AP Exclusive: Officials slam corn syrup rebranding

[Donnachaidh]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-Exclusive-Officials-slam-apf-2529890392.html?x=0

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration has cautioned the corn industry over its ongoing use of the term "corn sugar" to describe high fructose corn syrup, asking them to stop using the proposed new name before it has received regulatory approval, The Associated Press has learned.

The Corn Refiners Association wants to use "corn sugar" as an alternative name for the widely used liquid sweetener currently labeled as high fructose corn syrup on most sodas and packaged foods. They're attempting an image makeover after some scientists linked the product to obesity, diabetes and other health problems; some food companies now tout products that don't contain the ingredient.

Though it could take another year before the FDA rules on the request made last September to change the name, the Corn Refiners Association has for months been using "corn sugar" on television commercials and at least two websites: cornsugar.com and sweetsurprise.com.

A series of high-profile television, online and print advertisements tell consumers that "sugar is sugar" and that corn sugar is natural and safe, provided it's consumed in moderation.

More at the link --

about freaking time FDA....

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Compromise: let the industry have its new label as long as there are mandatory

and explicit warning labels on the products with HFCS.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Imagine that. A regulatory agency doing its job....

Have been avoiding HFCS for years. Feel better for it. Still read labels looking for it and mostly avoid anything with that as an ingredient.

[FarCenter]

3. Fructose is a sugar

Most HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose.

Cane sugar is sucrose, which your intestines break into 50% fructose and 50% glucose before it is absorbed into your blood stream.

Avoid sugars, since the fructose has to be metabolized in the liver.

Starches and other complex carbohydrates are mostly polymers of glucose, which your body easily breaks down to individual glucose molecules.

[saras]

4. Highly Fucked-up Corn Syrup

"Sugar is sugar". No, it isn't. In medical or nutritional terms that is simply a lie. It's far outside the range of medically acceptable opinion because it simply denies the differences between different sugars - differences in rate of absorption, digestibillity, sweetness, impurities, reaction of the insulin system, ecological and economic impacts of producing it, taste - really the ONLY thing they have in common is belonging to a particular class of chemical structures.

[hunter]

5. The higher fructose corn syrups ought to be banned.

HFCS 42 isn't quite so hideous, it behaves much like sucrose. But HFCS 55 and above clearly has an addictive quality to it. That's why they put it in soft drinks.

[femrap]

6. We all need to eat as little

Processed Foods as possible. That would greatly reduce our problems.