Evil, sinister, deadly… High fructose corn syrup: not as bad as the bandwagon thought?
I’m sure you’ve seen it. The commercial with a bunch of little kids on stage performing a third or fourth-grade play for an audience full of parents, dressed as green, red and orange vegetables and fruits. Everything is sweet and cute until suddenly, out of the corner of your eye (or screen) you notice the oozing, gross blob of a costume, known only as the recently infamous high fructose corn syrup.
If you’ve shopped for a loaf of bread recently, you probably noticed how much bread companies, at least, are pushing the whole anti-high fructose corn syrup movement, as many bread wrappers feature prominently bold text reading, “No high fructose corn syrup!” I guess that’s to make their consumers absolutely sure, without a doubt, that they’re using real sugar and not that bad, evil sugar pretender also known as HFCS.
Well, here’s a kicker. According to PR Newswire, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), led by Executive Director Rick Berman, just launched a million-dollar ad campaign in an attempt to show the world exactly how wrong it has been in falsely accusing our now infamously famous cheaper sweetener.
This nonprofit group blames the Sugar Association, saying that leading nutrition experts say the two are nutritionally equal.
Is this true?
Well, as far as the article publishing most of this “breaking” news information goes, the only portion that makes any assertion to the contrary of what the world has been seemingly convinced of over the past year comes directly from the mouth of Mr. Berman, “The public will soon understand that they have been misled into thinking that high fructose corn syrup is handled differently by the body than other sugars. What people need to understand is that corn, beet and cane sugar are all processed. And they all contain the same amount of fructose. One is no more natural than another.”
All this leaves me with but one question: If the two are the same, why would companies that use sugar to sweeten their products buy the one that costs significantly more than the other?
I don’t know. You tell me.
Brittany @ October 6, 2009