For the past several decades, the U.S. government has paid subsidies to American farmers to grow tons of corn (much of which—nearly 90 percent—is genetically modified) and shifted domestic agricultural policy to maximize corn crops. This made high-fructose corn syrup and other corn-derived processed ingredients much cheaper for industrial food manufacturers to use.
Today, HFCS is nearly ubiquitous on American grocery store shelves. It can be found in a wide range of items, including candy, ice cream, bread, chips, snacks, soups, soft drinks, fruit drinks and other beverages, condiments, jellies, deli meats, and much, much more.
HFCS is not just a cheaper sweetener than sugar, but also useful in stabilizing and extending the shelf lives of many products.127 Moreover, it was not only used to replace sugar, but also infused in new recipes. It became so pervasive, often lurking in unexpected foods, that the TIME writer Lisa McLaughlin commented in 2008, “unless you’re making a concerted effort to avoid it, it’s pretty difficult to consume high-fructose corn syrup in moderation.”128
The average American consumes 12 teaspoons of HFCS per day, but for many (and especially children and teenagers who crave sweets), consumption can frequent 80 percent above this average amount.129 By 2004, about 8 percent of total calories consumed by the average American came from high-fructose corn syrup.130 Overall, Americans consume about fifty to sixty pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per capita—an insane amount.
HFCS has been linked in scientific research to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, and other contributors of bad health and early death.
A 2004 study linking high-fructose corn syrup to the rising obesity epidemic shocked the market and national consciousness. It asserted that the increased consumption of HFCS since 1970, which increased more than 1,000 percent by 1990, mirrored the rapid increase of obesity in America. The study argued that HFCS’s abundant fructose sugar promotes new fats, and its interaction with insulin and leptin prevents appetite regulation and encourages the consumption of more and more calories.131
In experimental conditions, another study also found that consumption of the sugar alternative damaged metabolism, contributing to disease, even when weight gain did not take place, while it also contributed toward hypertension and cardiovascular disease.132
As the biggest dietary source of fructose, HFCS also promotes insulin resistance and increasing uric acid levels, which contribute to metabolic dysfunction and type 2 diabetes.133,134
Further, researchers in 2008 found a correlation between high fructose consumption and liver scarring in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is present in nearly a third of American adults.135,136
Of course, sucrose (table sugar) is also very detrimental to health.137,138 While excess intake of both can contribute toward weight gain, studies found that rats fed fewer calories of HFCS (at 8 percent) gained more weight than those eating sucrose (at 10 percent).139
In both cases—in ordinary sugar and high-fructose corn syrup—it is the fructose rather than the glucose that is spiking insulin and damaging the body.140 Though glucose theoretically counterbalances fructose, studies have found that both HFCS (55) and sucrose, which have both glucose and fructose in close-to-equal proportions, act on the body almost exactly like pure fructose, which is rarely used in food production.141,142
The body’s response to highly refined liquid sugars fails to satiate appetites and contributes toward eating more.143 But the relative inexpensiveness of high-fructose corn syrup, in contrast to the other two, allowed food manufacturers to indiscriminately increase package sizes and amounts of calories. Cane sugar was relatively expensive and statistically less likely to become an overindulgence.
As consumers added high-fructose corn syrup to their diet for the first time, they increased total sweet calories on top of increasingly already high added-sugar intake.144 Bottom line, eating more sweet calories and more calories overall went hand in hand with the age of cheap and overabundant high-fructose corn syrup. The rise in HFCS intake outpaced that of any other food during this period.145
Of course, it’s worth keeping in mind that high-fructose corn syrup is not naturally occurring, nor is it easily made. It requires sophisticated industrial-scale processing with multiple transformations of the base corn raw material.
Technically, it is possible to create this concoction at home, but it requires unique and expensive ingredients. Preparing HFCS takes significantly more effort than your average cookbook recipe.
Just boil water, add a drop of sulfuric acid, heat to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, reduce, and add the corn to soak overnight. The next day, add a teaspoon of alpha-amylase, stir until viscous and thin, cool to room temperature, add a teaspoon of glucose-amylase, and pour the mixture into a cheesecloth-lined bowl. Sprinkle on a teaspoon of xylose and strain the resultant slurry through the cloth. Reheat back to 140 degrees, add some lab-created glucose isomerase (genetically modified from the streptomyces rubiginosus bacterium) and boil; then cool and enjoy!146
Beyond the impact that high-fructose corn syrup has on American waistlines, Western fructose consumption, and the food market, this bittersweet foodstuff is adding very harmful and very hidden food additives as well.
HFCS is everywhere, but most people who eat it never even consider that it could be contaminated with toxic mercury.
Chlor-alkali plants produce chlorine and caustic soda using something called mercury cell technology. Even though it has been well-known for hundreds of years that mercury is a poison, and more energy-efficient, mercury-free technologies exist, approximately fifty mercury cell chlor-alkali plants are still in operation worldwide.147 As of 2009, eight such plants operated in the United States. Each plant’s cells can contain as much as 448,000 pounds of mercury, and unaccounted-for mercury losses get reported to the EPA every year.
Aside from all that toxic mercury poisoning the air, water, and soil, it also directly contaminates the food supply in so many of the products containing HFCS. How? Caustic soda is a main ingredient in the corn conversion process used to turn corn into HFCS. Four of the big plants that manufacture HFCS in the United States still use mercury cell technology to do it.
Two studies came out in 2009 exposing mercury-tainted products containing HFCS. First, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy published “Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High-Fructose Corn Syrup” following an investigation of mercury content in fifty-five foods and beverages from popular brands including Kraft, Hershey’s, Smucker’s, and Quaker. The sampled products included HFCS as the first or second most predominant ingredient. All told, mercury was detected in nearly one-third of the fifty-five products tested.148
That same year, Dufault et al. (2009) published a paper in Environmental Health in which twenty samples of HFCS from three different U.S. plants were tested for the presence of mercury. Of the twenty samples, nine were contaminated with detectable levels of mercury (≥0.005 µg/g), ranging from 0.012 to 0.570 µg/g HFCS.149
As consumption of this relatively new sweetener remained historically high, and with the presence of mercury at concerning levels in a wide array of foods containing HFCS, the regular consumption of these foods by children and adolescents grew in significance.150
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Center for Science in the Public Interest highlighted the high consumption of sodas and other drinks containing HFCS by these vulnerable and developing members of society.151 It found that some 20 percent of children one to two years old drank sodas, while half of children ages six to eleven consumed an average of 15 ounces of soda per day. Teenagers who drink soda tossed back three or more high-fructose beverages per day on average.152
Hopefully, this is beginning to