High Fructose Corn Syrup Exposed

If you search the internet on the topic of HCFS or High Fructose Corn Syrup, you’ll see that this food additive truly poses a health risk to the general public, from obesity, diabetes, to cardiovascular diseases. What’s even alarming is that it is an ingredient in virtually every food we eat. Unless you read your labels very well and take time to prepare your own healthy food, there is just no way for you to know if the sweetness of your food has been made from natural sweeteners.

High fructose corn syrup is made from an elaborate process that takes starch into glucose, then, by adding some synthetic compound, turning it into fructose. This forms a liquid clear syrup that’s oh-so-sweet and truly cheap. Despite the tedious process of making HCFS, it is still cheaper than your table sugar. What’s even more alarming is that controversies believed that this syrup is made from genetically modified corn which is high in surplus.

You must also know that in recent years, there is a collapse in the colony of bees. Bees are essential part of natural food production since they are responsible for pollination of almost all the crops that we eat. When the bees started to slowly disappear, the science world was alarmed and they have made efforts to find why. Since high fructose corn syrup are really cheap, for this reason, it is being fed to honey bees. It just gives them all those calories to stay active and keep producing more honeys – minus the huge cost. For decades, it has been a food source for many bees.

However, USDA researchers have found out that it is poisoning bees. When high fructose corn syrup is heated, it produces a toxin called hydroxymethylfurfural or HMF. It is a result of cooking with temperatures of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This can be compared to the browning of carbohydrates, which creates acrylamides, a chemical that causes cancer. HMF may just be a factor among many other reasons why bees are dying. But this doesn’t mean we should keep our guard down.

The bottom line is, we, as consumers, have the power to change the way we have been consuming all these junk foods. There are indeed healthier and natural choices that we can buy to give us the optimum health benefits from all of these foods we eat. Reading your food labels may take time, but the bottom line is: when the buying stops, the production of these nasty food additives will stop too. The question is whether we can live without all those junk treats that we come to love, like your favorite can of the coldest soda you can find in the local convenience store.

Conspiracy for Fat America & High-Fructose Corn Syrup: