High fructose corn syrup is no longer a food. It has been reduced and refined to drug form. Quite literally. This is becoming common knowledge, and I am thrilled with that! But it still is very much a part of our every day diets as Americans.
From Wikipedia:
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is any of a group of corn syrups which have undergone enzymatic processing in order to increase their fructose content and are then mixed with pure corn syrup (100% glucose) to reach their final form. The typical types of HFCS are: HFCS 90 (used almost exclusively in the production of HFCS 55) which is approximately 90% fructose and 10% glucose; HFCS 55 (most commonly used in soft drinks) which is approximately 55% fructose and 45% glucose; and HFCS 42 (used in other a variety of other foods, including baked goods) which is approximately 42% fructose and 58% glucose.[1]
The process by which HFCS is produced was first developed by Richard O. Marshall and Earl R. Kooi in 1957[2] and refined by Japanese researchers in the 1970s. HFCS was rapidly introduced in many processed foods and soft drinks in the US over the period of about 1975–1985.
Does this sound like a food? It isn't something that has been reduced to a concentrate... it is something that has been reduced beyond that. Well beyond that, and added with other highly processed corn sugar products to make something as potent as sugar, but at a 200th of the cost.
It wouldn't exsist in nature.
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2 comments:
What I find even more horrible is that HFCS is in so many food where it seems completely unnecessary. It's so disturbing. The good thing is that awareness of it allows us to avoid it and to make more and more of our own food from raw materials at home. My hope is that more and more people will avoid those foods and it's economic usefulness to companies will be depleted.
I agree. Sometimes I find it so silly that it is used in things like crackers... Why not use SUGAR people? It's not as if they don't know how... they were making crackers long before HFCS.
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