Corn Syrup or Corn Sugar: Will You Swallow Name Change? (POLL)
High fructose corn syrup is used to sweeten soft drinks and many other foods. (CBS)
(CBS/AP) Americans have grown so sour on high fructose corn syrup, so its makers want to sweeten its image with a new name:
Corn sugar.
The Corn Refiners Association applied Tuesday to the federal government for permission to use the name on food labels. The group says they hope a new name will ease confusion about the sweetener, which is used in soft drinks, bread, cereal and other products.
Americans' consumption of corn syrup has fallen to a 20-year low on consumer concerns that it is more harmful or more likely to cause obesity than ordinary sugar, perceptions for which there is little scientific evidence.
Sugar and high fructose corn syrup are nutritionally the same, and there's no evidence that the sweetener is any worse for the body than sugar, said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The bottom line is people should consume less of all sugars, Jacobson said.Some scientists have linked consumption of full-calorie soda - the vast majority of which is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup - to obesity.
The FDA could take two years to decide on the name, but that's not stopping the industry from using the term now in advertising.
There's a new online marketing campaign at www.cornsugar.com and on television. Two new commercials try to alleviate shopper confusion, showing people who say they now understand that "whether it's corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can't tell the difference. Sugar is sugar."
Renaming products has succeeded before. For example, low erucic acid rapeseed oil became much more popular after becoming "canola oil" in 1988. Prunes tried to shed a stodgy image by becoming "dried plums" in 2000.
Will consumers swallow this time?
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Yeah, sugar is sugar but what happens when you begin to mess with the DNA structure of foods? Is it the same? Or does you body not know what to do with it and "store" is away? Obesity and Diabetes has increased exponentially with the use of HFCS. That's simply the facts.
Fructose does not occur naturally in corn. Corn syrup is made by breaking down corn starch into maltodextrins and dextrose. The dextrose is then chemically converted to fructose using another enzymatic process. Calling this product corn sugar is a marketing maneuver to try to make a product that is increasing suspect seem more wholesome. The reason this product is so prevalent in food products is that fructose is about 6 times sweeter than sucrose (regular sugar). This allows food producers to cut costs by using smaller amount of HFCS than they would sugar. For the food companies this all about economics. It is in their interest pacify fears about the health concerns of consuming too much fructose because it keeps there costs lower. Consumers need to do what is in their interest. If they would rather have honest labels that reflect what is really in their food, they need to fight for it. The food producer are organized and have teams of lobbyist fighting for them. Who is fighting for the rest of us?
But yeah you have hit the nail on the head, it boils down to cost and economics. Unfortunately the health and 'right of choice' of the public is of at best secondary concern.
Sadly I can't take part in the poll because the options are too polarizing and neither reflect my views. Corn Syrup and HFCS aren't in of themselves unhealthy. However, just like every other food product or additive it's a matter of quantity and frequency. Eating too much of anything frequently will be very unhealthy for you no matter what it is, even water.
The problem with HFCS s that it's downright everywhere so whether we like it or not we're consuming a lot of it. Seriously go to your kitchen and see how many foods you have that don't have Corn Syrup, HFCS or modified corn starch in the ingredients.
That said all these aliases and monikers and now this name change only serve to make it more difficult for consumers who are trying to monitor and control their intake.
Imagine if salt could also be listed as: Earth Spice, Hydrolyzed Sodium, Purified Sea-Water Extract and that the manufacturer could come up with new ones on the fly. Be a lot hard to control your sodium wouldn't it?
In short: call it what it is. Let the consumer choose and stop playing the equivalent of a shell game'. To do otherwise makes one seem deceptive and shows disrespect fr the public.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcH8SASEpKU
A change to the name "corn sugar" would obviously be an attempt to fool less savvy consumers (that would be a lot of consumers) that have decided not to use the dubiously anointed sugar replacement on their own.
Regardless of the favorable studies the government and industry are quoting, the consumer has decided in majority numbers that they do not wish to ingest high fructose corn syrup! So the government is considering colluding with an industry's attempt to defraud many consumers, by changing the name. Consumers already know what high fructose corn syrup is and they don't want it! But by changing the name to corn sugar many consumers won't realize they've been duped before a lot of high fructose corn syrup has been sold!
This is similar but even more blatant to how the government refuses to label genetically enhanced food. Because government and the industry know that many consumers won't buy it if it was labeled clearly as genetically enchased (and it's still not labeled). So the government and industry has "decided for us" to buy genetically enhanced food by not labeling it! Despite many consumer's clear choice in scientific polls that they want it properly labeled! Just as the industry now wishes the government to make the same choice for us by renaming high fructose corn syrup to corn sugar.
As is most often the case, this kind of name change, mislabeling or not labeling at all, is about getting consumer dollars into the pockets of industry at the expense of the consumer legitimate and rightful choice.
Just because government and industry believes high fructose corn syrup is safe and " just like sugar" doesn't mean that the consumer should be fooled into that choice by a change in the name to "corn sugar".
Information is power but misinformation is tyranny!