» Honey and Apples are Poison
The US food industry uses a lot of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). That worries a lot of people. There are two reasons why industry loves corn syrup:
- Liquid corn syrup is much easier to use in industrial production than granulated sugar.
- The US has production quotas on sugar beets/cane and subsidies on corn: these slightly increase the price of sucrose and slightly decrease the price of corn syrup.
High-fructose corn syrup is made from natural, high-glucose corn syrup by using enzymes to digest the glucose into fructose. Two kinds are made: HFCS-42, which is 42% fructose and less sweet than sucrose, and HFCS-90, which is 90% fructose and sweeter than sucrose. In food production, the two are mixed to get the right effect of sweetening, moistening and browning.
Because HFCS-90 is sweeter than sucrose, less of it has to be used. Mexican Coke, made with sucrose, has double the carbohydrates of American Coke, made with HFCS mixed to 55% fructose. Producing a product with less material that looks healthier on the label is another reason industry prefers HFCS.
Many people use honey, agave syrup or apple sauce instead of high-fructose corn syrup. But check out the sugar composition of various sweeteners and foods:
Honey is almost identical to HFCS-42 and agave syrup is close to HFCS-90. In fact, to check that honey hasn’t been adulterated with HFCS requires examining the carbon isotopes. Applesauce is mostly water and fibre, but it’s sweetness comes from unpolymerized fructose.
Just because products are less processed, doesn’t mean they’re any healthier for you: the reason we crave sugar is because it’s so hard to find in the wild. The problem isn’t high-fructose corn syrup, it’s that people eat too much sugar:
If you’re looking for a sweetener that’s more pretentious than table sugar and includes trace micronutrients, I think maple syrup is the way to go.
Unless you’re sweetening your morning coffee with Agave syrup, which is nearly 90 percent fructose, getting exercised about glucose and fructose distracts from the fundamental point that both fructose and glucose have the same number of calories. The American Medical Association suggests that table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are nutritionally equivalent.
Justin Wilson
16 Apr 10 at 1:39 pm
This explains why a lot of nutritional advice I read suggests that if you’re trying to avoid wheat/sugar, don’t make “diet” versions of normal food (i.e. gluten-free brownies, or almond flour pancakes)… All those recipes go to agave nectar or honey to get sweet flavour, but to my mind, even more importantly, it keeps your inner sweets addict happy (yes that’s a technical term, for me anyways). As I’ve been avoiding all the sweets for the last few months, I’ve noticed that any fruit tastes super-sweet now, and satisfies me quite nicely. Also, things like ketchup taste grossly sweet.
You did pick out my new vice – dates
No wonder they’re so tasty… Fortunately, I usually have them post-workout, so probably OK still.
Ryley
20 Apr 10 at 8:26 am
Do you think there’s any benefit to “natural” vs processed sugar sources?
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that some fruit has a lot of fibre, which would probably counteract some of the sugar? Does honey have some other nutritional benefits that a shot of HFCS doesn’t?
Ryley
20 Apr 10 at 10:21 am
I used to eat dates after exercise too. They are, as far as I can tell, the richest source of unpolymerized glucose in solid form.
Natural sweeteners are less pure than HFCS. Some of those impurities are definitely good for you and some of them (eg: botulism in honey) are definitely not. I don’t think there’s enough data to be sure how much of a difference these make. But I’d say you’ve got to be pretty nutritionally desperate to be counting on side-effects of sweeteners… Despite your amusing link’s criticism, berry syrup is a good source of micronutrients.
Jared
20 Apr 10 at 12:04 pm
Just read Ryley’s “amusing link” — so militant and ascetic
And: the paleos are fighting the neos? Is “neolithic” the word for “everyone else”?
Amusing — I’m going to try going vegan soon-ish and the dietary ideas behind that choice are just totally different from what this guy is talking about.
Jack
23 Apr 10 at 11:31 am
[...] The site’s drink recipes have good background information, for example explaining how an Old Fashioned evolved from slings, which evolved from punches. Ignore the author’s rants against high-fructose corn syrup. [...]
MentalPolyphonics » Cocktail Minimalism
25 Oct 10 at 11:40 am