Sugar farmers suing corn industry for misleading "Corn Sugar" propaganda ads

[Timstuff]

Oops. Looks like Big Corn has some pissed off beet farmers on its tail!

High Fructose Corn Syrup is the least popular it's been in over 20 years, since Americans are finally starting to get smart about what they put in their bodies. This goes beyond just choosing products with natural sugar over HFC, but also avoiding "non-sugary" products that have had HFC snuck into them, like bread and cereal. Well, the corn refinement industry is none too happy about this, so they've decided to roll out a sequel to their infamous "sweet surprise" propaganda blitzkrieg-- a series of commercials attempting to rebrand HFC as "corn sugar," and telling viewers that "corn sugar" is exactly the same as real sugar and that they should stop avoiding it immediately.

This not-entirely-honest new campaign has awoken the ire of the USA's farmers who grow real sugar from plants like sugar cane and beets. Their suit says that the corn industry is using false advertising, and that by claiming that their creation is sugar they are depriving business from actual sugar farmers. They want compensation for lost revenues and a corrected advertising campaign that essentially apologizes for misleading people, since "sugar" normally refers to the extraction of sugar from a plant by boiling and washing, the way it has been done for centuries, whereas HFC is the result of genetically engineered corn being digested by genetically engineered microbes in a laboratory.

Needless to say, everyone would do well to eat less sugar, but I am glad to see that people are getting as fed up with all the crap that the corn refiners' association has been doing. They made a product that is cheaper, less healthy, and less satisfying than sugar (meaning you'll always want more), and convinced food manufacturers to sneak it into everything, and now they are throwing a pissy party because the public finally called shenanigans. I don't care if Soda goes from costing $1.00 per bottle to $1.50 a bottle if it means that they are not putting as much artificial crap in it, and people shouldn't be drinking it every day anyway.

http://news.consumerreports.org/health/2011/05/food-fight-breaks-out-over-corn-sugar.html

 

[raybia]

Sugar is evil and Corn syrup is Satan.

 

[Ultra Lantern]

Candy is dandy,but liquor is quicker.

 

[greenrage36]

liquor is quicker but beer brings cheer!

 

[Bill]

"High Fructose Corn Syrup is the least popular it's been in over 20 years, since Americans are finally starting to get smart about what they put in their bodies. This goes beyond just choosing products with natural sugar over HFC, but also avoiding "non-sugary" products that have had HFC snuck into them, like bread and cereal. Well, the corn refinement industry is none too happy about this, so they've decided to roll out a sequel to their infamous "sweet surprise" propaganda blitzkrieg-- a series of commercials attempting to rebrand HFC as "corn sugar," and telling viewers that "corn sugar" is exactly the same as real sugar and that they should stop avoiding it immediately.

This not-entirely-honest new campaign has awoken the ire of the USA's farmers who grow real sugar from plants like sugar cane and beets. Their suit says that the corn industry is using false advertising, and that by claiming that their creation is sugar they are depriving business from actual sugar farmers. They want compensation for lost revenues and a corrected advertising campaign that essentially apologizes for misleading people, since "sugar" normally refers to the extraction of sugar from a plant by boiling and washing, the way it has been done for centuries, whereas HFC is the result of genetically engineered corn being digested by genetically engineered microbes in a laboratory.

Needless to say, everyone would do well to eat less sugar, but I am glad to see that people are getting as fed up with all the crap that the corn refiners' association has been doing. They made a product that is cheaper, less healthy, and less satisfying than sugar (meaning you'll always want more), and convinced food manufacturers to sneak it into everything, and now they are throwing a pissy party because the public finally called shenanigans. I don't care if Soda goes from costing $1.00 per bottle to $1.50 a bottle if it means that they are not putting as much artificial crap in it, and people shouldn't be drinking it every day anyway."

The bold is really why there is such an uproar as sugar farmers would love for you to consume their products until you have to roll yourself around to move. As far as your body, and the chemical make-up, is concerned, there's not much difference between the two, but you'd do well to avoid both.

 

[Timstuff]

The bold is really why there is such an uproar as sugar farmers would love for you to consume their products until you have to roll yourself around to move. As far as your body, and the chemical make-up, is concerned, there's not much difference between the two, but you'd do well to avoid both.

You would do well to avoid sugar regardless of what form it takes, but the fact of the matter is that HFC does not merely get used in place of real sugar-- it also gets added to foods that should not have additional sugar, like bread. The sugar farmers are probably upset that HFC is being marketed as a sugar replacement in sweets like candy, deserts, and soda, however I doubt that the end result is that they start putting sugar into our bread, because sugar is more expensive and is thus less desirable to use as an additive in foods that are not supposed to be sweet.

Also, the jury is still out on whether or not HFC is worse for you than sugar, but that's mostly because half of the scientific "jury" is in the corn refinement industry's pocket, just like how they've got lots of politicians in their pockets. Sucrose, AKA table sugar, is a "double sugar," meaning it's two simple sugars whose molecules are fused together. In order to unfuse and digest a double sugar like sucrose, your body has to release a special chemical to break the molecular bond. The release of this chemical sends the signal to your brain that you have have consumed sugar, and alerts your brain that you've had enough. HFC on the other hand, is a syrup made of two simple sugars (glucose and fructose) that share no molecular bond at all. Not only are simple sugars sweeter than double sugars, but they are essentially pre-digested. When your body digests it, it never releases the chemical to break it down, and your brain never receives the "signal" that you've eaten sugar. This means the HFC gets stored immediately as fat, and you will always crave more.

Sugar is not good for you, but HFC is bad for you. That is an important distinction to make.