...High Fructose Corn Syrup High Fructose Corn Syrup is often used as a sugar replacement. This is because in the US it is cheaper from a combination of Corn subsidies and sugar taxes, also because HFCS is transported as a liquid as opposed to sugar, which is a solid. Even though there are multiple steps that require expensive enzymes, the HFCS is still less expensive than the alternative. The lower cost means food producers are able to produce their food and drinks for cheaper and also earn more profit on the goods they sell. The process to develop HFCS was discovered in the 1970’s. Its popularity in America rose quickly; its use saw an increase from 3 million tons in 1980 to 8 million tons in 1995. HFCS use surpassed the use of sugar in the late 90’s and continues today to be more widely used. More HFCS is consumed than sugar by Americans. The process is more difficult than the process to get sugar from sugar cane or beets. There are multiple steps involved including three enzymes needed to break down the complex glucose molecules of the cornstarch to the simple glucose and fructose sugars. Each enzyme breaks down the molecule to smaller pieces, until the manufacturer ends up with 40% fructose and 50 to 52% glucose. Other sugar molecules are also still in the mixture. The final two steps result in the 55% fructose mixture that the industry requires. A 90% mix of fructose is poured back in to the original mixture of glucose and fructose. There are...
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...High Fructose Corn Syrup How do we change what we eat? When most of our food contains traces of high fructose corn syrup, it seems like we are forced to eat this way, while these food companies continue to profit on our health. Majority of our people are unable to afford health insurance because it’s seems like the same people don’t want the Americans to be healthy. The food companies heavily markets to individuals who have low income and lack of knowledge. Therefore majority of our unhealthy population are the ones who are in the poverty level. Many people think that just because it’s inexpensive, it does not mean it’s good for you. High Fructose Corn Syrup is an “artificial” sweetener. By definition it means; made by human skills. High fructose corn syrup was developed in the 1960’s and began being incorporated into the things we drink and slowly but surely replaced the natural sugar. Since it was produce much cheaper than sugar that derived from cane and beets, the wonderful government began subsiding the corn companies. According to the NPD Group, a market research firm, more than half of all Americans are concerned that high fructose corn syrup. “High-fructose corn syrup makes up about 50% of the sweeteners used in the USA but worldwide it's only about 10%”. Every day we eat. We eat home cooked meals or fast food rarely thinking about what’s going into our bodies. Most of the time one of the first ingredients listed on a can of soda or canned fruit is some form of HFCS...
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...High Fructose Corn Syrup and Childhood Obesity University High Fructose Corn Syrup and Childhood Obesity Introduction High consumption of fructose such as corn syrup is uniquelya predictive factor of obesity among children. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012), the obesity rate among all children and adolescent aged 2-19 years old is approximately 17% or 12.5 million. Obesity, which is a multifactorial health problem, is one of the greatest concerns of country; our attitude and habit on food consumption are clearly part of this predicament (Bray, 2007). High-fructose corn syrup has widely used in many foods and beverages as an alternative liquid sweetener. It was used as a replacement for sucrose which is derived from sugar cane or sugar beets. The popularity of high-fructose corn syrupis due to some technological problem in certain application of sucrose. The technological issues of sucrose were hydrolysis in acidic system; it alters the sweetness and flavour characteristics of a product; and the need to dissolve its granules in water prior being used in many applications. There were also political and climatic instability of sugar cane since it is traditionally grown in equatorial regions. This resulted to fluctuation on the availability and price of sugar (White, 2008). Uses and Benefits of High-fructose Corn Syrup The wide availability of high-fructose corn syrup is evident in most of our foods and beverages. The beverages...
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...probably are not surprised to see high fructose corn syrup in many of them. Nowadays, high fructose corn syrup accounts for almost half of all added sugars in our diets, and is the main source of sweetener in soda. However, you may be surprised to learn that high fructose corn syrup became the sweetener of choice through the implementation of corn subsidies to U.S. farmers. Farm subsidies have long existed for corn. In the Great Depression, farm production increased to meet the global needs during the war, but this spike in supply made prices drop drastically. The U.S. government wanted to ensure farmers maintained an income while rebuilding the economy. A minimum price for corn was set in order to convince farmers to leave some of their land unplanted , and thereby reduce the excess corn supply. These subsidies continued in some form throughout most of the twentieth century and into today to encourage production of corn. Corn grows exceptionally well in the U.S., and is used in a large variety of products...
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...High Fructose Corn Syrup and Obesity DeVry University February 20, 2013 In the age of high fructose corn syrup and processed foods, obesity is rampant in the United States of America. More than one-third of adults and seventeen percent of children suffer from obesity. Since the 1960’s the rate of obesity has more than doubled. Many think that this is directly related to America’s growing consumption of high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup has made people obese and unhealthy, but we can change this by better educating children on proper nutrition and by changing our eating habits. High fructose corn syrup was first created in Japan in the late 1960’s. By the 1970’s the process had been perfected and was introduced to the public market. High fructose corn syrup is fifty-five percent fructose and forty-five percent glucose, and tastes exactly like sucrose (sugar). (Pollan p.89) Like everything else that we eat, in moderation fructose and glucose (high fructose corn syrup) may not be considered that bad for you. However, with the amount of processed foods and beverages that Americans consume it has become nearly impossible to avoid the overeating of high fructose corn syrup. So how exactly does high fructose corn syrup affect the body? We know that high fructose corn syrup is made up of fifty-five percent fructose and forty-five percent glucose. Glucose is a form of energy that is used by just about every part of the body. Glucose gives...
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...use of high fructose corn syrup in food products be limited? Among cereals, sodas, and cookies, high fructose corn syrup is getting more and more common as an ingredient in our foods. High fructose corn syrup is a sweetener that is used as a common substitute for sugar. It is used in many substances due to the fact that it is steady in acidic foods (White 3). Although we may not notice the difference between sugar and high fructose corn syrup, it may not be suitable for our environment. High fructose corn syrup starts from the harvest of corn. Then, by milling, cornstarch is created. The starch includes glucose, an important carbohydrate in a human’s diet. Using an enzyme, the cornstarch is broken down, making glucose and regular corn syrup. To make the corn syrup into high fructose corn syrup, another enzyme is used to convert glucose into fructose (“How HFCS Is Made”). The enzymes used cause the corn syrup to become sweeter (“High fructose corn syrup”). This energy-intensive...
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...High Fructose corn syrup in the US and UK High fructose corn syrup, also known as Fructose-Glucose syrup, is a liquid sweetener that was created to act as a substitute for regular sugar in the 1950s, and is now used in almost all processed foods in the United States, and to a lesser degree, the United Kingdom. Since its creation, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been used extensively not only in these two countries, but also around the world. It is an ingredient in almost every single mass-produced beverage and food product, however its extensive use has sparked a lot of controversy regarding HFCS and its possible obesity-causing effects, as well as issues of sustainability and agriculture. High fructose corn syrup was so quickly embraced by food producers due to its sweetness comparable to that of sucrose (regular table sugar), its stability, and ease of application. Another part of HFCS’s appeal was that sugar cane was originally grown in places that were both politically and environmentally unstable, and so any fluctuation in either of those factors meant a variation in the worldwide price of sugar. In 1977 the United States imposed a system of sugar tariffs and quotas which significantly raised the price of imported sugar, so producers sought a cheaper alternative, and high fructose corn syrup was the answer. Initial shipments to the United States food industry started in the late 1960s and since then there have been many advancements in its production which have led...
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...High-fructose corn syrup is like most drugs, once you have tried it once – you’ll want it all the time, you’re addicted to it. High-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, is in so many of our foods nowadays and a lot of these foods end up in vending machines or on school lunch plates. High-fructose corn syrup can cause obesity in children and since HFCS is used in everything from ketchup to bread, these foods end up in the school systems. Childhood obesity is something every parent should be aware of and one place some do not look at when it comes to childhood obesity would be the school cafeteria. What your child eats is highly important, especially with growing, young children. After doing some research I found out that most of the schools in America...
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...High Fructose Corn Syrup and Your Health English 147 Advanced English Composition Chamberlain College of Nursing/DeVry University June 01, 2016 High Fructose Corn Syrup and Your Health Introduction: Your food might be killing you. No one wants to die and no one wants to be fat, yet hundreds of thousands of Americans die every year because of obesity. According to the National Institutes of Health, obesity and overweight people (defined by high body mass index or BMI) suffer from the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States (NIH, 2012). Almost 70% of the U.S. adult population is defined as overweight or obese (per BMI), with an estimated 300,000 attributed deaths per year (NIH, 2012). We learn in healthcare that any disease spreading at a rate faster than expected is considered epidemic. There has been great consternation about the rise in obesity and other health-related problems that is out of proportion with our increase in population. This paper will question whether the addition of fructose and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in beverage and food items has contributed to this problem. There are popular theories about decreased physical activity or perhaps the dissolution of the nuclear family mealtime as possible sources for increased obesity rates. Yet time and time again scientific food research has observed changing trends in eating habits, food choice, and ingredient additives as likely causation. The data that I have found...
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...High Fructose Corn Syrup: The New Scapegoat to Obesity Recently, the majority of the United States population has been increasingly concerned with the affect of the controversial issue surrounding high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in their diet. Today, about 55 percent of Americans list the infamous sweetener among their food-safety worries, right behind mad cow disease and mercury in seafood, according to the consumer research firm NPD Group (Parker-Pope, 2010). It has caused a major stir in the media, nutritionist and dietitians, food manufacturers, corn refiners and above all, consumers. As a result, there have been opposing conclusions amongst researchers. Of course, there are always two sides of the story. Hence, researchers have conducted numerous and time-consuming lab experiments on rats and human subjects alike to contradict each other’s studies and conclusions. It is a matter of which side to believe and how reliable the information presented. For starter, research claims that HFCS is linked to obesity. However, on the other side of the spectrum, researchers claim that HFCS is nothing less than a table sugar in a liquid form and it actually provides many benefits to processed foods. Although they are in strong opposition, both seem to agree on one thing: Consumption of HFCS moderately may reduce obesity. In doing my research, I learned that high fructose corn syrup is not as dreadful as many inadequately informed consumers make it out to be. The key to...
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...HFCS(High Fructose Corn Syrup) is worse than sugar and should be substituted. HFCS is extremely unhealthy and causes obesity and there is no reason that we should put it in food, other than it tastes good. HFCS is made up disaccharides called glucose and fructose, both of them together make sucrose which is the base of HFCS (Reshanov, 2012). Therefore making it not very healthy because the amount of sugar. All sugars themselves aren’t good for the human body but HFCS contains a lot of sugar. An experiment that put rats on a high fructose corn syrup diet resulted in a major decrease in B cells which is a major cell in the adaptive immune system (Rizkalla, 2010). “In 1980, Coca-Cola began using HFCS in its beverages, and by the mid...
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...It only takes simple supply-and-demand economics to see that with an excess supply of corn in the marketplace, the price goes down, and with the price lowering, it makes it more appealing to businesses which in turn use corn more in their products. However, corn itself isn’t inherently unhealthy, it’s the product of corn; high fructose corn syrup that is the problem. Due to the cheap and available nature of corn and high fructose corn syrup, a product from corn, it became cheaper for businesses to use high fructose corn syrup instead of actual cane sugar in their products (Pollan). This increase in HFCS usage was also brought on by other governmental decisions such as quotas for domestic sugar production and a high tariff on imported foreign sugar which the government enforced to decrease the usage of sugars since they were deemed “unhealthy” (Pollan). These decisions somewhat backfired since America now consumes higher rates of fructose corn syrup in the 21st century than in any other previous...
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...Effect Fructose Corn Syrup Has On Diabetes Bethel University May 8, 2012 Expository Writing Facilitator- Ms. Sarthou Abstract High fructose corn syrup is causing many problems in the United States. The main problems are obesity which causes type two diabetes. There are also many other diseases that branch off from these two main diseases, like liver and heart disease. In this paper, exploring the reason why high fructose corn syrup is becoming such a huge problem in the United States. The argument of this paper is that high fructose syrup has an adverse effect on diabetes. When the producers of high fructose syrup saw that it is more cost effective than other sugars, other companies started to use high fructose corn syrup in their products. High fructose corn syrup is a sugar made of fifty-five percent fructose and forty-five percent glucose. Compared to normal table sugar, which is fifty percent fructose and fifty percent glucose, it doesn’t seem like much. Yet the fructose in high fructose corn syrup is less attached from normal sugar. This fructose that is free from the glucose part is more harmful to the body. It was first introduced in 1970 but it hasn’t been actively used until the late 1900s. Yet because we started to use high fructose corn syrup, it is now causing a lot of problems. It has many negative side effects after consumption, and most of the consuming is done in the United States. Two of the main problems caused by high fructose corn syrup are obesity...
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...out some of your confusions regarding to high fructose corn syrup vs. table sugar with my so called highly scientifically literate brain. The high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was introduced in 1957 by scientists in a short report. According to the article Sweet Confusion (Beil 2014), two chemists Richard Marshall and Earl Kooi found out a way to rearrange the components of glucose from corn, and discovered a fluid like sweeter sweetener. Because HFCS has better solubility, high applicability, and most importantly high...
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...High Fructose Corn Syrup Terry Johnson Devry University 9/11/2014 HFCS was first introduced by Richard O. Marshall and Earl R. Kooi in 1957. They were, however, unsuccessful in making it viable for mass production, primarily because the glucose-isomerizing activity they discovered required arsenate, which was highly toxic to humans. An industrially feasible glucose isomerase, which did not require arsenate ion for its catalytic activity, was first discovered by Dr. Kei Yamanaka, Kagawa University, Japan, in 1961. The industrial production process was refined by Dr. Yoshiyuki Takasaki ay the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan in 1965-1970. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a fructose/glucose liquid sweetener substitute for sucrose common table sugar, first introduced to the food and beverage industry in the 1970s. There is not much different in the composition or metabolism of other fructose/glucose sweeteners like sucrose (sugar), honey, and concentrated fruit juices. HFCS was broadly accepted by food designers, its use grew between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s as an alternative for sugar. HFCS instantly proved itself as an alternative to sugar in liquid applications because of its salability in acidic foods and beverages. HFCS it is syrup, and can be pumped from delivery vehicles to storage and mixing tanks, requiring only simple dilution before use. This ingredient derived from corn a dependable, renewable...
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