Defending high fructose corn syrup

The article “Green, greener, greenest; These Kansas Citians are examples of living an Earth-friendly life” (12/30, FYI) mentions that Kansas City’s “greenest couple” avoid high fructose corn syrup. This may mislead consumers.

High fructose corn syrup may have a complicated-sounding name, but it’s actually a simple sweetener, made from corn, that is nutritionally the same as sugar.

Even former critics of high fructose corn syrup dispel long-held myths and distance themselves from earlier speculation about the sweetener’s link to obesity as the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition releases its 2008 Vol. 88 supplement’s comprehensive scientific review.

Many confuse pure “fructose” with “high fructose corn syrup,” a sweetener that never contains fructose alone but always in combination with a roughly equivalent amount of a second sugar (glucose). Recent studies that have examined pure fructose — often at abnormally high levels — have been inappropriately applied to high fructose corn syrup and have caused significant consumer confusion.

Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at www.HFCSfacts.com and www.SweetSurprise.com

Audrae Erickson
President, Corn Refiners Association
Washington

Comments

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Implement a Corn Fructose tax, that's the answer as usual. That evil corn fructose.

[solomon]

great commercial space for free, KCSTAR.

[Gary]

Don't even bother trying, Audrae. It isn't science, it's journalism.