the “glucose” in candy and claimed that candy was poisoned with “glue.” So the corn producers lobbied to have “glucose” renamed “corn syrup.” Sounds like we’re coming around again full circle…now “corn syrup” is poison!
Updates, September 15: Tara Parker-Pope writes about this in the New York Times (and quotes me). So does Michele Simon on her blog. As usual, Simon says it like it is:
As a result of this demonizing, we are now in the ridiculous situation where food companies are falling over each other to remove HFCS from their products, slap on a natural label, and get brownie points for helping Americans eat better….Only Big Food would find a way to make a product full of refined white sugar (which at one time was also demonized) seem like a healthy alternative. It’s like I always say, the food industry is very good at taking criticism and turning it into a marketing opportunity.
How, I wonder, will the Corn Refiners manage this one? Not so easily, judging from readers’ comments.
Update, September 16: Fo0dNavigator.com reports that more than half of Americans surveyed will not buy products with HFCS. Market researchers are advising food companies to get rid of it.
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Comments
Marion, Do you know if the price differential has narrowed just because of demand for other corn-based products, or has there been a dramatic reduction in subsidies for the industry. It would be interesting to know if we are finally stopping these crazy subsidies for food stuffs turned into junk-food ingredients.
Thanks for the reminder that HFCS is not a poison because so many people believe it is. The fact that over 1/2 million people have watched Dr. Lustig’s – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM – video the HFCS/poison connection is the reason.
Ken Leebow
http://www.HighSatiety.net
added sugar is added sugar…we don’t really need most of the added sugar found in a lot of processed foods, regardless of the origin of the sugar or what that sugar is called.
I don’t know about giving them credit for calling it a sugar–syrup sounds nice and artificial–which is what it is, right? Could we dare hope that it is too late? Seems like people are starting to read the labels and understand that processed food is worth some scrutiny. If so then the renaming just reads like a corporate attempt to gloss things over–and it shouldn’t succeed.
In the early 1900s, what we call “corn syrup” was sold as “glucose,” the chemical name for the type of sugar derived from corn starches. Food reformers pointed to the “glucose” in candy and claimed that candy was poisoned with “glue.” So the corn producers lobbied to have “glucose” renamed “corn syrup.” Sounds like we’re coming around again full circle…now “corn syrup” is poison! I tell the glucose story here: http://candyprofessor.com/2009/09/28/glue-cose/
Studies are starting to show that it’s not just another innocent sugar. Those studies are showing a link between obesity and higher intake of HFCS over the last 30 years. All I can say is stop eaching so much sugar, in any form. Period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup#Obesity
[...] [...]
I agree that HFCS should not simply be replaced by a wholesale reversion to cane sugar, however…
The use of cheap corn syrup in processed foods has displaced the fat content of foods as part of the “fear of fats” that began with Ancel Keyes lipid hypothesis. This has made processed food doubly unhealthy: more sweeteners, fewer healthy fats.
There are scientific studies that suggest that HFCS is metabolized differently in the body and its increasing use in processed foods may be leading to obesity, metabolic syndrome, and chronic disease. See, for example, http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/04/fructose-vs-glucose-showdown.html
All this on top of the detection of mercury in HFCS introduced in the processing of corn into sugar. Also, you will be eating GMOs if you eat anything with HFCS in it.
What’s to like?
It’s not corn sugar, it’s corn starch that has been highly refined to be HFCS, and some of those processes use heavy metals. Used? Not up to date on how it’s processed.
Anyway, that’s like TVP asking to be called something more user friendly. HFCS is a processed product, using chemical processes. Beet sugar and cane sugar are far less processed.
A rose, by any other name….
If they want a better reputation, they need to earn it. Changing your name to change your reputation is what fraudsters and celebrities do, it’s not what food does.
It’s time to stop subsidizing the stuff! Stop telling farmers what to grow!
I agree that there’s nothing inherently poisonous about HFCS. But considering how much corn is grown for purposes other than eating, perhaps it’s best that America starts to wean off the stuff so our people and our animals can become healthier.
[...] http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/09/corn-refiners-ask-fda-to-replace-hfcs-with-corn-sugar/ [...]
[...] Corn Refiners ask FDA to replace “HFCS” with “Corn Sugar” (Marion Nestle, Food Politics): For the record once again, HFCS is not poison. It is just a mixture of glucose and fructose in almost the same proportions as table sugar, sucrose. [...]
Is the Corn Refiners Association petitioning the FDA to call both high fructose corn syrup AND corn syrup “corn sugar?”
Marion, your last question is very interesting. ‘Is it too late?’ is a very interesting subject for discussion. In my personal experience reading the nutrition information on various food items, I will see the word ‘corn’ and become immediately wary. To me, ‘Corn Sugar’ is no less an item to pass over than HFCS.
My current reflex, before research or reading, is to be extremely suspicious of anything that reads ‘Corn [blank]‘.
That said, having done a fair amount of reading and research for my personal interest on many aspects of Nutrition, my perspective may be jaded. The Corn Refiners may indeed be able to turn a larger profit with this change.
I would like to see a good poll taken on the reactions to Corn Sugar vs. HFCS.
This is just another attempt by the food industry to avoid fixing the problem by sidestepping the real problem altogether. Why can’t we have REAL labeling, labeling that actually tells us what is in our food and how it’s made instead of telling us only what the food industry wants us to know or thinks we will understand?
That, my friends, is a lot of sugar per day.
I think I will set up a little demonstration at work on donut day displaying the amount of sugar the average american eats per day, every day. The google tells me that this is about 150 grams, which is a lot of sugar.
Which wouldn’t be so bad if it was only applied externally, but we’re eating the stuff, and at that amount, it sure can’t be good for us…
Thanks for sharing the news about this. This name change could have pretty wide set of complicated effects. Hopefully, for one, it will stop companies from advertising cane sugar like a health product. (Check out this Jones’ Soda page if you don’t believe me.) Ultimately, this should also lead to better research into HFCS’ health effects- if it is just like sugar, let’s call it sugar. If it isn’t people should know that.
The issue, as you rightly note, is the amount of sugar (sweet stuff or whatever name one puts to it) eaten per year, regardless of the source. I look for regular sugar (cane, usually over beet) just because I dislike the idea of Big Ag engineering all these corn products they call “food” and peddling them to the public as such. Mostly, though, I eat fresh fruit when I get a sweet tooth or a bit of chocolate (sweetened of course) of high quality and fair-traded. They would all go broke if they depended on me!
My thoughts echo many of those here: they can rename it if they want to, I’m still not buying it.
A poll simply asking people if they’d buy something if it said “corn sugar” instead of “high fructose corn syrup” would be interesting, and perhaps somewhat predictable – I think most people would see through it though. What if people weren’t presented with just those two ingredients, but instead they were presented with two similar products, one with “corn sugars” the other with “HFCS” and asked if they’d buy either one (or none)? I wonder if more people would be fooled if it was presented to them the way it would be on the package in the store.
For me, they can call it what they want but I won’t feed it to my children. There are reputable by leading universities indicating that our bodies do not process the fructose/glucose mix in HFCS the same way as table sugar.
We have also witnessed both of my children, but my son in particular, have severe reactions when exposed to HFCS. We just shared our story at http://feedourfamilies.com.
Real food does not include HFCS. We’ll stick with that and continue helping other parents do the same.
[...] as Food Politics author Marion Nestle succinctly points out, “HFCS is the new trans fat.” In other words, the public, driven by an [...]
[...] Food Politics [...]
A rose thorn by any other name is just as prickly.
They are looking for protection under the politically protected ‘sugar’ umbrella.
Marion–
Do you know the difference between HFCS and Corn Syrup? Is Corn Syrup just glucose and HFCS has, well, high fructose so that it’s closer to sucrose? If that’s the case, why do somethings have both? Why do some just have Corn Syrup and not High Fructose, why one over the other?
Will corn syrup (what you claim used to be called Glucose) still be labeled “corn syrup” while high fructose corn syrup will be “corn sugar”? Won’t this be even more confusing? We’ll still have corn syrup but we’ll also have corn sugar? Plain corn syrup, of course, is sold in bottles in the store as straight up corn syrup that you can use for cooking, will that change it’s name?
Let’s not forget that this stuff is made from genetically-modified corn, another reason to avoid it.
I saw a frozen yogurt place that had it’s product labeled as containing “corn sweetener”. What’s that all about? Sounds like a pseudonym for HFCS to me. Fructose was a separately listed item (2 & 3 on the list respectively.
[...] “Of course they want this change. HFCS is the new trans fat. Everyone thinks HFCS is poison. For the record once again, HFCS is not poison. It is just a mixture of glucose and fructose in almost the same proportions as table sugar, sucrose.” Marion Nestle, Ph.D., Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, New York University http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/09/corn-refiners-ask-fda-to-replace-hfcs-with-corn-sugar [...]
High Fructose corn syrup IS poison, it is a genetically modified organism that our bodies do not recognise as a food and stores it in fat cells, it is most likely the number one reason this country is becoming obese.
[...] September 15, 2010 The Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the F.D.A. to allow high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to be sold as “corn sugar.” Since HFCS has the same amount of fructose as table sugar, the CRA argues that “corn sugar” is a less confusing name. And it probably also hopes that “corn syrup” will avoid some of the bad press that HFCS has been getting. For a cut-to-the-chase analysis of what’s really going on, Marion Nestle at FoodPolitics.com is of course indispensable. [...]