Archive for the "Sweeteners" Category

By now we know that:

• The production and consumption of high fructose corn syrup has sky rocketed because it’s a cheap sweetener
• That unlike sucrose, it’s metabolized totally in the liver where it turns to fat
• That it does not turn off your appetite, so you keep eating and get fat

High Fructose Corn Syrup can damage the liver:

Not only does it turn to fat, but it turns to fat much more rapidly than any other sugar. On top of that much more of it gets stored as fat. If you eat 90 calories of fructose, 30 calories get … Read the rest

Let’s continue to explore the effects of high fructose corn syrup on the body by gaining an understanding of how the body metabolizes it and compare fructose metabolism with sucrose (table sugar) metabolism.

From a chemical standpoint high fructose corn syrup and sucrose are remarkably the same, each containing approximately 50% glucose and 50% fructose.

However there is a difference. To metabolize sucrose our bodies have to secrete an enzyme called sucrase that breaks the bond between the glucose and fructose before these individual molecules can be metabolized.

In high fructose corn syrup the glucose and fructose are … Read the rest

To better understand the effects of high fructose corn syrup on our bodies let’s take a look at how a whole food like corn becomes corn syrup.

Manufacturers developed the process for making corn syrup back in the 1960s. Basically soaking the corn kernels in warm water with sulfur dioxide softens them facilitating the process of separating the starch, hull, protein and oil. After removing the oil the resultant cornstarch is washed.

Cornstarch contains amylose which is simply a long chain of glucose molecules. By adding an enzyme called amylase these long chains are broken into glucose molecules. This process … Read the rest

You probably don’t even realize that you’re eating high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) because it’s in so many processed and packaged foods. On the other hand if you choose natural whole foods, you probably rarely eat high fructose corn syrup.

Either way it’s wise to know what’s going on with this form of sweetener in our food supply because eating it can have disastrous, irreversible results in the long run.

On average an American ingests 41.5 pounds or more of HFCS per year without even realizing it.

How did High Fructose Corn Syrup become so common in our food?

Way … Read the rest