The composition of HFCS—roughly half fructose and half glucose—is similar to that of sucrose, honey and many fruit juice concentrates. It should be apparent that equivalent amounts of each of these sweeteners deliver equivalent amounts of free fructose and glucose to the blood stream and thence to the body’s metabolic processes. A greatly underappreciated consideration is that HFCS, sucrose, honey and fruit juice concentrates are all metabolically indistinguishable from one another and, therefore, are nutritionally interchangeable.
There is a misconception that HFCS is somehow less healthy than other sweeteners because of the processes used to make it from corn. It must be pointed out, however, that sweeteners isolated from botanical sources—and this includes sucrose from sugar beets or sugar cane and fruit-juice concentrates from various fruits, as well as HFCS—all require similar refining processes in order to separate the desired carbohydrates from other plant materials, and color, odor, flavor and particulate impurities. And the use of enzymes is by no means unique to the production of HFCS; enzymes have been used for many years in the production of wine, beer, baked goods, cheeses and other diary products, and they are useful processing aids in some sucrose and fruit-juice manufacturing processes.
There is no demonstrable difference in safety between HFCS and other fructose-containing sweeteners such as sucrose and honey. And there is no supportable reason for removing HFCS from a product and replacing it with sucrose, honey or fruit juice concentrates. Such sweetener exchanges simply result in a metabolic wash—often with loss of desired functionality — yet with no net change in nutritional benefit.
John S. White consults for a variety of food and beverage companies and trade organizations in the area of nutritive sweeteners. He has worked with nutritive sweeteners for 27 years and established his consulting firm, WHITE Technical Research, in 1994. Dr. White is best known for his writings on fructose-based sweeteners. He holds a B.A. in Biology from the University of California at San Diego and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Utah. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before entering industry.
Web Resources
The New York Times: “A Sweetener With a Bad Rap”
Carbohydrate Sweeteners
Corn Refiners Association
“HFCS Not Linked to Obesity, Says Study”
“Similarities Between HFCS and Sucrose Revealed”
Other resources
Corn Sweeteners, High Fructose Corn Syrup