By Lisa McLaughlin
Shopping last week in her local New York City grocery store, Elise
Mackin, 32, filled her cart with items she knows to be good for her
family whole grains, fruits and veggies and ****ed away from products
that contained less wholesome ingredients. "Trans fats are out," she
said, "and anything with high-fructose corn syrup."
The evils of trans fats are well known, but what's wrong with
high-fructose corn syrup? "It's bad for you," said Mackin, an office
manager, emphatically, "really unhealthy." But when a re****ter pressed
her for further explanation, she floundered. "It's well, I'm not sure,
but I know it's not good," she finally said.
"You sound just like those commercials," laughed her husband Doug.
Those commercials are two spots that are at the center of an 18-month
campaign, launched this month by the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) in
an effort to give high-fructose corn syrup public enemy no. 1 to many
healthy-eating advocates an image makeover. In one ad, a mother pours
a glass of bright red punch; in another, a woman offers her boyfriend a
cherry-colored Popsicle. Both are confronted about the health effects of
high-fructose corn syrup, but each has this ready response:
High-fructose corn syrup is made from corn, has no artificial
ingredients, has the same calories as sugar and is okay to eat in
moderation.
That's certainly contrary to the popular public perception. In our
postFast Food Nation world, high-fructose corn syrup is reviled for
contributing to everything from the obesity epidemic to rising rates of
childhood diabetes. So, which side is correct: Is it the devil's candy
or a perfectly natural wonder?
The answer is somewhere in between, but high-fructose corn syrup is
finding defenders from unusual corners. The American Medical Association
recently announced at its annual policy-making meeting in Chicago that
high-fructose corn syrup does not contribute more to obesity than sugar
or other caloric sweeteners. Even Michael Jacobson, executive director
of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, has to agree. He
criticized early versions of the CRA's ad campaign for its claims that
high-fructose corn syrup is a "natural" product. "High-fructose corn
syrup starts out as cornstarch, which is chemically or enzymatically
degraded to glucose and some short polymers of glucose. Another enzyme
is then used to convert varying fractions of glucose into fructose,"
says Jacobson. "High-fructose corn syrup just doesn't exist in nature."
But he admits that the sweetener gets a bum rap. "The special
harmfulness of high-fructose corn syrup has become one of those urban
myths that sounds right, but is basically wrong. Nutritionally,
high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose may be identical."
Even the scientists who first floated the idea of a link between
high-fructose corn syrup and rising American obesity rates aren't so
sure. Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North
Carolina, and Dr. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research
Center in Baton Rouge published a widely read and quoted paper in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2004 noting that the rise in
high-fructose corn syrup consumption paralleled the rise in obesity
rates in the U.S. and hypothesized that the way fructose is metabolized
could be uniquely fattening. But the authors say they were just putting
forth a theory. It was meant to inspire further study, not be a
definitive declaration.
Nutritionist, author and food-policy doyenne Marion Nestle has blogged
and written extensively about the issue and says in response to the
commercials, "Lots of people think high-fructose corn syrup is the new
trans fat. It isn't. ... Biochemically, it is about the same as table
sugar (both have about the same amount of fructose and calories) but it
is in everything and Americans eat a lot of it nearly 60 lbs. per
capita in 2006, just a bit less than pounds of table sugar.
High-fructose corn syrup is not a poison, but eating less of any kind of
sugar is a good idea these days and anything that promotes eating more
is not."
And therein lies the problem. The commercials claim that just like
sugar, high-fructose corn syrup isn't unhealthy when consumed in
moderation. But it's hard to know exactly how much of it we're actually
consuming because it shows up in so many unexpected foods. "It was in my
children's vitamins!" said Elise Mackin. Because high-fructose corn
syrup extends the shelf life of foods, and farm subsidies make it
cheaper than sugar, it's added to a staggering range of items, including
fruity yogurts, cereals, crackers, ketchup and bread and in most foods
marketed to children. So, unless you're making a concerted effort to
avoid it, it's pretty difficult to consume high-fructose corn syrup in
moderation. "We did a consumers survey," says Doug Radi of Boulder,
Colo., based Rudi's Organic Breads, "and less than 25% of them realized
that high-fructose corn syrup is commonly used in bread."
Rudi's launched its own advertising campaign over the summer,
encouraging Colorado consumers to read ingredients and nutrition labels
before purchasing staple foods like bread. The company's aim is to get
people to choose Rudi's, since its breads are free of high-fructose corn
syrup. "Bread is one of those food items that has a halo of health
water, flour, yeast and salt. All natural," says Radi, "but today there
are often 15 unpronounceable, unnecessary ingredients."
But where does that leave the average consumer? "I hate those
commercials," says Doug Mackin, "but they do make you think. I'm still
not convinced. And I prefer to eat all-natural products, but I'm a
little less likely to freak out if my kid drinks fruit punch at a
party."
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
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