High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Safe as sugar?

Some experts have proposed that people metabolize high fructose corn syrup in a way that raises the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes more than sugar made from sugar cane. Much of the controversy stems from the observation that obesity in the United States and consumption of high fructose corn syrup increased at the same time.

When I was a kid, I used to put sugar on bread to eat it like candy; I was immediately hooked.

Re: hamburger (Post 3425419)
I can tell only mismi looked at my link.

I'm not a registered dietitian and maybe that is why I think moderation doesn't work for HFCS. Yes, HFCS has a place in the American diet and sometimes has cooking advantages over sucrose. And the research is still out on whether HFCS differs from sucrose metabolically. But the most sensible approach to HFCS and to sugars in general is not moderation. It is, "Eat less."

moderate : avoiding extremes (of behavior or expression) : observing reasonable limits .

Just this month, researchers from Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago took a look at the link between kidney disease and high-fructose corn syrup. Using data from nearly 9,400 adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2004, they tracked consumption of sugary soft drinks, a major source of high-fructose corn syrup in the United States, and protein in the urine, a sensitive marker for kidney disease. They found that overall, people who drank two or more sugary sodas a day were at 40 percent higher risk for kidney damage, while the risk for women soda drinkers nearly doubled.

In June, the Journal of Hepatology suggested a link between consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in sodas and fatty liver disease.

And this summer, a small study published in The Journal of Nutrition suggested that fructose may make people fatter by bypassing the body’s regulation of sugars, which means it gets more quickly converted to fat than do other sugars.

You may have noticed lately that your morning coffee tastes slightly more bitter than usual. It may have something to do with a 15 million-ton sugar shortage in the face of global demand. In Europe, that’s meant a steep price increase – from 550 euros per ton in August 2010, to 900 euros per ton this year.
The most common reason cited for the current supply shortage are weather problems in Mexico, Australia and, most importantly, in Brazil, the world’s top producer. Also mentioned as contributing factors are the use of sugar cane for biofuels and increased demand in emerging countries. The situation is so bad right now that the International Sugar Organization announced that even with a good 2011/2012 harvest, sugar stocks will not return to levels considered “healthy.”
There is one other major factor affecting world’s sugar supply: the surprising end of the long romance between American consumers and high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, a sweetener often used in the food industry to replace cane or beet sugar. Growing evidence has linked HFCS to obesity and diabetes. For health reasons, in other words, food producers in the United States are beginning to wean themselves off the corn-based sweetener.
“Growing concern among consumers about high-fructose corn syrup, which is made from government-subsidized corn, is forcing producers, especially soft drink makers, to go back to cane and beet sugar,” says Euromonitor, a market research firm. “This tendency away from HFCS is another factor pushing up prices.”
The United States is not self-sufficient when it comes to cane sugar. Further complicating matters was the recent disastrous harvest in Mexico, which left U.S. producers without their principal provider. Theoretically, the situation could benefit Nicaragua and Guatemala. The problem there, however, is that unlike Mexico, these countries aren’t part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), meaning their exports are subject to quotas and tariffs.
That could change. Euromonitor reports that the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in August that it is considering relaxing import barriers in an effort to close the supply gap.

it has been shown over and over again that cheap can be healthy...ALL indigent immigrants buy cheap but healthy. They are not under the influence of the corporate propaganda from the American food industry, the ones who who push the manufactured crap. There is no profit for them in pushing good unadulterated food because they make their money by processing the good stuff into something else, so they don't.

Beans and rice are healthy as hell. It's fair to say tho that it can be hard to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, seasonally, on the cheap.