The Corn Refiners Association is now labeling high fructose corn syrup as fructose. Packing on products such as General Mills Vanilla Chex cereal now states the product contains no high fructose corn syrup, while the ingredients list contains the simple word, “fructose.” This fructose is actually a manufactured sugar called HFCS-90, and is made up of 90% pure fructose. High fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, contains 42% or 55 percent fructose. Health issues relating to free fructose include diabetes, leaky gut syndrome, and liver failure.
The Corn Refiners Association states,”…HFCS-90 is sometimes used in natural and ‘light’ foods, where very little is needed to provide sweetness. Syrups with 90% fructose will not state high fructose corn syrup on the label [anymore], they will state ‘fructose’ or ‘fructose syrup.”
What is the difference between sugar and high fructose corn syrup?
Fructose is a simple sugar, or monosaccharide. It occurs naturally in fruits and in sugar. High fructose corn syrup is a manufactured sugar. It is produced by a secret chemical process involving extracting sugar from corn stalk. The extraction process involves a complex chemical enzymatic process. While cane sugar is made of half glucose and half fructose, HFCS is made of 55% fructose to 45% glucose. In natural sugar, two sugar molecules are bound together and are broken down in the digestive tract. With HFCS, there are no chemical bonds between the fructose and glucose molecules, so the fructose is released more quickly into the blood stream, triggering blood sugar spikes.