This is one battle where I hope the
Sugar Industries win. Yes, as a person with type 2 diabetes, both
are not good for us, but what the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) is
trying to convince the US Department of Agriculture to allow needs to
be stopped.
The CRA wants to change the name from
high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to corn sugar. If I was them, I
would like to get rid of a product name that has garnered such a bad
image. However, with people being aware of this change, if they are
successful the bad image should remain. I know that I will not stop
my attitude because of a name change. I do live in a large corn
producing state and grew up on a farm, but I do not appreciate what
the corn organizations are doing to attempt to cover up a product
that is so damaging to the health of our country.
Consumers are doing the right thing by
avoiding the product and not purchasing food products containing
HFCS. Sugar had the same molecules as HFCS, Sucrose (aka, table
sugar) contains one molecule of fructose and one molecule of glucose,
which are bound together chemically. HFCS also contains one molecule
of each, but they are not bound together chemically.
“Unlike its
cousin sucrose, when we ingest fructose, it is directed toward the
liver. It does not go through some of the critical intermediary
breakdown steps that sucrose does. For years nobody knew what this
meant, but eventually cell biologists figured out that fructose was
being used in the liver as a building block of triglycerides. Being
overwhelmed by an excess of fatty acids, the liver releases them into
the bloodstream. Muscles find themselves bombarded by these fats and
they develop insulin resistance.”
The above is what the Corn Growers
Association and the Corn Refiners Association do not want you to
know. "Whether it's corn sugar or cane
sugar, your body can't tell the difference. Sugar is sugar," one
ad says. Reading the quote from
above shows the difference and how dangerous HFCS is to our health.
We need to be relentless in our opposition regardless how they try to
camouflage it.
I am surprised at
a statement by author Andrew Weill when he states that the corn
product “is a marker for low
quality food and has no place in a healthy diet.” He
is correct, but this also is a marketing ploy to confuse consumers as
well. Either way, this argument will be aired in court, and
hopefully the Corn Refiners Association will not succeed.
For more information read the following
from Yahoo News, my previous blogs here and here. Also read thisblogger and the information from the two websites of the Corn
Refiners Association here and here. For a very controversial study
read this press release here in Medscape. The advertisements big
sugar is referring to can be viewed here. And I need to thank Scott
Strumello, who alerted me to this on Dec 19.
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