The Case Against HFCS

Dave Lieberman

​Last week's Dueling Dishes article, about the "Throwback" sodas made with real sugar compared to those made with the now-standard high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) garnered more comments than normal, including a reply from Audrae Erickson, the president of the Corn Refiners' Association, defending HFCS and pointing readers at their PR website.

While Stick A Fork In It is surprised to have received this sort of attention (news scraper, anyone?) it doesn't alter the fact that the website is just that, a PR tool. HFCS is still a worse choice for a sweetener than sugar, and here's why:

They're not identical: Table sugar is equal amounts of glucose and fructose, chemically bonded (a water molecule is lost in the bond, which means that C₆H₁₂O₆ + C₆H₁₂O₆ → C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ + H₂O. Two main forms of HFCS are used: HFCS-42, which is used in baked goods, is 42% fructose and 58% glucose. HFCS-55, which is used in sodas, is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Neither of those is half fructose and half glucose.

The website explains that, "sugar and high fructose corn syrup have the same number of calories as most carbohydrates." While true, caloric content is not the only bellwether of whether a food is healthy. Just because foods have the same caloric content does not mean they have the same glycemic index (a measure of how blood sugar spikes); white rice and brown rice are calorically equivalent, but brown rice has a lower glycemic index because the bran coating requires the body to work slightly harder to get at the sugary payload. It's not unreasonable, therefore, to think that sugar, which is equal parts glucose and fructose linked by a chemical bond, may be slightly harder for the body to break down than HFCS, which is simply glucose mixed with fructose in varying ratios. HFCS-42 in particular contains more glucose, which is the single easiest food for our bodies to digest.

Dave Lieberman

​The same soda seems to require different amounts of sweetener: One would think the point of Pepsi Throwback is to replicate the Pepsi taste that's known all over the world with sugar instead of HFCS. If the two are nutritionally identical (4 calories per gram, which is correct), why then does the nutrition facts label on the Pepsi have a higher count of sugar grams? Why is the Mountain Dew Throwback ten calories fewer per 20 fl. oz. bottle? This can certainly be chalked up to differences in the recipe rather than nutritional differences, but it seems like PepsiCo R&D would have put a huge amount of work into making sure they tasted the same.

Extended shelf-life is not always a good thing: The Corn Refiners' Association are absolutely correct in their statement that foods made with corn syrup have a longer shelf life than those made with sugar. Corn syrup, whether high-fructose or not, is much more hygroscopic than sugar; foods made with corn syrup pull more moisture out of the air than foods made with sugar, which means the foods taste fresh longer. It might not be a bad thing to eat things that actually are fresh, rather than things that still taste preternaturally fresh after a few weeks on the shelf. If extended shelf-life is desire, more or less any saturated sugar syrup (honey, for example) will fit the bill without as much of the controversy.