What's the real scoop on processed foods?

Why is our family giving up processed foods?  We all know processed foods are bad.  Even if you eat them all the time, you know they aren't good for you.  But maybe you don't know exactly why.  I know I didn't.  I knew that high fructose corn syrup was supposedly bad (but why?), that there are all sorts of unpronounceable ingredients on the backs of boxes or containers of processed foods and that many have added sugar and "natural" and artificial flavoring, but what exactly does it all mean?

I think truthfully, there are too many common ingredients found in processed foods to cover in one blog post, and like I said before, this is a slow learning process for me so I'll break things down when I need to.  This is one such occasion.  In researching processed foods, I've come across a lot of different things, and they are each worthy of their own post, so I'm going to go one-by-one for a bit.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Today I really dug into the research on high fructose corn syrup, something that has gotten a pretty bad rap lately, but something we're still eating all the time via processed foods.

Where did it come from?

High fructose corn syrup was created to take advantage of the incredibly cheap surplus of corn (because the government subsidized it).  HFCS was developed in the 1950s, but it wasn't until the 70s that a process had been created to harness it for mass production.  This process emerged in Japan.  Soon thereafter, HFCS was used in everything it possibly could be.  Why not? It seemed perfect.  It was cheaper than sugar, tasted like sugar, extended the shelf life of products from days to years and would be responsible for drastic increased profits through decreased costs.  Probably no one product was more impacted by HFCS than soft drinks.  Coca-Cola swapped out sugar for HFCS in 1984, which spurned a massive switch all across the board, with company after company following Coca-Cola's lead.

Eighty percent of HFCS is extracted from genetically modified corn.  It's created using enzymatic fermentation, mold and chemicals.

Does it make you fat?

Just like sugar, HFCS has no nutritional value whatsoever.  In turn, it depletes your body of nutrients in order to be metabolized.  Fructose is metabolized faster than sugar and ends up getting stored in the liver.  This can contribute to or cause non-alcoholic liver disease.  Then, because of fructose's unique molecular structure, it acts as a backbone for the construction of long-chain fatty acids - or, in layman's terms, converts to fat more easily than glucose.  Glucose moves easily from the blood into the brain (the blood-brain barrier), while fructose lacks that ability.  As a result, the brain cannot properly tell your body you are satisfied, no matter how much fructose you consume.  This is part of the theory about why HFCS is so much more likely to spike your weight than glucose.  Additionally, fructose doesn't stimulate the release of insulin.  Without insulin, there is no leptin.  Without leptin, the brain can't "hear" a signal that you are satisfied and you will just keep on eating.

Brooklyn College's Anthony Sclafani noticed that the rats in his lab who ate rat food put on weight normally, but when given a diet of processed foods, had insatiable appetites.  The more sugar they ate, the more sugar they wanted.  They literally couldn't stop themselves from eating.

According to this article in the Guardian:

Sugar induces many of the diseases associated with "metabolic syndrome", including high blood pressure, diabetes and accelerated aging. 'It can also be argued that fructose exerts toxic effects on the liver that are similar to those of alcohol," said the UCSF scientists. "This is no surprise, because alcohol is derived from the fermentation of sugar.'"

A Princeton University study found that rats who ate high fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those eating table sugar, even when their caloric intake was the same.  According to an article on the study:

'Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests,' said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. 'When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.'"

So what's with the mixed messages?

It makes me a little frustrated to read the research on high fructose corn syrup and then think back to all the advertisements the Corn Refiner's Association launched in 2008, claiming that table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are one and the same.  You can visit their website today and you'll find this:


But of course, scroll to the bottom and you'll see the website is run by the Corn Refiner's Association, and as has sadly become the norm in the food industry today, it is very difficult to trust studies that are sponsored by (or even worse, created by) the very organization or association that stands to gain its entire livelihood on their product being considered safe.  In my opinion, this is one of the sole reasons that food has become so complicated today.  One independent study says one thing, but an industry-sponsored study says the exact opposite.  Who are we to believe?  This is only my personal opinion, but I will generally opt to believe an independent study that was not sponsored by an organization or association with a vested interest in the success or failure of the product being tested over one sponsored by the company who stands to gain or lose the most based on the study's results.

To sum it all up:

High fructose corn syrup, when studied independently (not sponsored by the Corn Refiner's Association), is found to produce fatter rats with bigger tummies (belly fat) and triglycerides - symptoms of the metabolic syndrome (obesity/type 2 diabetes/insulin resistance/hypertension).  The introduction of HFCS in the 70s parallels the massive spike in type 2 diabetes (47% to be exact) and the 80% increase in obesity.  High fructose corn syrup shuts off our ability to determine when we're no longer hungry, making it the biggest contribution found yet to the unnatural hunger that plagues Americans today.  Because high fructose corn syrup is so cheap and so abundant, it is used in the majority of processed foods today (just try to find a loaf of bread or jar of applesauce at your grocery store that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup in it), meaning it is not a product most Americans are getting in small quantities.  We are ingesting massive amounts of high fructose corn syrup each year, so it's really no wonder that the obesity rate has increased 80 percent.

Not to be misunderstood, however, I think it's important to note that just because high fructose corn syrup is "bad" doesn't mean sugar is "good."  I don't think sugar is good for you in any form.  I think our bodies can tolerate small amounts of sugar and be just fine (as can our waistline), but we consume so much sugar it makes my stomach hurt just to think about it.  I'm completely guilty of this.  In fact, I have a raging sweet tooth, and researching HFCS really helped me shed some light on why that might be.  If I want to kick the sugar, I simply must give it up entirely for awhile.  As long as I'm eating things made with HFCS, it stands to reason that my body will keep asking for more and I won't know when to stop.  Regardless of the confusion among the HFCS debate, I think everyone can agree that as a whole, we consume much more sugar than we should.