High Fructose Corn Syrup, the campaign

I recently saw this tv commercial that just blew my mind.
The commercial opens with two mid-30s/40s moms. One is pouring a drink out of a big jug of purple drink. The other mom watches and then says, “I guess somebody doesn’t care what goes in her children’s bodies.” And the other one says, “What do you mean?” The first mom says, “That drink has high fructose corn syrup in it, you know how bad that is!” The second mom says, “Oh yeah, and what’s so bad about it?” When the first mom stammers, the second mom continues, “That it’s made from corn? That it’s all-natural?”
Then the commercial tells you about it’s website, HFCSfacts.com, telling people to go find out for themselves.

The basic idea of this commercial is, you’ve been told stuff from a bunch of different sources, but do you really understand it? If you don’t, then maybe you’ve been duped. The fallacy of the argument, “if you don’t understand something, then it’s probably a lie,” is such an insulting statement that has gone on in a number of different directions. I’ve heard the same thing about global warming (can YOU prove it? Oh, you don’t have any specific facts? You’ve bought in to the lie of global warming), and a general methodology of republican ad campaigns (does this guy seem too smart? Do you not understand what he’s doing? Come vote for the regular guy, the guy you understand already, the guy you could go have a drink with- sound familiar?).

On a brief sidetrack, why would you want someone to be in a position of leadership over you that you don’t think is smarter than you? If they are, wouldn’t it make more sense for you to be the leader instead? So, anyone feel like they are qualified to be president?

Basically, this whole thing is predicated on the idea that most people don’t really have any information of their own, they get all of it from someone else, so they have no foundation to launch any sort of counter. The pro-HFCS woman didn’t say, “Who is your information from? Mine is from here. Let’s compare.” She said, “You don’t understand your information? Wherever it came from, it must be wrong.”

Go out and find your own information on the subjects you talk about.

So, then, I thought I would research HFCS a little further, and provide some websites for people to look from.
The basic idea, as I’ve seen it, is that there are two main problems with HFSC-

1- HFCS contains a higher percentage of fructose than does sugar, fructose has been proven to be bad for the body in a whole number of ways, some of which include increases hunger and the desire for more fatty and sweet foods. In this way, HFCS as a substance is directly responsible for its health affects.
2- HFCS is not particularly any worse than sugar is as a sweetener. The problem is that it has been used to increase the sweetness of given items. As in, companies have decided to put much more of it in than used to be done with sugar. And, because of its form and ease of use, it can and is used in a number of foods that didn’t use to have anywhere near the same quantity of sweetener before (like bread). In this case, the problem is not HFSC in particular, it’s the amount that it is used and the pervasiveness with which it is used.

There seems to be quite a bit of debate on this subject. Quite a bit of the debate that agrees with point 2 is funded by such groups as the Beverage Institute (go figure). Either way, everyone agrees that the increased amount of sweetener is one of the main causes of American obesity, among other health problems.

Point being, at best (for HFCS), you should avoid goods that contain it because they will be so comparatively sweet that they can lead to health problems. At worst, you should avoid goods that contain it because at least one of the ingredients in it will make you fat, sick, and possibly give you cancer.


Here are some websites.

http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v11/n11/abs/oby2003179a.html (an article about the increase in sweetness in our diet)


http://www.hsibaltimore.com/reports/nutrition_cereal.html?gclid=CKHu6-yI1ZUCFQK2Ggod80yjXw (an article from the health sciences institute about the health dangers of high fructose corn syrup in breakfast cereals)

http://www.ehealthforum.com/health/topic117606.html (an article on why HFCS is bad and in fact causal for people with fibromyalgia)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/18/FDGS24VKMH1.DTL (an article from the SF Gate that gives a good overview of the health problems)

http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v12/n11s/abs/oby2004277a.html (an article from the obesity research journal on how different types of sweetener affect obesity)

And let’s not forget the HFCS website, http://www.hfcsfacts.com
Incidentally, the only scientist referred to on their website, G. Harvey Anderson, has a articles written by and research funded by the beverage institute http://www.beverageinstitute.org


Oh, and for more information on corn's relationship to all of the things we eat, read "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan