If you're in the US of A it's a regular fuckin' gauntlet to try to ensure your food purchases aren't loaded with corn syrup.
nieceandtows 9 points 2 days ago
Yeah I can find stuff I want without corn syrup way more easily than find stuff I want without palm oil.
wesker 7 points 2 days ago
Thank you for making me aware. I recently switched from almond milk to hemp milk to try to be more resource conscious. I guess I'll also try to see if I can weed out palm oil products.
hanrahan 1 point 21 hours ago
indeed but you'd need to destroy waaaay more if you don't use it, they use it because the palm oil tree is so comparatively efficient.
Not using it in biofuels would be awesome though, electrify that use at least.
DupaCycki 18 points 2 days ago
I've tried a few products imported from the US. Mostly sweets or sweet drinks.
It's always the same three ingredients - sugar (of course, nothing American about it), high calorie corn syrup, and modified corn starch.
The first sip of a Dr Pepper from the US tasted pretty good. So did the second. But by the half of the can I felt sick.
Same with the sweets. I can usually eat a lot of sweets at a time, probably a lot more than I should, but I had to stop in the middle of a 100g pack, because it was making me physically unwell.
I cannot imagine eating (or trying to) anything like this more often than once every 6 months. I'm sorry that Americans are being actively poisoned.
SaveTheTuaHawk 4 points 2 days ago
The sugar content of British candy is actually higher.
kryptonianCodeMonkey 8 points 2 days ago
There's nothing, in particular, of health concern about corn syrup or high-fructose corn syrup besides it being sugary. It is used in everything because corn is incredibly subsidized by the US government and so the syrup created from it is very very cheap. The amount of sugar in general in processed foods is a problem if eaten to excess, but whether that sugar comes from cane, corn, or any other food safe plant, it makes little difference for overall health risks.
If this person is having digestive issues/discomfort from it, I would suggest that one of 3 things is happening. 1) it's psychsomatic because they assume it's worse for them. 2) They have an allergy to something in the drink. Maybe the corn, maybe something else. 3) They have fructose intolerance from fructose malabsortion in the small intestine. If the fructose isn't all absorbed before making it to your large intestine, it can ferment some from your gut bacteria and cause bloating and gas. This is uncomfortable, but not dangerous to your health.
Fructose is not chemically dangerous and it is naturally found in many foods (fruits, honey, vegetables, ... corn, etc.). The only difference between the glucose in cane sugar and typical corn syrup and the fructose in High Fructose Corn Syrup is that fructose is a larger more complex molecule, tastes sweeter, and might absorb slower in your digestive tract (which as arguably better for your blood sugar and calorie intake). There is good reason to be concerned about HFCS in processed foods, but the concern should just be that it is over used due to it being a cheap way to make foods taste good, and we have too much sugar in our diets overall.
exasperation 3 points 9 hours ago
The big picture stuff you're saying is all correct, but some of the details are wrong.
The only difference between the glucose in cane sugar and typical corn syrup and the fructose in High Fructose Corn Syrup is that fructose is a larger more complex molecule, tastes sweeter, and might absorb slower in your digestive tract (which as arguably better for your blood sugar and calorie intake).
Cane sugar is sucrose, a disaccharide that consists of one glucose and one fructose bound together into a single molecule. Note that the bond between the glucose half and the fructose half breaks down in acid, so acidic sweetened beverages (most sodas) tend to have a lot of glucose and fructose molecules sloshing around even if they were sweetened with sucrose. Either way, once eaten, the stomach acid will separate the glucose part from the fructose part.
Sucrose is equally as sweet as a 50/50 mixture of glucose and fructose. Glucose is less sweet than sucrose, and fructose is more sweet than sucrose, so syrups that have more fructose are more sweet per unit weight of sugar.
Fructose is also sent down a different metabolic pathway as glucose, so high fructose consumption can cause issues in some people. That said, because fructose is so sweet, and is pretty much half of table sugar/cane sugar/beet sugar/maple syrup. Most honeys are higher in fructose than glucose, but it depends on the source of the honeybee's nectar, and most producers intend to produce higher fructose honey because higher fructose ratios do not crystallize as easily. And crystallization is bad for packing, processing, shipping, marketing, etc.
fructose is a larger more complex molecule
No, it's the exact same molecular weight, with the exact same elements, C6H12O6, just arranged and bound differently.
Vetis 0 points a day ago
You are right, however high fructose corn sirup has an extremely high glycemic index which tend to make people fat. So in comparaison to other forms of sugar, it is one of the worst for your health. The health of americans would be better if corn wasn't as subsidized.
SaveTheTuaHawk 1 point 15 hours ago
British candy uses liquid invert sugar, considered too sweet for US markets.
Onomatopoeia 12 points 2 days ago
Avoid processed foods, regardless of what's in it.
Since the 80's and the low-fat movement, the fat was replaced by gobs of sugar. Which was later replaced by corn syrup.
Doesn't really matter which one you're eating, the high glycemic index is the killer with both. And lots of simple carbs in your diet is (as the medical community is finally starting to acknowledge) the real driver with today's cardiovascular unhealth. It's what damages arteries, cholesterol shows up to repair that damage.
Which is all the reason in the world to avoid processed foods. They will always have a crap macronutrient composition, and sugar is always way too high.
turdburglar 5 points 2 days ago
i once heard a good rule of thumb for avoiding processed food - shop the out skirts of the grocery store… don’t go down the aisles in the middle
OwOarchist -4 points 2 days ago
If only we could find some way to fuel AI datacenters with corn...
bridgeenjoyer 6 points 2 days ago
No. Replace fields with solar and get rid of half the dairy and meat farms.
jumping_redditor 2 points 2 days ago
we already can, turn the corn into either oil or ethanol and shove in in a desil generator.
Our corn growing habits consume far more water than all the proposed datacenters, solar or nuclear are the only reasonable options for powering datacenters at scale.
AdolfSchmitler 7 points a day ago
Some things even have HIGH fructose corn syrup in it. Ketchup has BOTH.
PumaStoleMyBluff 8 points a day ago
I love when the front of the label has a big sticker saying "No HFCS!" and then you read the back and regular corn syrup is the first ingredient and it's 50% sugar by weight
TubularTittyFrog 6 points 14 hours ago
Easy to find stuff without corn syrup.
But the cost of the item will be 50-100% more than the corn syrup version.
Eating healthy basically doubles or triples your grocery costs.
BigTrout75 6 points 2 days ago
We are the people of the corn
don_kiedyck 4 points 2 days ago
We grew up as children of the corn.
chicken 2 points 2 days ago
I love real maple syrup, would totally use that instead if I was rich.
Depending on how the consistency turns out of course, I've never actually tried making granola with it because of the expense and how you need to use a lot
TubularTittyFrog 0 points 14 hours ago
A quart of real maple syrup is like $20. How much are you using, gallons?
A quart for me lasts a few months.
like good olive oil, also about $20 for quart.
chicken 2 points 7 hours ago
Ok, but a quart of the corn syrup based stuff is like $3, and my monthly food expenses are around $150, if I was making the kind of decisions that lead to buying maple syrup and good olive oil it would be overall a lot higher than that. I guess I could afford to at least try doing it with maple syrup at some point though.
chicken 1 point 2 days ago
Do you use anything to get it to stick together? What's better about it? I've tried different combinations of ingredients but I like the kind that resembles what you might buy in a store better.
picnicolas 2 points 2 days ago
I use a mixture of brown sugar and maple syrup that I heat up to dissolve the sugar, then add olive oil, mix with the oats, spread on baking sheets and bake on low temp for a long time until it’s crispy
kettuli 2 points 2 days ago
It’s not sticking together so it resembles more a müsli than granola but I toast it in the oven so it resembles more a granola. It’s maybe neither but it’s better than what they sell at the store.
blockheadjt 1 point a day ago
Got an organic section in your grocery store?
CrimeIsLegalNow 1 point a day ago
That's called food everything is organic!
And because there's no actual legal protection on the label because it's just a marketing term you're left with the same answer everyone else has, avoid all processed food.
exasperation 2 points 9 hours ago
In the US, "organic" comes with a whole bunch of regulations for compliance with the standards.
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and palm oil :(
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