It has been brought to my attention that the Corn Refiners Association has launched an advertising campaign promoting high-fructose corn syrup. On their home page, there is a statement that reads, in part:
High fructose corn syrup provides many important characteristics, such as texture, flavor and freshness, to your favorite foods and beverages. It is nutritionally the same as table sugar and has the same number of calories, too. As many dietitians agree, sweeteners should be enjoyed in moderation.
In response to the advertising campaign and this statement, I would like to clarify:
1. I am a registered dietitian. 2. I do promote foods in moderation. 3. I do not promote the use of high fructose corn syrup. 4. I am not one of the dietitians this campaign or this web page is attempting to connect their product with. 5. Just as I am exercising my freedom of expression by posting this statement to this blog, I respect the right of the Corn Refiners Association to promote their product. I simply wish to clarify that I have no professional association with their statement or their association. 6. If anyone reading this blog chooses to consume high-fructose corn syrup, it is their personal choice and freedom of expression. It is not a choice based on any perceived endorsement related to the fact that I am a registered dietitian that may have been insinuated based on the wording of these advertisements and the Corn Refiners Association web page.
Yes, I've been a little quiet lately. I've been traveling, and also ramping up to re-launch my newsletter, After the Diet. This next issue is about food policy, which I really want to get out before the election.
Don't fret, I did my best to be nonpartisan! The goal was mainly to illustrate how the things we believe about food and the foods that show up in our food supply are related to deals cut on Capitol Hill. I do my best to stay right down the middle. My obligation is to help anyone who can benefit from my expertise, since diabetes, infertility, depression, you name it, affect Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents.
It matters not to me HOW you vote, it matters THAT you vote, and that when you do, that your vote is informed.
So I researched some issues related to foods and put them together in a newsletter.
The graphic you see is a handout, included in that newsletter, that I developed on trans-fats, since they've recently been making a lot of news and I see clients misusing this information since they don't understand it.
If you're interested in any of the following: --why wild salmon isn't really wild --why the United States sued Mexico to import high-fructose corn syrup --how flooding in Iowa may be raising the price of shrimp --why catfish is not so easy to find in your grocery store --what food-related legislation was actually co-sponsored by (!) John McCain and John Kerry --what FDA warning is potentially reducing the IQ of babies --what one simple change Americans could make to collectively save $18,630,000,000 then you might be interested in subscribing to my newsletter.
I'm already working on the next edition, which will cover the following topics:
Melatonin: The Ultimate Antioxidant?
Dietary Aspects of Melatonin Balance
Sleep, Weight, Insulin Resistance, and Aging
Why Do Pilots Have Shortened Lifespans?
Is It Attention Deficit Disorder? Or Is It Sleep Deprivation?
It's a really fun publication and I'd love to have you subscribe!
I promise, once I get this issue out, there's lots and lots to blog about.
This has been a stellar week in the world of nutrition and food politics. Early in the week, word got out that there is a move to rename high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) (apparently because sales have hit an all-time low). If this marketing strategy works, this sweetener will appear in food labeling as"corn sugar".
American consumers responded rapidly and impressively. All over Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere, it was clear that people did not take kindly to this information. They were insulted that the industry attempting to score this change in nomenclature assumed they were so stupid. And the worst way to maintain brand loyalty is to insult the people who give you money.
It's not looking like a name switch is gonna do it for the struggling HCFS industry. People have decided to take charge of their own health.
Later in the week, a major food company that uses HCFS as its sweetener, despite having been petitioned by consumers not to, announced a partnership with a major association representing health professionals. I'm not naming or linking to either party, because that would be rewarding them for acollaboration which is dubious at best.
It seems that this food company has decided to show interest in consumer health by using some of the money they earned by selling food containing an ingredient, HFCS, that is increasingly being associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and liver problems, among others…to pay for nutrition counseling purchased by the customers who bought that food and are now in need of health advice regarding what to do about it.
HUH?!?!?!? I'm not a WTF kind of writer, but WTF?!?!?
I'm not sure what the expectation here is, for those who accept money for providing these subsidized counseling visits? Are they expected to edit their advice? Overlook the glaring reality that one thing that may need to be eliminated from the diet…is the food that paid for their time in the first place?
My advice? Skip the middle men. Either don't buy the product, and if you find you still need health advice, use the money you therefore saved, to pay for it. Or, if you must have the product, look around for a version that is HCFS free. They are there.
This will hopefully be the next marketing faux-pas on the list of historic blunders. The one that includes the American car manufacturers tried to sell cars with steering wheels on the wrong side rather than make cars that worked with their customers' traffic rules.
When you stop listening to your customers, and act as though you know better than those customers what they want and need, your customers stop patronizing you.
There has been a lot of information circulating around the Internet recently about the dangers of agave nectar. It prompted me to take a little closer look. And I'm glad I did. What I've learned will be part of an ongoing series about the benefits and disadvantages of different types of sugar. It's a complex issue, so to make it more understandable, I thought I'd break it into installments. If you have comments about any of this, please feel free to post. I do moderate comments and won't be putting any up until the series is finished, in case you get ahead of me. I will take your comments into consideration as I proceed with this topic. Thanks for understanding.
According to a 2010 report in the European Journal of Food Safety, a comprehensive review of studies evaluating the effects of various carbohydrates and sugars on metabolism, simple sugars begin to have negative effects on health when they exceed 20% of total calories. That is simple sugars of all kinds--sucrose, fructose, and galactose. Here is how that translates into diets of varying calorie levels, so you can put this information into perspective.
With fructose, the threshold is 7.5% of total calories; more than that, and negative health effects, such as elevated triglycerides, begin to appear. In other words, fructose should be used judiciously, even though it has a lower glycemic index.
A can of soda would contain the following, based on the type of sweetener it contained. It mathematically fits into the above guidelines, but in a way that makes it hard to consume fruits, which also contain fructose, and stay within the calculated limits. Sugar calories Sugar grams Fructose calories Fructose grams Cane sugar 150 38 75 19 Beet sugar 150 38 75 19 High fructose corn syrup 140 35 77 19 Agave nectar* 102 25 87 22
*Agave nectar was a little bit harder to figure out. I did manage to find a Denver-based company called Oogave that makes sodas using agave nectar. Their Esteban's Root Beer is what I used for the above analysis.
My first find in a Google search brought me to Full Throttle, an energy drink manufactured by Coca Cola. Unbelievably, the"blue agave" flavor of this product contains no agave nectar at all, is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and contains 220 calories in a can! They are definitely hoping the consumer would jump to conclusions about this product.
Are you juicing at home?
Here's how the same volume of a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 mix of beet, carrot, and spinach juice compares. Sugar calories Sugar grams Fructose calories Fructose grams 120 24 31 7.8 Calories are not that much different, and total sugar, but the sugar type does. If you were to add fruit, that value would go up.
To give you an idea of what happens when you switch from sugar to agave nectar in the same recipe, I analyzed the same amount of watermelon Arnold Palmer recipe from last week's post. I adjusted the amount of agave nectar based on the fact that agave nectar is 72% sweeter than sugar.
Sugar calories Sugar grams Fructose calories Fructose grams Made with sugar 20 5 9 2.3 Made with agave 18 4.5 10 2.5 Takeaway messages: 1. Any sweetened beverage,"healthy", or homemade, soda or juice, regardless of how it is sweetened, is a significant source of sugar and fructose. It is a dietary choice that should be made with respect, and sparingly. 2. Soda made in Mexico, even though it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup in it, is still problematic in large quantities. 3. The advantage to agave nectar is that it can help you to cut your total sugar intake, and reduce your glycemic load, but you still need to be aware of the quantity you consume. European Food Safety Authority. Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for carbohydrates and dietary fibre. EFAS Journal 2010; 8(3): 1462.
While working on another project this week, I ran across an eye-opening statistic.
The average American consumes 70 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in one year! That's the equivalent of a grade-school child!
Most arguments I have seen about high fructose corn syrup are limited to discussions about whether it is better or worse than sugar. Did you know, though, aside from that, our consumption of HFCS is potentially harmful to our ecosystem?
Corn is primarily grown in the Midwest. There has been growing concern that fertilizer runoff from corn farms, the source of the base ingredient for HFCS, travels down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Fertilizer does to water plants what it does to corn…it promotes growth.
Algae overgrowth related to fertilizer promotes the growth of bacteria that decompose all of this algae as it dies. In the process, it consumes oxygen, which would normally be used by other sea life. Dead zones, therefore, are aquatic zones where no other seafood can live, because there is no oxygen for them to live on.
The Gulf of Mexico dead zone in 2009 is predicted to be the size of the state of New Jersey! That makes it one of the largest years on record.
You all know how much I value seafood for PCOS and hormone health. I thought I'd share this with you readers to help you understand the interconnectedness of all the seemingly independent choices we make.
The less HFCS we consume, the less corn needs to be grown. The less corn that is grown, the less polluted our rivers and waters. The less polluted our rivers and waters…the more seafood for your brains and your hormones. Plus, the less sugar and the more seafood we all consume…the healthier we are in the process!
One of the most important choices we might make, in order to insure that there are enough omega-3 fatty acids for all of our brains…is to reduce our consumption of HFCS.
If you're interested in learning more, I found a great bilingual interactive website that explains dead zones.
As it gets hotter, it's tempting to drink more sweet beverages. We hope you have an opportunity to try Solixir, the functional, herb-containing beverage we profiled on our radio show last week.
Here are a few other ways to spice your water up a bit without adding unnecessary sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.
1. Mix a little bit of Hint Essence Water in with regular or mineral water. Just a little changes the flavor enough to remove the monotony.
2. Throw some mint leaves and cucumber slices in your water. I've learned, the longer it sits, the better it gets!
3. Freeze fruit juice in your ice cube trays and drop in your drink.
4. Freeze whole fruit or fruit chunks and do the same thing.
5. Try Sweet Leaf flavored stevia drops. inCYST intern Sarah Jones' favorite cooler is a few drops of vanilla creme in mineral water for an instant sugar-free cream soda.
Temperatures have been high already this summer. With rising mercury comes a need to stay hydrated. And it's also, when water gets boring, when you're most likely to be tempted to drink soda. We talked with Scott Lerner this morning, CEO of Solixir, a company making a unique line of beverages. It's not just his product that is interesting --Scott actually teamed up with a dietitian and an herbalist when creating Solixir.
We think you'll like his story. Not to mention his beverage! If you're intrigued after hearing his interview, you can find it nationally at Whole Foods Markets and Vitamin Shoppe outlets.
