This is a small victory for consumers who, finally aware of the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, will continue to be able to identify it in the products they buy.
Michael M. Landa, director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the F.D.A., denied the petition, saying that the term “sugar” is used only for food “that is solid, dried and crystallized.”
“HFCS is an aqueous solution sweetener derived from corn after enzymatic hydrolysis of cornstarch, followed by enzymatic conversion of glucose (dextrose) to fructose,” the letter stated. “Thus, the use of the term ‘sugar’ to describe HFCS, a product that is a syrup, would not accurately identify or describe the basic nature of the food or its characterizing properties.”
The Corn Refiners Association is afraid that consumers will avoid the product, which has received a bad reputation, under the pretext of “false information”, namely that corn syrup is natural and is the same as sugar.
The fact is that it is NOT natural , it is manufactured in a lab and can harm to people who can not properly metabolize the ingredient.
And further, to argue that HFCS is the same as sugar only calls into question the efficacy of sugar in the human diet.
There are many who would postulate that there already exists an overabundance of sugar which is causing obesity and Type 2 diabetes in epidemic proportions.
