24 June 2008

HFCS Maker's Propaganda

Makers of High Fructose Corn Syrup are scrambling to trying to counteract the movement away from HFCS. http://www.sweetsurprise.com

Their main arguments in favor seems to be that use of HFCS reduces the amount of food waste by preventing food from spoiling in transport and that it improves flavor by having an ""early' sweetness profile."

Their chart pretty slickly glosses over the difference in the glucose/fructose contents of HFCS. I did learn that there are two different kinds, the delicious sounding HFCS-55 and the equally appealing HFCS-42. How do we know which of these are used in a given product?

Even if we were to take their claims at face value: that HFCS about the same as other sweeteners, the inclusion of HFCS in a product is a good indicator of how processed the food is, and how likely it is to include other additives.

An aside: the makers of this stuff (and product) labelers seem to be favoring "High Fructose Corn Syrup" over "High-Fructose Corn Syrup." Shouldn't there be a hyphen?

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