Attacks on Big Food from every quarter have sent manufacturers running to their spin doctors to try to change the perception of HFCS. So, now they're going to call it Corn Sugar and are proliferating the air waves with dishonest advertisements claiming that "Sugar is sugar". Nothing could be further from the truth.
There are so many reasons not to consume high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), so don’t be fooled by Big Food and its claims that it’s a “natural sugar”. HFCS is not a natural sugar like the fructose in grapes, cherries or other fruit. It is a highly processed sugar that is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Fructose is metabolized by the liver and over consumption of it can lead to liver disease. In fact a study at Queen Elizabeth College in London in 1969 showed that high consumption of fructose is far more harmful than a high consumption of sucrose (table sugar).
Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a controlled diet including high levels of fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.
HFCS has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease. It raises blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, uric acid, insulin and cortisol. It makes blood cells more prone to clotting and may accelerate the aging process.
Fructose is a major contributor to:
· Insulin resistance and obesity
· Elevated triglycerides and elevated VLDL (very low density lipoproteins – the cholesterol that causes arteriolosclerosis)
· Depletion of vitamins and minerals
· Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout
Dr. Robert Lustig Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used:
· After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
· Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
· The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
· When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat.
· The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
· Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.
The bottom line is: fructose leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome -- not to mention the long list of chronic diseases that directly result.
The really scary thing about HFCS is that it is hidden in literally thousands of processed food products from soups, to cereals and frozen entrees. Whole Foods advertises that they use only “organic” HFCS. Organic or not, it’s the same stuff. This is where label reading becomes crucial: Take a look at the ingredients in your Tomato Soup. I have never understood why tomato soup requires sweetening.
When you start to acquaint yourself with all the products that contain HFCS, you will understand why Americans consume an average of 156 pounds of sugar per year per person, why America is currently suffering an obesity epidemic and why the incidence of Type II diabetes has soared since HFCS became the sweetener of choice for Big Food.
Interesting factoid: Big Food produces 3900 calories per day for every person in the United States. Most of these calories are in the form of some sort of corn derivative. The manufacturers have to try to get us to eat all those calories somehow - hence the invention of the Big Gulp - 640 calories of HFCS, flavoring and carbonated water.
DON'T BUY IT!
No comments:
Post a Comment