Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Really a "Sweet Surprise" for America?

Model and yoga activist Tara Stiles examines whether high fructose corn syrup is really a "sweet surprise" for America.

If you google "High Fructose Corn Syrup," the first thing that pops up is www.sweetsurprise.com. It's a sponsored link, right at the top. Go to the pretty website and you'll see healthy stalks of corn poking into a clear blue sky. A racially diverse group of kids and adults are pictured smiling around tables of pancakes, cereals, berries, and cornbread.

"HFCS is the chemical and nutritional equivalent of table sugar (sucrose). The two substances have the same calories, the same chemical composition and are metabolized identically." - Arthur Frank, M.D., Medical Director, George Washington University Weight Management Program. The Washington Times, December, 6, 2006

"In 1983, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally listed HFCS as safe for use in food and reaffirmed that decision in 1996. The FDA noted that "the saccharide composition (glucose to fructose ratio) of HFCS is approximately the same as that of honey, invert sugar and the disaccharide sucrose (table sugar)." - Food and Drug Administration Federal Register, August 23, 1996

Sounds convincing. I had to retreat to Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" for a reality check. Read more