Today we can’t drive by without once seeing a fast food restaurant. It has become an integral part of American society and with childhood obesity on the rise what will become of us tomorrow? Slowly the food habits are eating away at our heart and one day will consume it whole. Who is to blame? The focus of this blog is to analyze some misunderstandings of a certain food ingredient that has shifted the markets due to a recent rise in health fads.
Who else but High Fructose Corn Syrup 55? Well what is it exactly? It is a very common food ingredient that comes out of the process of inverting sucrose into its component sugar monomers fructose and glucose through an enzymatic or acidic reagent. The number 55 indicates the concentration of the fructose monomer relative to glucose. So it’s 55:45 fructose-glucose syrup.
Skepticism has been pushed about the naturalness of the product, this misunderstanding comes because of the lack of the appreciation for the chemistry behind the ingredient. As explained briefly above, the process is deriving 2 sugar monomers from sucrose using an enzyme or an acid thus eliminating the notion about its naturalness.
What about its impact to the American diet and health? Well the food additive has been unjustifiably linked to obesity. Those with little to know appreciation for statistics know that to create causation for the responsiveness of a certain variable is unjust. There are other factors affecting obesity than just one mere food additive. In short there is no scientific evidence supporting the claim linking the two together conclusively.
These factors are due to the proliferation of Television and Video games leading from the 1970s up to today. Fast food has been on the rise due to its economic convenience to feed a low income family on such small amounts of money. More women have entered the workforce as well, which has led to a slight dependency of fast food as well.
Companies now are shifting away from using HFCS55 because they don’t want to attack the consumer on how their lifestyle choices have made them what they are today. What kind of business would criticize their consumers? So they then offer an alternative, “We are now organic” or “Reduced fat” are some of memorable examples.
With that in mind do you agree that HFCS55 should continue taking on such a bad reputation? This stigma on the food ingredient that the FDA acknowledges as a natural ingredient is quite unreasonable.
Pablo, I like your approach of this subject. Yes, high fructose corn syrup in itself is not the root of all evil, but on the other hand, it isn't doing anyone any good. If you consider that most food that contains high fructose corn syrup is usually highly refined, than maybe it would be in our best interest to steer clear. I do think that American's should be aware of what is in there food and whether or not it has a potential for heatlh problems.
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