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High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

huffingtonpost.com

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Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#31

Post by nopassrecover »

gruseom wrote: post #22
MartinCron wrote: post #18

The grammar geek in me likes the parallel construction between "corn sugar" and "cane sugar". No matter what they call it, I will still prefer the taste of my imported Mexican Coke made with cane sugar.

Wow, you know what, I bet that's exactly why they picked the name. "Corn syrup" and "cane sugar" are comfortable and familiar. What could fit in with those better than "corn sugar"? One has to make a cognitive effort to distinguish them, and people don't make that kind of cognitive effort very often. This is brilliant marketing. The tobacco industry must be green with envy.

Just like distinguishing baking soda from baking powder.

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#32

Post by tptacek »

nopassrecover wrote: post #28
Goladus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this too, until I read this: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/ A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

And yet, assuming the mice on table sugar weren't more hyped up than those on HCFS, we still perpetuate the leaky abstraction of calories in, calories out.

While I'm also interested in the leakiness of "cals in cals out", the study in question isn't that inconsistent with the model; HFCS was obesogenic in rats, but that's a fuzzy term that in this case seems to mean in part "when fed HFCS, rats ate more."

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#33

Post by technomancy »

tptacek wrote: post #2

And? Sugar is what's bad for you. The "high fructose" in HFCS is "high" relative to other corn syrup ; table sugar breaks down into glucose and fructose during digestion. "Big Corn" is probably right, here; "HFCS" is a misleading term (for one thing, it doesn't mean anything --- different HFCS blends have wildly different amounts of fructose), and more importantly, the notion that it's just "the bad kind of sugar" th…

Not everyone avoids HFCS because of health reasons; some of us avoid it because it tastes like shit.

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#34

Post by rbranson »

mdasen wrote: post #24

Personally, I'd like to see Sugar Alcohols get more widely used ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_alcohol ). Sugar alcohols are not metabolized by oral bacteria so they're much better for dental health (and used in many chewing gums today such as Trident). They also have fewer calories and are metabolized slower by the body. That means there's less chance that they'll contribute to obesity (fewer calories) and the…

Sugar alcohols create a cooling sensation on the tongue, so they aren't appropriate for everything. They've also got somewhat of a stigma from causing digestive problems. Erythritol, which doesn't cause digestive problems, is starting to gain popularity though.

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#35

Post by tlrobinson »

MartinCron wrote: post #18

The grammar geek in me likes the parallel construction between "corn sugar" and "cane sugar". No matter what they call it, I will still prefer the taste of my imported Mexican Coke made with cane sugar.

Completely agree on the Mexican Coke.

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#36

Post by tptacek »

gruseom wrote: post #20
tptacek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, like I just said, table sugar breaks down into fructose during digestion, and "HFCS" isn't "HF" compared to "all other sweeteners"; it's "HF" compared to plain corn syrup, which is unpalatable. HFCS alarmism is knee-jerk wishful thinking from people who want to blame some boogeyman industrial process for all the nation's health problems. The problem is our addiction to sweetness. HFCS obviously abets this by mak…

Don't disagree overall, but I have three reasons for thinking you might be oversimplifying a bit. Given how much sweeter HFCS is than sucrose, there's reason to believe that our addiction to sweetness is partly the work of that industrial process; there's a pretty big difference between HFCS and sucrose (the latter of course being "only" 50% fructose); and the correlation between the HFCS growth curve and the obesity…

The HFCS in processed food is also "only" 50% (45-55% depending) fructose.

I've managed to position myself as the HFCS defender in this thread, and I'm anything but. HFCS is evil. But it's misleading to blame the "High Fructose" part of the acronym for the evil. Demonizing HFCS gives cover to every other food processor that adds sugars to increase palatability to earn extra sales at the expense of our health.

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#37

Post by ajscherer »

tptacek wrote: post #6
ajscherer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you about HFCS, it does strike me as slimy to rename a product in order to trick people specifically trying to avoid that product into continuing to consume it.

They're rebranding it to "sugar". Good for them. Sugar is the problem . Singling out HFCS actually does everyone a disservice, by making them think that if they just seek out "HFCS-free" foods they'll be fine. No they won't.

I think you're correct, but the ends don't justify the means. If someone wants to avoid eating HFCS, even for the most ignorant and misguided reasons in the world, it is still unethical to change how HCFS is listed in the product ingredients in order to trick them into eating it.

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#38

Post by tptacek »

ajscherer wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're rebranding it to "sugar". Good for them. Sugar is the problem . Singling out HFCS actually does everyone a disservice, by making them think that if they just seek out "HFCS-free" foods they'll be fine. No they won't.

I think you're correct, but the ends don't justify the means. If someone wants to avoid eating HFCS, even for the most ignorant and misguided reasons in the world, it is still unethical to change how HCFS is listed in the product ingredients in order to trick them into eating it.

What's unethical is the promotion of the idea that sweetened food is healthful if it contains natural sugars. The more HFCS is conflated with "natural" sugar, to my mind, the better off we are.

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#39

Post by marknutter »

What's the big deal? If people are being "hurt" by HFCS or "Corn Sugar" or whatever you want to call it, then they can avoid eating it - it says right on the label what's in the food. If you drank 10 beers a day it'd probably be harmful as well. We shouldn't be focusing on the "evil" companies, we should be focusing on ourselves and our own diets. We allowed these "evil" companies to grow this big in the first place by willingly and eagerly buying their HFCS saturated products.

(Not that HuffPost said companies are "evil" but that's the commonly held belief among HuffPost readers)

Re: High fructose corn syrup rebranded as 'corn sugar'

#40

Post by seiji »

MartinCron wrote: post #16

Back when I was in Business School, I did some strategic analysis role-modeling as if I were in charge of Monsanto. At the time, Monsanto was best known for the "terminator gene", suing farmers allegedly stealing their agricultural IP, and BT corn that killed monarch butterflies. I suggested that they change their name as the first part of their strategy to turn over a new leaf in both PR as well as core business act…

Value Jet renamed themselves AirTran after one of their planes exploded. GTE became Verizon after being horrible for years.

Great hacker branding intro: http://blip.tv/file/319044/

"A brand is a const identifier."

(back story to the video: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-make-funny-ta...)

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