Why do companies use hfcs

You may have noticed new ads that show people enjoying popsicles and fruit drinks sweetened with HFCS and talking about how wonderful it is. The Research Why did people claim it was bad in the first place?

American food companies started using more HFCS around the same time that American obesity rates skyrocketed. But that does not mean that the HCFS caused that rise. HFCS has the same number of calories as sugar so simply eating more of it could add up to more obesity. Still, some people claimed that HFCS was turned into fat more easily than sugar. But at least for now, the research tells us that too much sugar or HFCS will make you gain weight.

One is not more fattening than the other. It's cheap, it's American, and most importantly, it's sweet. Americans do make some sugar from sugar cane and beets. We also get some of our sugar from other countries.

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Using sucrose once again as the standard by setting its sweetness equal to , a sweetness value of 97 was calculated for HFCS, providing independent validation for the value reported by White and Parke.

Schiffman's work also confirmed the earlier work of Hyvonen et al 24 and White 25 that temperature has little effect on sweetness intensity. These data confirm what the food industry has claimed for more than 20 y: the sweetness intensities of HFCS and sucrose are equivalent. There can be no argument that long-term overconsumption of foods and beverages containing either one without compensation for energy expenditure may lead to weight gain.

All fructose-containing nutritive sweeteners appear to share the same intestinal sites for absorption. Honey, fruit sugars, and HFCS reach the small intestines predominantly as monosaccharides. The minor amount of polysaccharide glucose in HFCS is quickly broken down to free glucose by salivary and intestinal amylases.

Glucose is absorbed into the portal blood through an active, energy-requiring mechanism mediated by sodium and a specific glucose transport protein. Fructose is absorbed via the sodium independent GLUT-5 transporter Disaccharide sucrose requires hydrolysis before absorption, which is rapidly accomplished by a plentiful sucrase in the brush border.

Much has been made of the metabolic differences between fructose and glucose in the human body: fructose is rapidly taken up by the liver and bypasses a key regulatory step in glycolysis. There are, however, several points of intersection where the metabolism of fructose and glucose interchange. This metabolic flexibility works to man's evolutionary advantage by allowing a variety of food and energy sources to be processed efficiently.

It is only when any single nutrient is consumed to excess and overwhelms the body's metabolic capacity that untoward consequences occur. Fructose malabsorption appears only to be a problem when too little accompanying glucose is present. This was quickly recognized in early sports drinks formulated solely with fructose to enhance performance by exploiting fructose's low glycemic index. Riby et al 28 subsequently showed that the addition of even small amounts of free or polymeric glucose can ameliorate fructose malabsorption and accompanying gastric distress.

The inability of the body to distinguish fructose-containing nutritive sweeteners from one another once they reach the bloodstream is critical to the HFCS discussion, but often overlooked. Sucrose, HFCS, invert sugar, honey, and many fruits and juices deliver the same sugars in the same ratios to the same tissues within the same time frame to the same metabolic pathways. Thus, if one accepts the proposition that a given product will be sweetened with one of the fructose-containing nutritive sweeteners, it makes essentially no metabolic difference which one is used.

The data presented thus far in support of the hypothesis rely heavily on the metabolic comparison of glucose and fructose. The Fructose Nutrition Review commissioned by the International Life Sciences Institute was highly critical of this line of experimentation Because no one in the world eats a pure fructose diet, such experimentation must be recognized as highly artificial and highly prejudicial and not at all appropriate to HFCS.

Sucrose is a far more satisfactory model for HFCS. Experiments that test the HFCS-obesity hypothesis in a reasonable way, by comparing it with sucrose, are only now beginning to be published. Concluding that there is nothing uniquely quantifiable about HFCS, they reported no significant difference between the 2 sweeteners in fasting plasma glucose, insulin, leptin, or ghrelin or in energy or micronutrient intake. Central to the HFCS-obesity hypothesis is its value in predicting US obesity: Bray et al 10 associated its increased use with increasing obesity rates between and But does the association continue beyond ?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that overall, age-adjusted obesity rates obtained from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were The US obesity crisis continues to worsen. From Figure 2 , however, it can be seen that per capita calories from HFCS have been stagnant since and in decline since Neither is true.

The sugar economy is firmly established in many countries and receives heavy government economic and trade protection from competing sweeteners and technologies.

In addition, HFCS production requires not only an abundant and consistent starch source, but also the use of sophisticated technology. These conditions are satisfactorily met in only a few geographic locations. This point is illustrated in Figure 4 , in which obesity rates derived from World Health Organization data 33 for 5 non-US countries are plotted against HFCS as a percentage of national nutritive sweetener use 32 ; US data are provided for comparison.

However, the highest obesity rates were in Mexico and Argentina, the 2 countries with the lowest percentage use of HFCS. Nutritive sweeteners are used in foods and beverages for many reasons, including sweetness, mouthfeel, colligative properties eg, freezing point manipulation , moisture control, crystal structure, bulk, browning, carmelization, color, and fermentable solids.

They are not easily replaced in products without risking customer notice and displeasure. One could reasonably assume, then, that if the use of HFCS were to be restricted or entirely eliminated in the United States—as some advocate—an alternative nutritive sweetener with similar physical and functional properties would be sought.

Because honey and fruit juice concentrates are produced in such limited quantities, it is likely that companies would revert back to formulas circa and replace HFCS with sucrose. On the basis of the similarities between sucrose and HFCS noted above, it can be predicted with some certainty that there would be no change in caloric intake, no change in basic metabolism, and no change in rates of obesity.

The substitution of sucrose for HFCS would be a nutritional wash. The one change consumers would notice is higher prices as sucrose is substituted for the less-expensive HFCS. Increased caloric intake since was not due to added sugars including HFCS but rather was due to increased consumption of all caloric nutrients, especially fats and flour and cereals;.

Fructose-glucose sweeteners are metabolized through the same pathways regardless of dietary source;. Although pure fructose can cause metabolic upsets at high concentrations and in the absence of glucose, such experiments are irrelevant for HFCS, which is not consumed at extreme high levels and contains both fructose and glucose;. There is no longer an association between HFCS and obesity in the United States: per capita consumption of HFCS has declined in recent years, whereas obesity rates continue to rise; and.

No one would disagree that HFCS as a caloric ingredient can lead to weight gain if products sweetened with it are consumed to excess. After all, the same may be said for all caloric ingredients, such as fats, protein, alcohol, and other carbohydrates. But there is absolutely no proof that HFCS acts in any exclusive manner to promote obesity.

It is time to retire the hypothesis that HFCS is uniquely responsible for obesity. Other articles in this supplement to the Journal include references 34 — The author is a consultant to the food and beverage industry in nutritive sweeteners, including HFCS and sucrose. Buck AW High fructose corn syrup. Choose products with the least amount of added sugar.

Foods that contain sugar in the first few ingredients, including HFCS, should be limited. For more information about sugar and what to look for on the label, see the Frequently Asked Questions about sugar. Sweet foods and diabetes — can people with diabetes still eat sugar? Dietitians look beyond fads to deliver reliable, life-changing advice.

Want to unlock the potential of food? Connect with a dietitian. What is high fructose corn syrup?