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This Chicago Tribune article says Scientists see little dietary benefit in food companies' scramble to swap out processed sweeteners for natural ones and Those issues have come to outweigh high-fructose corn syrup's benefits -- it helps keep foods moist, extends the shelf life of products and is cheaper to produce than cane or beet sugar. Consequently, it has become a popular ingredient in processed products in nearly every aisle of the supermarket.
The fact is that high-fructose corn syrup and sugar both contribute to increased risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses, according to the American Medical Association and numerous scientists and nutritionists. Although some studies have suggested the body metabolizes high-fructose corn syrup more slowly than it does sugar, experts say the bottom line for consumers is they should avoid both except in small amounts.
Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at Harvard University's School of Public Health and author of "Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy," called the recent spate of product reformulations away from high-fructose corn syrup a "marketing distraction." The debate over HFCS has become so political that it's impossible to know. There's tons of research saying that HFCS is awful, and there's other research saying it's the same as sugar.
I know one thing, though - to me, sugar tastes WORLDS better.
Also important is that HFCS is mainly used in processed, highly caloric foods. Replacing the HFCS in those foods will not make much difference, I don't think. Drinking a few sodas per day is still going to make you fat. What we should be doing is reducing the amount of processed foods we eat - HFCS or not.
HFCS used to be a marker that "this is something bad for you," even if the HFCS wasn't the culprit. My fear is that if everyone starts just using sugar, people won't change their diets at all.
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