What is High-Fructose Corn Syrup, anyway?

It's been around for many years, but it has only been drawn to most people's attention in the last four or five years.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS for short) is prominent in a whole lotta foods nowadays. It's snuck into our diets and has really made a change in our eating habits. And not for the better. What is it, anyway?

I recently joined a Facebook group called The ban of High Fructose Corn Syrup in the US (http://www.facebook.com/pages/THE-BAN-OF-HIGH-FRUCTOSE-CORN-SYRUP-IN-THE-US/124366064752?ref=mf) and on a link from that I found this blog, titled "Healthy Families Don't Eat High Fructose Corn Syrup" at http://blog.banofhfcs.com/.

If you are at all familiar with Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, you will remember that in his first chapter, he says, "You are what you eat, it's often said, and if this is true, than what we mostly are is corn--or, more precisely, processed corn." How he goes about proving this premise is unsettling and ultimately scary.

Corn. And here we thought it was good for us. It probably is, in its purest form. But how much "pure form" anything are we seeing in our diet these days?

According to Pollan, corn is the major component of the feed for the steer that becomes the steak that we eat; likewise the chicken and the pig, the turkey and the lamb, the catfish and tilapia and salmon. And not only the "whole" foods we eat are primarily produced from corn--the processed foods are even more corn-filled. As one example, he looks at the chicken nugget. The chicken itself is fed by corn; modified corn starch holds the processed chicken parts together; there is corn flour in the batter coating, and it is of course fried in corn oil. Not only that, but the additives such as leavening agents, lecithin, mono-, di-, and triglycerides, citric acid and more are all derived from corn.

And that's only the beginning. Soft drinks, catsup, coffee "creamer," processed cheese products, yogurt, candies, granola bars, soups, snacks, cake mixes ... and the list goes on, to the tune of about 12,000 food items in your local grocery store. Then there are the non-food items: disposable diapers, trash bags, batteries, vegetable wax, cosmetics, and more. His list goes on. And on.

The increasing use of HFCS has been linked to obesity, Type II Diabetes, and a host of other unhealthy conditions that have coincidentally started to affect our society in the last 40 or so years ... the same amount of time during which HFCS and other interesting food additives have become increasingly prevalent in our Standard American Diet (SAD). Figure it out for yourself.

And yet, the folks at the Web site www.sweetsurprise.com will happily educate you about how innocuous this same product is. I saw a commercial on television the other night, where a woman was offering her significant other a popsicle at their romantic summer picnic. When he appeared to balk at eating something that might contain high fructose corn syrup, she explained to him that he obviously hadn't heard that HFCS is not bad for you at all--it has no more calories in it than refined sugar! Predictably, he had no real response. (He's a man, after all.)

The "sweet surprise" Web site was referenced at the end of the ad, and I decided to check it out. What I liked best on this site was learning that our societal trend toward obesity is in no way caused by increased consumption of HFCS or other high-sugar products--it's actually caused by an aging population and a decrease in smoking! That's from a scientific study, folks. This whole brou-ha about HFCS is really just a huge misunderstanding. Get the facts here.

At least, that's what they say.

I'll bet you are no more "surprised" than I was to learn that this highly informative Web site is sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association. Who, by the way, paid to have their Web site listed at the top of the search page when you Google the term "High Fructose Corn Syrup."

I realize that everyone is going to have to make up their own mind about what they eat--or decide not to eat. As for me, I've been trying to avoid HFCS and a whole slew of other food additives as much as possible. And while unfortunately I haven't miraculously dropped 100 pounds in the process, I am managing to keep my blood pressure and blood sugar under pretty good control, I don't suffer from depression, anxiety, or insomnia, and I seem to have very few health problems compared to most other people I know.

But really, what do I know? I guess if I just kept on smoking I could achieve similar results.