Is Agave Worse Than High Fructose Corn Syrup?

Dr. Joseph Mercola says that agave nectar is no better than high-fructose corn syrup. How could natural, organic, alternative agave be no better than processed, Monsanto-sprayed, genetically modified high fructose corn syrup?

Many people interested in staying healthy have switched to agave as a safer "natural" sweetener. They want to avoid well documented dangerous sweeteners like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) but are unaware that most agave is actually WORSE than HFCS.

This expose will offend many hard core natural health advocates because they have been convinced of the agave hype by companies that are promoting it. Read more

A Simple Way To Lower Your Blood Pressure, and Lose Weight Too

There's a simple to lower your blood pressure and lose weight, too: avoid fructose, especially high fructose corn syrup.

A diet high in fructose, a form of sugar found in sweetened soft drinks and junk food, raises blood pressure in men.

Two recent studies provided the first evidence that fructose helps raise blood pressure. One study further suggested that people who consume junk foods and sweetened soft drinks at night could gain weight faster than those who don't.

Fructose accounts for about half the sugar molecules in table sugar and in high-fructose corn syrup, the sweetener used in many packaged foods. Read more

Mercury Contamination Found in High Fructose Corn Syrup

Many people are concerned about eating foods containing high-fructose corn syrup because of its possible link to health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, increased triglycerides, increased LDL cholesterol, and liver disease. Now another reason to avoid high-fructose corn syrup has been discovered: high levels of mercury, which can cause brain damage, deafness, learning disabilities, and even death.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) accounts for the largest amount of calories in the average American diet. It can be found in processed foods of almost every kind - soda, bread, breakfast bars, processed dairy, crackers, soup, condiments, and others. The U.S. first began using HFCS heavily in the 1970's as an inexpensive alternative to sugar when sugar prices skyrocketed. It quickly became the most commonly used sweetener and today is found in almost all processed foods. Americans consume about twelve teaspoons of HFCS on average per day.

Recently HFCS has come under scrutiny because of its possible link to health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, increased triglycerides, increased LDL cholesterol, and liver disease. Fructose is hard for the body to metabolize, converts to fat more than other sugars, and contains no enzymes, vitamins, or minerals. In fact, fructose actually uses vital compounds from the body to be metabolized so it is actually robbing the body of its necessary micronutrients.

In addition to these detrimental effects on health it has been recently reported that there are high levels of mercury in high fructose corn syrup. Mercury is a toxin and is especially harmful to the nervous system. Read more

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

How High Fructose Corn Syrup Makes You Gain Weight

High fructose corn syrup is an obesity engine. A new study confirms that sugar type is just as important as calories. Researchers discovered that when as little as half the glucose was replaced with fructose, lipogenesis, the process by which sugars are turned into body fat, increased significantly

New research from UT Southwestern Medical Center shows the amazing speed that our bodies make body fat from fructose. One of the reasons why low carb diets help you lose weight is that they reduce your intake of fructose.

Even though fructose, a type of sugar, is found naturally abundance in fruit, it is also added to many processed foods. Fructose is probably best known for its presence in the sweetener called high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is typically 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. It unfortunately has become the preferred sweetener for many food manufacturers. This is because it is cheaper, sweeter and easier to blend into beverages than table sugar. Read more

Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup

With all the dangers associated with artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, you might think you'd be better off using products made with sugar. You'd be right, but good luck finding them. Instead of sugar, most foods nowadays contain high fructose corn syrup - another deadly ingredient.

HFCS high fructose corn syrup is responsible for a dangerous epidemic of obesity and diabetes. People under the age of 45 are “children of the corn.” Like Stephen King's thriller, they are reaping the consequences...

...of the food industry’s high fructose corn syrup. They were children or young adults in the late 70s, 80s and 90s when high fructose corn syrup was introduced to the American food supply as a cheap replacement for sugar. Now many of them are struggling with an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, also being referred to as diabesity.

In a recent chemical analysis of eleven carbonated soft drinks sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), researchers from Rutgers University found very high levels of reactive carbonyls.

Reactive carbonyls, which have been linked to tissue damage and complications of diabetes, are elevated in the blood of people with diabetes. A single can of soda, however, has five times that concentration of reactive carbonyls. Old-fashioned table sugar, on the other hand, has no reactive carbonyls. Read more

High Fructose Corn Syrup Linked to Diabetes

It's hard to know which manufactured sweetener is worse: aspartame or high fructose corn syrup.

Researchers have found new evidence that soda pop sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children.

In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels.

[...]

In the current study, Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found "astonishingly high" levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages.--ConsumerAffairs.com

A good rule to follow is to not use any manufactured sweetener. Sugar and honey may add calories, but at least they're not poisonous.