Ban High Fructose Corn Syrup

[thaiboxerken]

I've noticed that 5 of my facebook buddies have become fans of "ban High Fructose Corn Syrup." So, I googled it and found that there are scant studies that show that HFCS, itself, is any more dangerous than sucrose (which is 50/50 fructose/glucose.) Am I wrong here in thinking that there isn't a scientific basis on banning HFCS without banning table sugar? Where did this conspiracy theory against this product come from?

[Roadtoad]

Who knows? But ask yourself this: Isn't it the responsibility of the consumers to read the damned labels themselves and ask if they want that crap in their bodies? If you don't have the brains to read a label and make such a decision, isn't this nothing more than a form of evolution in action? The dmub get deleted.

[Prometheus]

I've not seen any published studies, but I've read in several places that HFCS is problematic because one of the mechanisms by which the body responds to sugar includes the reaction that breaks sucrose into it's components. HFCS is already broken down, so the body doesn't respond to it's presence as quickly as to an equivalent amount of sucrose.

[casebro]

Yeah. but honey is the same, and nobody complains about "high fructose honey".

[Prometheus]

Who knows? But ask yourself this: Isn't it the responsibility of the consumers to read the damned labels themselves and ask if they want that crap in their bodies? If you don't have the brains to read a label and make such a decision, isn't this nothing more than a form of evolution in action? The dmub get deleted.

Change your last sentence to, "The children of the dumb get diabetes," and see if the principle still rings true for you.

[Prometheus]

Yeah. but honey is the same, and nobody complains about "high fructose honey".

Honey costs a lot more, and isn't added to practically every packaged food item you can buy.

[thaiboxerken]

I've not seen any published studies...

You've read about supposed dangers of HFCS, but you didn't actually look for any scientific validation? Why not?

[Loss Leader]

My biggest problem with HFCS is that it is a symptom of the fact that corn is too cheap. We're growing too much of one crop at the expense of biodiversity - healthier crops, land and people that come from living off a diverse ecosystem. I wouldn't ban HFCS, I'd get rid of corn subsidies and grow a wider selection of crops.

[Thunder]

i am thrilled that there are now Snapple Ice Teas with regular old sugar in it.

[Roadtoad]

And no one noticed the (intentional) typo. Damn.

[dropzone]

Really? My bottle says they still use Aspartame. ;)

[dropzone]

And no one noticed the (intentional) typo. Damn.This is an example of the autocorrection built into our brains. It takes practice to turn it off so one can properly edit. And, after 35 years of professional experience, I still insist someone else check my drawings, or at least I wait a day to flush my brain before I check them.



And "intentional?" As if! ;)

[Scott Haley]

There's an episode of the Skeptoid podcast about this. He concluded that high fructose corn syrup is not worse for a person than other kinds of sugar. Check it out here (http://skeptoid.com/mobile/4157).

[Prometheus]

You've read about supposed dangers of HFCS, but you didn't actually look for any scientific validation? Why not?

What I said I've read about are not any "supposed dangers" but rather statements suggesting why the idea of such is plausible. I also didn't say I haven't looked for such validation, just that I haven't seen any. FWIW, I don't believe the stuff is dangerous. I was merely pointing out there's reason to think the question might be worth investigating rather than dismissing out of hand.

I also don't think HFCS should be banned. I'd much rather see the tariffs that inflate the price of sugar, and the subsidies that deflate the price of HFCS, removed so that it's use wouldn't be so pervasive.

[HumanityBlues]

I don't drink much soda, but I kind of like the taste of corn syrup in a coca cola classic. In fact, I prefer it to sugar sometimes.

[Prometheus]

And no one noticed the (intentional) typo. Damn.

Heh, heh. I always tell my student's on the first day of class than any misteaks I make are deliberately intended to test there knowledge and there willingness too confront authority.... ;)

[HumanityBlues]

Heh, heh. I always tell my student's on the first day of class than any misteaks I make are deliberately intended to test there knowledge and there willingness too confront authority.... ;)

You sir are a bastard.:D

I mean that in the nicest way of course.

[stilicho]

...The children of the dumb get diabetes...

Where did this come from?

Aren't the main causes of diabetes things like inactivity, aging, infection or some types of toxins? Where does being the child of someone who consumes soft drinks rank in causes?

[Andrew Wiggin]

i am thrilled that there are now Snapple Ice Teas with regular old sugar in it.

I'd be surprised if the sugar in snapple is still in the form of 'regular old sugar'. Even the Jones Soda stuff, which advertises on that basis, in the fine print lists it as inverted sucrose. This is shorthand for sucrose that's been hydrolyzed to glucose and fructose. Since sucrose consists of one molecule of fructose and one molecule of glucose, this produces a product indistinguishable from high fructose corn syrup. (with the caveat that high fructose corn syrup comes in lots of different fructose concentrations, and the stuff commonly used in sodas is in the 50 to 55 percent range) This isn't false advertising, just what happens to sucrose in the presence of water, acid, and heat. You can do it on your stovetop. Snapple is sugar, fruit acids, and water, plus the various volatile oils and esters we percieve as fruit flavor, more or less. Add some tannic acids for the iced tea. Unless its kept chilled all the way from the orchard to your mouth, those sugars are going to hydrolyze at least a little bit, and if the process of making it calls for it to be heated at any point, the sucrose is gone.

A

[Andrew Wiggin]

Heh, heh. I always tell my student's on the first day of class than any misteaks I make are deliberately intended to test there knowledge and there willingness too confront authority.... ;)

I never had any trouble confronting authority, but as long as I can read and understand it, I generally let people find their own typos. Good cover though.

A

[Uncayimmy]

This one has been gaining steam. Have you seen the commercials from the corn growers saying that it's safe? If you look into this further, you'll "learn" that the EU has banned HFCS because it's genetically modified. The truth is it is not banned. There's a strict limit on how much can be imported because several EU nations are sugar producers. It's trade protection. And HFCS isn't really genetically modified. Apparently an enzyme used in the processing of the corn is GM.

Some people are just ungrateful for cheap and plentiful food, so they need to look for harm wherever possible. Or something. I dunno. It drives me nuts, though.

[Prometheus]

Where did this come from?

Aren't the main causes of diabetes things like inactivity, aging, infection or some types of toxins? Where does being the child of someone who consumes soft drinks rank in causes?

I should have included a sarcasm smilie. The point is that both versions of that argument (evolution in action) are equally absurd.

I've no idea whether anyone has ever claimed that HFCS directly causes diabetes. I have seen it argued that the prevalence of HFCS may promote obesity which in turn may increase the risk of becoming diabetic. I was deliberately playing on this plausible connection for rhetorical effect. My apologies for not being more clear. :)

ETA: Also, we're not just talking about soft drinks, here. HFCS is in an enormous number of different food products, many of which are marketed to children.

[Prometheus]

This one has been gaining steam. Have you seen the commercials from the corn growers saying that it's safe? If you look into this further, you'll "learn" that the EU has banned HFCS because it's genetically modified. The truth is it is not banned. There's a strict limit on how much can be imported because several EU nations are sugar producers. It's trade protection. And HFCS isn't really genetically modified. Apparently an enzyme used in the processing of the corn is GM.

Some people are just ungrateful for cheap and plentiful food, so they need to look for harm wherever possible. Or something. I dunno. It drives me nuts, though.

I agree with you that there's a lot of misleading hype around this topic. However, I don't necessarily equate HFCS with cheap and plentiful food either. I know it was initially encouraged during the Nixon administration in order to lower food prices, and maybe it did at the time. But consider that the price of HFCS is heavily subsidized by tax dollars. We're paying a lot more for food than we realize--just not all at the supermarket checkout. Not to mention we're also paying higher prices for anything containing cane sugar. If we removed the corn subsidies and sugar tariffs, we could be manufacturing our food with cheap foreign cane sugar while putting the corn that now becomes HFCS into biofuels (another current driver of increased food prices).

[Uncayimmy]

What I'm referring to is people, one of whom is a close friend, who actively look for fault in everyday food products and seek out more expensive alternatives. You know, like buying raw goat milk for $12/gallon because regular old milk on sale for $1.99/gallon is not good for you. It's about spending twice as much for products with evaporated cane juice because HFCS is bad for you.

Why do they do this? My flip answer is that they don't seem to appreciate cheap food. The specifics of one food's price over another doesn't really matter to my point because food in general is cheap (talking the USA here). My tax bill plus my food bill still allows me to buy far more calories than my family could ever need.

[stilicho]

I have seen it argued that the prevalence of HFCS may promote obesity which in turn may increase the risk of becoming diabetic.

Now that I would believe.

ETA: Also, we're not just talking about soft drinks, here. HFCS is in an enormous number of different food products, many of which are marketed to children.

I know. I was simply offering an example. As a sidenote, I've taken to drinking plain water with a wedge of lime or lemon squeezed into it. No sweetener or salt. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, either. It's a surprisingly refreshing drink, cheap, and you can even take your citrus wedges to work in a container.

I have never been a fast-food junkie and I don't know why people are addicted to the stuff. I recently started making things like homemade baking powder bread sticks with things like diced jalapeno and tuna in them. Takes about the same amount of time as getting a bag of chips or a Big Mac.

Anyhow, I really doubt that banning this, that, or the other is really going to have a huge impact on the problem of obesity in the West. People like their food mountainous, sweet, fat, and "fast" and they're going to shovel it in regardless of the health risk or ingredient bans.

[Prometheus]

What I'm referring to is people, one of whom is a close friend, who actively look for fault in everyday food products and seek out more expensive alternatives. You know, like buying raw goat milk for $12/gallon because regular old milk on sale for $1.99/gallon is not good for you. It's about spending twice as much for products with evaporated cane juice because HFCS is bad for you.

Why do they do this? My flip answer is that they don't seem to appreciate cheap food. The specifics of one food's price over another doesn't really matter to my point because food in general is cheap (talking the USA here). My tax bill plus my food bill still allows me to buy far more calories than my family could ever need.

Ah. I'm not very familiar with people like that. I'll occasionally splurge on very expensive foods, but not because they're expensive. I'm also fond of a lot of very cheap, ordinary comfort foods.

On a societal level, though, I think calories in the U.S. are too cheap for our own good. If all sweeteners were as expensive as maple syrup, I bet people would eat a lot more fresh fruit.

[Pixel42]

http://www.jci.org/articles/view/37385

Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans

Studies in animals have documented that, compared with glucose, dietary fructose induces dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. To assess the relative effects of these dietary sugars during sustained consumption in humans, overweight and obese subjects consumed glucose- or fructose-sweetened beverages providing 25% of energy requirements for 10 weeks. Although both groups exhibited similar weight gain during the intervention, visceral adipose volume was significantly increased only in subjects consuming fructose. Fasting plasma triglyceride concentrations increased by approximately 10% during 10 weeks of glucose consumption but not after fructose consumption. In contrast, hepatic de novo lipogenesis (DNL) and the 23-hour postprandial triglyceride AUC were increased specifically during fructose consumption. Similarly, markers of altered lipid metabolism and lipoprotein remodeling, including fasting apoB, LDL, small dense LDL, oxidized LDL, and postprandial concentrations of remnant-like particle–triglyceride and –cholesterol significantly increased during fructose but not glucose consumption. In addition, fasting plasma glucose and insulin levels increased and insulin sensitivity decreased in subjects consuming fructose but not in those consuming glucose. These data suggest that dietary fructose specifically increases DNL, promotes dyslipidemia, decreases insulin sensitivity, and increases visceral adiposity in overweight/obese adults.

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

The specifics of one food's price over another doesn't really matter to my point because food in general is cheap (talking the USA here). My tax bill plus my food bill still allows me to buy far more calories than my family could ever need.

A bit of an aside, but I was reading about this effect a couple of weeks ago. It is rational for millions of individuals to not do anything about paying a few dollars more for their food each year because the personal effort required to reduce the price they pay is greater than the value of the savings to be made. It is also rational for the relatively few recipients of food subsidies to lobby hard for the status quo to be maintained because their potential losses are huge.

[brodski]

http://www.jci.org/articles/view/37385

Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans

That study seems to relate to glucose alone vs fructose alone, the issue is the advantages of one glucose/ fructose mix (hfcs) vs annother (sucrose/ inverted sucrose).

[whatthebutlersaw]

Backed up by evidence or not: I am realy sick of calls for banning this or that left, right and centre.

Nobody really _needs_ HFC, so if people want to avoid it voluntarily - go ahead. But banning it? Puhlease...

[ponderingturtle]

Honey costs a lot more, and isn't added to practically every packaged food item you can buy.

Sounds like we need more subsidies for honey.

[ponderingturtle]

Where did this come from?

Aren't the main causes of diabetes things like inactivity, aging, infection or some types of toxins? Where does being the child of someone who consumes soft drinks rank in causes?

Of course diabetic children, don't have the kind of diabetes you get from being overweight with a poor diet. So the dumb mentioned must be contagious.

[The Fallen Serpent]

My issue with HFCS is not that it is so much worse than other sugars. My issue is that it is a concentrated sugar highly subsidized to the point that it is in food that does not need it and makes foods extremely cheap that have little benfit. It is my personal responsibility to not eat so much of it. In the US the corn subsidy is ridiculous though. We would not have any issue with acquiring the necessary caloric intake without this subsidy. I do not mind a balanced farming/ranching subsidy. I want more diversity in such subsidies though.

Soda, sugary snacks and so on do not need to be cheap. They should be desserts and special treats, not staples.

I am personally trying to reduce my sugar intake. Eating fruits and vegetables (naturally sweet foods) directly instead of sweetened snacks makes a huge difference in my life.

[Ivor the Engineer]

Backed up by evidence or not: I am realy sick of calls for banning this or that left, right and centre.

Nobody really _needs_ HFC, so if people want to avoid it voluntarily - go ahead. But banning it? Puhlease...

Avoiding HFCS in the US is quite a challenge.

[The Fallen Serpent]

Avoiding HFCS in the US is quite a challenge.

It is. Personally I'm not trying to avoid HFCS as a direct goal, it just happens to be a byproduct of attempting to eat a healthier more balanced diet. At least when I am successful. I am not the most disciplined of consumers.

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

From dcsience.net (http://www.dcscience.net/?p=2584), David Colquhoun's site describing "The Diet Delusion";

"“As I emerge from this research, though, certain conclusions seem inescapable to me, based on existing knowledge

Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization
The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis – the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
Sugars – sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically – are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.
Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.
Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behaviour.
Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.
Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance – a disequilibrium – in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance.
Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated – either chronically or after a meal – we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel.
By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.
By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.”

I am not a dietitian and don't even play one on television, but I found Taubes' arguments quite persuasive.

[TheDaver]

I think it’s a conspiracy theory thing. HFCS is in so many things, the conspiracy theorists figure it must be part of some evil plan. They can’t seem to agree on what the heck the plan is, but they’re all convinced that it can’t be any good for them.

[Damien Evans]

I don't drink much soda, but I kind of like the taste of corn syrup in a coca cola classic. In fact, I prefer it to sugar sometimes.

Ew. All the Coke in Australia is made from Cane Sugar.

[The Fallen Serpent]

I think it’s a conspiracy theory thing. HFCS is in so many things, the conspiracy theorists figure it must be part of some evil plan. They can’t seem to agree on what the heck the plan is, but they’re all convinced that it can’t be any good for them.

I can see that being part of it. I do not think it is a conspiracy, I think it is merely rational industry protections run beyond reasonable effects. There is a benefit to subsidizing crops to keep food prices low and the industry productive even during harsh times with near guaranteed government support. The US has taken this subsidy to the point that HFCS is so cheap that it can be added as a sweetener to most any food, which increases the desire for its taste and brings with it the side effects that over consumption of any product brings. I want HFCS to be less omnipresent in the food supply but I am highly skeptical of the thought it is some secret conspiracy to keep the US population fat and docile. I am not shocked if CTs do think that. That would be right up their alley.

[Travis]

I think it’s a conspiracy theory thing. HFCS is in so many things, the conspiracy theorists figure it must be part of some evil plan. They can’t seem to agree on what the heck the plan is, but they’re all convinced that it can’t be any good for them.

There's that. There's also that whole condescending thing: "oh, you're only a level four vegan? I'm a level five! I won't eat anything that casts a shadow. Savage!"

[The Fallen Serpent]

There's that. There's also that whole condescending thing: "oh, you're only a level four vegan? I'm a level five! I won't eat anything that casts a shadow. Savage!"

Most of the vegans I know consume a large amount of HFCS. I think it is largely due to laziness. The few vegans I know that actually avoid processed sugars are very very thin and spend a considerable amount of effort trying to consume enough grains, beans and nuts to keep up their calories. Veganism sans processed sugars can be a difficult lifestyle choice.

An acquaintance of mine took up veganism due to peer pressure. He was already skinny and an extremely active person. A few months into the vegan diet and he dropped to barely over a 100 lbs. and began to experience major fatigue despite constant consumption of food. Then he blacked out after a concert he performed in. Going back to meat was a much healthier diet for his lifestyle and metabolism. His girlfriend joined him in the vegan attempt as well. She was not as active as him but ran into difficulties much earlier on account of her cancer treatments.

My grandmother has been a vegetarian for decades. She became a vegan after surviving intestinal cancer made her extremely lactose intolerant. Being a little old lady that is fairly active led to difficulties in eating enough calories by way of nuts and soy. Eventually her doctor convinced her to start eating eggs to replace the dairy products that once provided her with the calories and fat her body was accustomed to that her vegan diet was not providing.

Vegan is a valid and healthy diet. It is however not a diet everyone can handle or survive on. I could probably survive a vegan diet but I doubt it is the healthiest diet for me. On a 1600 calorie diet I will loose weight even being sedentary. I have friends that have to work at loosing weight on a 1400 calorie diet and being constantly active.

[Prometheus]

Of course diabetic children, don't have the kind of diabetes you get from being overweight with a poor diet. So the dumb mentioned must be contagious.

Yes, although I was actually making this point, it happens to be implied by what I was saying. People tend to develop life-long eating habits during childhood. If parents teach/allow kids to eat stupidly, they will often not change much during adults. I believe I read once that this effect is also heavily correlated with socioeconomic class (It's more often true for poorer people). There's also a known epigenetic effect, where the grandchildren of people who eat too many calories are more likely to develop diabetes (not sure if that one is talking about type I or type II).

[CurtC]

http://www.jci.org/articles/view/37385

Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans

I didn't read the study you linked to, but the issue with HFCS is not fructose vs. glucose, because both HFCS and cane sugar have both fructose and glucose in approximately equal amounts. HFCS has slightly more, but the real issue is that since it's so cheap (due to subsidies), and cane sugar is so expensive (due to tarriffs), HFCS gets put into almost everything and we are just consuming way too much sugar.

[alfaniner]

Remember when the word "sugar" was bad? It was about the time they took the word off many cereals so now we have Super Golden Crisp, Corn Pops, and []Frosted Flakes.

Even recently I noticed the trend of labeling something as having "cane juice" instead of sugar, as if to have people say "Oh, juice! It must be better for you!"

[Roadtoad]

From dcsience.net (http://www.dcscience.net/?p=2584), David Colquhoun's site describing "The Diet Delusion";

"“As I emerge from this research, though, certain conclusions seem inescapable to me, based on existing knowledge

Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization
The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis – the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
Sugars – sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically – are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.
Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.
Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behaviour.
Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.
Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance – a disequilibrium – in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance.
Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated – either chronically or after a meal – we accumulate fat in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel.
By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.
By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.”

I am not a dietitian and don't even play one on television, but I found Taubes' arguments quite persuasive.

Persuasive, perhaps. But...

BSM, you're one of the most knowledgeable among us when it comes to the scientific on this board. I respect you for that, and wish I could read more of your posts. I learn a great deal from you.

However, there comes a point when the urge to protect does greater harm than good. I'm all for parents being told "Quit smoking around your kids, you idiots! If it's not good for you, what the hell makes you think it's okay around your crumb crunchers?" I hated going to school while I was a kid, smelling like my mother's stale Salems and my dad's stale Pall Malls. (I hated being short of breath all the time, for that matter, and I didn't even start smoking until my 20's. I still don't know why I started.)

At the same time, I'm irked by the continued expansion of smoking bans in every single place where two or three gather. If I own a business, whether or not people are allowed to smoke there is my business alone, not the government's. (An FYI: if I owned a business, such as a restaurant or bar, it would be smoke free, even if I do enjoy my cigars.)

Same here: HFCS isn't beneficial to anyone's health, but dammit, at what point do people accept personal responsibility for what they dump into their gullets? Governmental bodies may not have banned it, but that doesn't mean it's safe or even smart to consume it. At some point, you have to utilize that pile of mush between your ears. Not only does that mean better health, but greater liberty in your own personal life.

Just finished reading David Brinkley's memoir, and a similar point is made when he talks about a group, the Anti-Smoking League. At the time, he thought they were crackpots, (around the 50's, IIRC.) Now, we know they weren't. He wondered if his brothers might have lived a little longer had we heeded the League's concerns. We already know the answer, but had we taken heed ourselves, instead of waiting for the Surgeon General to tell us we were committing suicide, we might have preserved our liberties as well as our lungs.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I've noticed that 5 of my facebook buddies have become fans of "ban High Fructose Corn Syrup." So, I googled it and found that there are scant studies that show that HFCS, itself, is any more dangerous than sucrose (which is 50/50 fructose/glucose.) Am I wrong here in thinking that there isn't a scientific basis on banning HFCS without banning table sugar? Where did this conspiracy theory against this product come from?

The Organotards.

[Prometheus]

Argh! Just notice my careless editing in my previous post. Her's how it should look:

Of course diabetic children, don't have the kind of diabetes you get from being overweight with a poor diet. So the dumb mentioned must be contagious.

Yes, although I wasn't actually making this point, it happens to be implied by what I was saying. People tend to develop life-long eating habits during childhood. If parents teach/allow kids to eat stupidly, they will often not change much during adults. I believe I read once that this effect is also heavily correlated with socioeconomic class (It's more often true for poorer people). There's also a known epigenetic effect, where the grandchildren of people who eat too many calories are more likely to develop diabetes (not sure if that one is talking about type I or type II).

[coalesce]

Heh, heh. I always tell my student's on the first day of class than any misteaks I make are deliberately intended to test there knowledge and there willingness too confront authority.... ;)

Mmmmmm...misteaks...

Michael

[stilicho]

Of course diabetic children, don't have the kind of diabetes you get from being overweight with a poor diet. So the dumb mentioned must be contagious.

Where are they getting it from?


This form of diabetes is most often associated with older age, obesity, family history of diabetes, previous history of gestational diabetes, physical inactivity, and certain ethnicities. About 80 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight.

Type 2 diabetes is increasingly being diagnosed in children and adolescents, especially among African American, Mexican American, and Pacific Islander youth.


(Source: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/overview/ )

No mention of being the children of parents who consume high-fructose corn syrup products. So, again, where is your claim coming from?

[coalesce]

Just finished reading David Brinkley's memoir, and a similar point is made when he talks about a group, the Anti-Smoking League. At the time, he thought they were crackpots, (around the 50's, IIRC.) Now, we know they weren't. He wondered if his brothers might have lived a little longer had we heeded the League's concerns. We already know the answer, but had we taken heed ourselves, instead of waiting for the Surgeon General to tell us we were committing suicide, we might have preserved our liberties as well as our lungs.

As a brief sidetrack: I love listening to old Dragnet podcasts from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. They were all sponsored by either Fatima or Chesterfield cigarettes. Besides talking about Fatima's "bright, sunny yellow pack" or giving Chesterfields for Christmas, invariably they would highlight all scientific studies done by reputable medical professionals about how there was no evidence of damage to accessory organs (eyes, nose and throats) of people smoking their product. And my parent's generation believed them. Edward Bernays, a pioneer of American public relations, said in his autobiography that he felt guilty for having promoted cigarettes to women in the 1920s and 1930s and he knew that the tobacco companies knew as far back the 1930s that cigarettes were unhealthy, but kept that little tidbit to themselves. Whether or not he said that to assuage his guilt, I don't know, but I wouldn't doubt it if it were true.

Michael

[CurtC]

As a brief sidetrack: I love listening to old Dragnet podcasts from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s.

I had no idea podcasts had been around that long.

[Beerina]

I've not seen any published studies, but I've read in several places that HFCS is problematic because one of the mechanisms by which the body responds to sugar includes the reaction that breaks sucrose into it's components. HFCS is already broken down, so the body doesn't respond to it's presence as quickly as to an equivalent amount of sucrose.

It all gets broken down to glucose, which is what the body uses directly.

The simpler the carbohydrate, and fructose is pretty simple, the faster it can be changed chemically into glucose, and the bigger the sudden sugar spike is. And it's the high glucose sugar spikes that cause the damage. You're simply more likely to get a higher, if shorter, amount of glucose than if you have "bigger carb molecules" that take longer to break down, spreading out the increase. (Interestingly, the recommended diets for diabetics and people with heart disease have almost completely aligned over the years as tech advances and science figures out the healthiest ways.)


This is also the reasoning behind the white vs. brown or wild rice and processed flour vs. whole wheat. It's not really about fiber for your pooper or preventing fat absorbtion. The processed ones have simpler carbs that break down faster than the less processed (or less-domesticated) variants. It's also why "wheat bread" is almost as junky as regular bread, and why you actually want "100% whole wheat" on the label.

[Beerina]

Really? My bottle says they still use Aspartame. ;)

Speaking of which, why is almost nobody using Splenda (Maltodextrin and Sucralose) in their products? It's far and away the closest taste to sugar, has no aftertaste, no known medical issues, is long-term stable on shelves (unlike other fake sugars) and is stable through cooking ranges (also unlike other fake sugars.)

And there are supermarket generic brands, too. It's not that danged expensive.

[Prometheus]

I had no idea podcasts had been around that long.

Archive.org (http://www.archive.org/search.php?sort=title&query=%28collection%3Aradioprograms%20OR%20mediaty pe%3Aradioprograms%29%20AND%20-mediatype%3Acollection%20AND%20firstTitle%3AD&page=2) has lot's of old radio programs available for free download

[krazyKemist]

The simpler the carbohydrate, and fructose is pretty simple, the faster it can be changed chemically into glucose, and the bigger the sudden sugar spike is. And it's the high glucose sugar spikes that cause the damage. You're simply more likely to get a higher, if shorter, amount of glucose than if you have "bigger carb molecules" that take longer to break down, spreading out the increase. (Interestingly, the recommended diets for diabetics and people with heart disease have almost completely aligned over the years as tech advances and science figures out the healthiest ways.)


This is also the reasoning behind the white vs. brown or wild rice and processed flour vs. whole wheat. It's not really about fiber for your pooper or preventing fat absorbtion. The processed ones have simpler carbs that break down faster than the less processed (or less-domesticated) variants. It's also why "wheat bread" is almost as junky as regular bread, and why you actually want "100% whole wheat" on the label.

It's actually not that clear-cut.

The most prevalent starches are degraded so rapidly that it makes almost no difference in the glucose peak (there are gradations, of course, depending on the different starches). Those enzymes are very, very efficient.

For example, if you look up in a glycemic index table :

potato : 93
chocolate bar : 49
watermelon : 103
brown rice : 55
white rice : 56

you find out that your predicted insulin response is slightly higher for brown rice than it is for a chocolate bar, and that the difference between brown and white rice is negligible.

It turns out that one of the best way to "taper" the peak - and thus reduce post-prandial hypoglycemia symptoms - is to include hard-to-digest stuff, like soluble fiber, protein or fat, in your high-glycemic index meal to slow down glucose absoption. Complex sugars - starches - don't even enter the equation. In fact, most recommended diets for diabetics have changed their guidelines following these findings, and calculate "complex" sugars in the same way as "refined" ones, basing their recommendations upon glycemic responses to foods.

I am hypoglycemic, and I have done a little personnal experimentation with this - it fits. If for example I try to curb an hypoglycemia episode with fruit, I feel good fifteen minutes after intake, and then have an even worse crash. If I have milk instead, I'm fine. Or if I have a low-protein, high carb meal, like pasta (whole wheat or not) with meatless tomato sauce, I'm almost sure I'll have problems 2-3 hours later, something that won't happen if I have a plain chicken sandwich with mayo, no matter what kind of bread is used.

[Prometheus]

Speaking of which, why is almost nobody using Splenda (Maltodextrin and Sucralose) in their products? It's far and away the closest taste to sugar, has no aftertaste, no known medical issues, is long-term stable on shelves (unlike other fake sugars) and is stable through cooking ranges (also unlike other fake sugars.)

And there are supermarket generic brands, too. It's not that danged expensive.

Maltodextrin is a starch that is absorbed and breaks down into sugar very quickly. It has an even higher glycemic index (http://optimalhealth.cia.com.au/gi17.html) than high fructose corn syrup.

[coalesce]

I had no idea podcasts had been around that long.

You should've seen the iPods from way back then: solid steel with lead paint!

Michael

[Thing]

This public lecture "Sugar: the bitter truth", by Robert Lustig (http://chc.ucsf.edu/coast/faculty_lustig.htm), Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology and Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF talks about sugar, fructose and HFCS and their effects. He agrees that HFCS is not significantly worse than sucrose, but also says much more about both.

dBnniua6-oM

[krazyKemist]

In fact, the main problem is the amount of fructose in one's diet.

For years diabetics were encouraged to consume fructose as a bulk sweetener, until it was observed that fructose, despite its interesting low glycemic index (around 23 if I remember well), decreases sensitivity to insulin - and led to increased need for insulin in order to achieve an effect. This decreased sensitivity is mediated through overall lowered insulin receptor expression, and as such is not temporary or easy to reverse.

Decreased sensitivity to insulin is a feature of type 2 diabetes. Chronic consumption of large amounts of fructose in combination with sedentarity is a recipe for early-onset type 2 diabetes.

Fructose has always been a part of our diets - it's present is fruits, honey and such. But the sheer amount has increased greatly - more than is possible through the consumption of fruits or honey. That's why many are pointing to HFCS as the culprit, mainly because that is what is used (in the US) in soft drinks and other sweet drinks, because people's possible intake of fructose by way of drinks is much higher than what they can get from fruits or honey.

However, there is no evidence that I'm aware of that fructose causes more metabolic damage as free fructose (as in HFCS) versus as sucrose (as in cane sugar), so banning it seems a little absurd to me, when the problem is the total dietary intake of fructose.

[The Fallen Serpent]

I agree with the above posters. The problem is not just the presence of HFCS but the amount of sugars we are consuming in the US diet. This is fueled by HFCS being brought down to such cheap levels so it is added in unnecessary amounts to a number of foods and foods dominated by HFCS being too cheap. I like sweets. I like sugary things. Soda lacking sugar generally tastes disgusting to me. I would not drink those. However, why does sugary soda need to be so cheap? If it were $3 for twenty ounces instead of $1.25 I would still occassionaly enjoy one. I am not going to starve if soda is expensive. It boggles me that soda barely costs more than water, sometimes cheaper depending on where I am. Most cities do not have readily available water fountains around town and sometimes I just want some water. Buying a bottle of water suffices because it is convenient compared to convincing a clerk to allow you to buy a cup of fountain water. I also eat yogurt. I recently started buying plain yogurt and adding frozen berries to it. Often times this is added to my cereal. It is delicious and has significantly less sugar than "regular" yogurt that has both fruit and sugar added to it. It is less sugar than most cereals. I feel anything dominated by a fruit flavor is already sweet enough. Like smoothies.... adding sugar to a smoothie is just overkill in my opinion.

I am not trying to avoid sugar completely I am just trying to regulate the amount. It is difficult to do so when consuming foods with HFCS. So if my main source of sugars is in fruits and other whole foods I find that I have cut out a huge amount of sugar.

[luchog]

You should've seen the iPods from way back then: solid steel with lead paint!

Those old bakelite and glass touch screens didn't work nearly as well.

[ponderingturtle]

Speaking of which, why is almost nobody using Splenda (Maltodextrin and Sucralose) in their products? It's far and away the closest taste to sugar, has no aftertaste, no known medical issues, is long-term stable on shelves (unlike other fake sugars) and is stable through cooking ranges (also unlike other fake sugars.)

Because they have different sweeteners in different diet soda's. The customers they have they could lose by using a different sweetener. So how many different versions of diet soda can one manufacturers make?

[ponderingturtle]

In fact, the main problem is the amount of fructose in one's diet.

For years diabetics were encouraged to consume fructose as a bulk sweetener, until it was observed that fructose, despite its interesting low glycemic index (around 23 if I remember well), decreases sensitivity to insulin - and led to increased need for insulin in order to achieve an effect. This decreased sensitivity is mediated through overall lowered insulin receptor expression, and as such is not temporary or easy to reverse.

Decreased sensitivity to insulin is a feature of type 2 diabetes. Chronic consumption of large amounts of fructose in combination with sedentarity is a recipe for early-onset type 2 diabetes.

Fructose has always been a part of our diets - it's present is fruits, honey and such. But the sheer amount has increased greatly - more than is possible through the consumption of fruits or honey. That's why many are pointing to HFCS as the culprit, mainly because that is what is used (in the US) in soft drinks and other sweet drinks, because people's possible intake of fructose by way of drinks is much higher than what they can get from fruits or honey.

However, there is no evidence that I'm aware of that fructose causes more metabolic damage as free fructose (as in HFCS) versus as sucrose (as in cane sugar), so banning it seems a little absurd to me, when the problem is the total dietary intake of fructose.

But sucrose is half fructose, why is that not an issue?

[casebro]

Isn't there some break down product in HFCS when exposed to heat? Methylsomething? Is it also found in other syrups, or only HFCS?

The Methylsomething may be poisonous, but how harmful is it at the levels in HFCS?

[CurtC]

However, there is no evidence that I'm aware of that fructose causes more metabolic damage as free fructose (as in HFCS) versus as sucrose (as in cane sugar), so banning it seems a little absurd to me, when the problem is the total dietary intake of fructose.

Yeah, I'm not aware of how it could cause more metabolic damage, because the first thing that happens to sucrose in the body is that it's split into fructose and glucose.

[Roadtoad]

Well, as one of the board's resident Type 2s, I'm doing what I can to get the blood sugars down. History Gal suggested a few things which seem to help, and I'm working to watch what I put down my throat.

At the same time, given what I do for a living, it's not always easy to get out an exercise. I'm very hesitant to get out and take a long walk around the parking lot of a truck stop, particularly when you hear about other drivers getting mugged. Nor is there much room in the rigs I've driven of late to exercise in the sleeper berth. (Trust me, I could wish.) My oldest son has told me there's ways to do it, but until I get with him, there's no way to learn how. Any suggestions would help.

At the same time, common sense should rule. If I can't eat anything with HFCS, it makes sense to either look for alternatives, or to make it myself. Seems to me it's my body, I should take the lead. Why should anyone else be forced to change?

[krazyKemist]

Isn't there some break down product in HFCS when exposed to heat? Methylsomething? Is it also found in other syrups, or only HFCS?

The Methylsomething may be poisonous, but how harmful is it at the levels in HFCS?

The only breakdown product upon heating of HFSC I've found is hydroxymethylfurfural, a compound derived from the dehydration of fructose. It is found is many heat-treated products, such as milk, fruit juices and honey, whether they contain HFSC or not.

The only reported problem with it is its toxicity to honey bees.

[tesscaline]

Speaking of which, why is almost nobody using Splenda (Maltodextrin and Sucralose) in their products? It's far and away the closest taste to sugar, has no aftertaste, no known medical issues, is long-term stable on shelves (unlike other fake sugars) and is stable through cooking ranges (also unlike other fake sugars.)

And there are supermarket generic brands, too. It's not that danged expensive.To some people, it does have an aftertaste.

[casebro]

The only breakdown product upon heating of HFSC I've found is hydroxymethylfurfural, a compound derived from the dehydration of fructose. It is found is many heat-treated products, such as milk, fruit juices and honey, whether they contain HFSC or not.

The only reported problem with it is its toxicity to honey bees.

Yeah, that's probably what I was thinking. I did look up the bee suppliers, looking for cheap HFCS. It's used as bee feed when the flowers aren't in bloom.

So bee's shouldn't eat dried nectar either I guess.

Best price I can find is still 50% higher than sugar. So I guess it's still sugar in my fruit wines.

[casebro]

There is a rumor amongst hombrewers that if one uses too much sugar in beer, it makes for a cidery taste. Limit sugar to 20% of carbs. But fruit wines are made with 50%. Beer doesn't get cidery on glucose though, and the fructose in sugar is broken down into the same by products as glucose. So where does the cidery taste come from? Or is it an old wife's tale, perpetuated by the barley suppliers?

My gluten free beer recipe uses a bit of oats, and 95% of the cartbs from sugar. Cheap. Excellent GF beer, but crummy beer. Next one, I'll really have to look for a cidery taste.

[krazyKemist]

So bee's shouldn't eat dried nectar either I guess.


:)

Not really. "Dehydration" as I was using it is a type of chemical reaction in which OH and H groups leave the substrate molecule, so that one of the reaction products is water, and substrate is left with one ore more double bonds.

It does not happen upon simple drying, but can happen if the substance is exposed to strong acids, bases or heat.

[krazyKemist]

To some people, it does have an aftertaste.

Oh yeah. I do find it has a bizarre aftertaste. All artificial sweeteners have an aftertaste to me. I suspect that I am a supertaster.

[krazyKemist]

There is a rumor amongst hombrewers that if one uses too much sugar in beer, it makes for a cidery taste. Limit sugar to 20% of carbs. But fruit wines are made with 50%. Beer doesn't get cidery on glucose though, and the fructose in sugar is broken down into the same by products as glucose. So where does the cidery taste come from? Or is it an old wife's tale, perpetuated by the barley suppliers?

My gluten free beer recipe uses a bit of oats, and 95% of the cartbs from sugar. Cheap. Excellent GF beer, but crummy beer. Next one, I'll really have to look for a cidery taste.

According to this guy (http://www.zimbio.com/Homebrewing/articles/53/Why+does+my+beer+taste+bad), the cidery taste comes from acetaldehyde, which indicates incomplete fermentation.

The reason of the rumor that sugar causes the problem is that sucrose (cane sugar, made out of glucose chemically attached to fructose) is difficult to break down by yeast. The solution is to use HFSC or inverted sugar (sucrose that has already been broken down into glucose and fructose), or to make your own inverted sugar by heating in an acidic solution.

[casebro]

According to this guy (http://www.zimbio.com/Homebrewing/articles/53/Why+does+my+beer+taste+bad), the cidery taste comes from acetaldehyde, which indicates incomplete fermentation.

The reason of the rumor that sugar causes the problem is that sucrose (cane sugar, made out of glucose chemically attached to fructose) is difficult to break down by yeast. The solution is to use HFSC or inverted sugar (sucrose that has already been broken down into glucose and fructose), or to make your own inverted sugar by heating in an acidic solution.

Tried your cite. I assume you skimmed the first couple paragraphs. Later, he says that more complete fermentation/aging makes the acetaldehyde go bye-bye. Also that boiling the sugar, as I do in my all-grain brewing, inverts it. There is apparently enough acidity in the wort from the oats and hops to effect inversion.

Not to mention that I am sampling a glass of my latest batch now. Not been carbonated yet, so flat and room temp. I used East Kent Goldings (EKG) hops this batch. Tastes fine. Brew date was Jan 31, so it has had plenty of time to use up any acetaldehyde. Last batch, due to it's experimental nature, I used the hops I had laying around, Csaz, Too much like grapefruit.

I have inverted sugar at home. Sugar, water, pinch of Citric acid. As the solution starts to boil, it makes a batch of fine bubbles, not big like boiling water. I always figured those were the oxygen, which is required to bind the fructose to glucose.

So between the boiling doing the inverting, and taking extra time fermenting, I guess I'll continue using sugar.

Now, I guess it's time to clean bottles, and get on with the bottling.

[Schrodinger's Cat]

1. I completely agree with loss leader that my #1 problem with HFCS is that it is what pushes us to have overproduced corn which is SO overproduced that we have to subsidize the industry with tens of billions in tax dollars every year and promotes monoculturing which is not good either for business or the environment. Well, that and along with the fact that we feed cows corn when their bodies aren't even made to digest it, and corn fed beef is more fatty and less nutritious than grass fed beef. It also is what caused the rise in factory farms. But I digress...

2. i used to live in the Netherlands. Their products are made with sugar instead of HFCS. Sugar made products simply taste better. You'll go over there and buy an identical product:fanta, Coca Cola, a candy bar, and it just plain old tastes better.

3. HFCS has been linked to obesity, but some recent medical studies suggest that it is not inherently less healthy than other sweeteners. I suspect the problem is that HFCS is used so much n processed foods. So it's not that HFCS itself causes people to be fat, it's that people who eat a lot of processed foods are at higher risk of obesity, and processed foods more often than not contain HFCS, so there is a correlation between HFCS intake and obesity. . When I lived in the Netherlands, people were just so much more into eating natural nutritious fresh foods, not processed crap which is what you usually find HFCS in. And people are just plain healthier, not to mention thinner.


That said, I wouldn't support laws which would illegalize use of HFCS. I would prefer instead more public education on the advantages of REAL food over processed food to help people make healthier choices for themselves. For instance, most people do not know that the American Cancer Society and all of the top Cancer hospitals in the country state that reducing processed food in take significantly lowers your chances of getting cancer. Diet isn't just about not getting fat. Maintaining proper nutrition is simply one of the best things you can possibly do to prevent illness.

[krazyKemist]

I have inverted sugar at home. Sugar, water, pinch of Citric acid. As the solution starts to boil, it makes a batch of fine bubbles, not big like boiling water. I always figured those were the oxygen, which is required to bind the fructose to glucose.


The net reaction for sugar inversion is:

C12H22O11 + H2O -> 2 C6H12O6 (glucose and fructose)

So no gas involved.

My guess is that you get slight decomposition of citric acid - meaning the gaz you observe would be CO2.

[casebro]

The net reaction for sugar inversion is:

C12H22O11 + H2O -> 2 C6H12O6 (glucose and fructose)

So no gas involved.

My guess is that you get slight decomposition of citric acid - meaning the gaz you observe would be CO2.

Yes, since there is a ratio of citric acid : sugar, the acid must get used up somewhere. I suppose the acid is the donor of the Hs and Os, leaving the CO2? I aced high school chemistry, but that was looong ago.

So nowadays, I do home chemistry. Turning sugars into alcohol, turning alcohol into urine, with acetaldehyde as a natural by-product.

[fuelair]

And no one noticed the (intentional) typo. Damn.

I suspect, like me, we noticed - but we all typo from time to time so...........
Plus, you are one of the good guys so we would give you a pass anyway!!:D

As said, there is no need to ban it, simply halt the corn subsidies - or dramatically reduce them, that takes corn produced alcohol out of gasoline (it is not long term feasible and it's production is more damaging pollution wise than the reduction in pollution it's use allows) and cuts most use of it for HFCS by simple economics.
That done, more food corn is available, costs for corn FOOD go down. More other food items get grown, crop rotation can happen more, soil is not depleted so very badly, the cycle creating fully depleted/heavy chem fertilizer use is at least slowed.........:):):) (there is more detail in here but it is boring to an awful lot of people - which is why many readers of this may not even know what the last few llines are about.).

[Roadtoad]

I suspect, like me, we noticed - but we all typo from time to time so...........
Plus, you are one of the good guys so we would give you a pass anyway!!:D

As said, there is no need to ban it, simply halt the corn subsidies - or dramatically reduce them, that takes corn produced alcohol out of gasoline (it is not long term feasible and it's production is more damaging pollution wise than the reduction in pollution it's use allows) and cuts most use of it for HFCS by simple economics.
That done, more food corn is available, costs for corn FOOD go down. More other food items get grown, crop rotation can happen more, soil is not depleted so very badly, the cycle creating fully depleted/heavy chem fertilizer use is at least slowed.........:):):) (there is more detail in here but it is boring to an awful lot of people - which is why many readers of this may not even know what the last few llines are about.).

Don't even think of getting me started on crop subsidies. And this is especially true of that SOB Jesse Helms and tobacco, which NEVER should have been subsidized in the first place. (Right, we're going to subsidize a LUXURY item, while people actually growing FOOD go out of business.)

This gets to a further pet peeve of mine, which is monoculture. The whole idea regarding crops is that you're supposed to rotate them, rather that build your income around one crop. This idiocy has led to the decline of the Family Farm, (among other reasons), and has created a mammoth imbalance in what we eat, how we get it, and in the infrastructure necessary to support the American farm. It's ultimately inexcusable.

[ponderingturtle]

Yes, since there is a ratio of citric acid : sugar, the acid must get used up somewhere. I suppose the acid is the donor of the Hs and Os, leaving the CO2? I aced high school chemistry, but that was looong ago.

Not if you are shooting for a specific PH. So you might be able extract the acid at the end, but that would be impractical.

[casebro]

I think the citric acid acts as a catalyst. Being c6h8o7, if it gives up two h and one O, then picks up a water molecule to make up the difference, rinse and repeat. Or maybe it gives up the h2o1, leaving c6h6o6, which can be several different assemblages. So I guess I don't know yet what the fine gas bubbles are.

I do know that using citric acid to invert crystallized honey keeps it from crystallizing again.

[krazyKemist]

I think the citric acid acts as a catalyst. Being c6h8o7, if it gives up two h and one O, then picks up a water molecule to make up the difference, rinse and repeat. Or maybe it gives up the h2o1, leaving c6h6o6, which can be several different assemblages. So I guess I don't know yet what the fine gas bubbles are.

I do know that using citric acid to invert crystallized honey keeps it from crystallizing again.

You're right, the acid acts as a catalyst.

The bond between two sugar molecules, the osidic bond, is formed by giving up one water molecule (sugar-OH + sugar-OH -> sugar-O-sugar + H2O), and you need one water molecule to break it down - this kind of reaction is called a hydrolysis. Hydrolysis reactions are often catalyzed with dilute acid. The acid acts as a source of H+ to protonate the O that is forming the bond, making one of the sugars a better "leaving group". OH- from water then attacks the other side of the bond, so that one sugar is left with a new H, the other with a new OH, restoring the water molecule that was lost in bonding. The acid catalyst is restored with the excess H+ in water, and can go back in the cycle. Hydrolysis can and does happen without acid catalysis, but much more slowly.

The reason for my hypothesis that the gas is CO2 is that citric acid is known to undergo decomposition upon heating. Normally, you need much more heat than what you're applying, but in water, with other molecules which might act as stabilizers for the cation that must form for decomposition, it might happen more easily.

[bokonon]

From dcsience.net (http://www.dcscience.net/?p=2584), David Colquhoun's site describing "The Diet Delusion"
[...]
I am not a dietitian and don't even play one on television, but I found Taubes' arguments quite persuasive.
I'll confess, when I read your list of conclusions, I started shooting holes through them in my head. "Define 'elevated'". "Where is the data that justifies that?" etc. My poor head got pretty well ventilated.

But I decided to have a closer look before I went shooting my mouth off, and got Taubes' book from the local library yesterday. Here in the states, it's titled "Good Calories, Bad Calories."

I'm only about fifty pages in, but it's already a compelling indictment of how confirmation bias and "scientific dogma" can shape conclusions and lead researchers to ignore or discount data which fails to confirm their prejudices. I know this is more common in science than we laymen generally know, but it's a real eye opener for me. I recommend it to my global warming sparring partners, though it has nothing to do with the science of global warming per se.

[dakotajudo]

Don't even think of getting me started on crop subsidies.

Don't even get me started on the ignorance of most people about agriculture.

Really. I haven't visited here on in months, largely because I was getting discouraged about the nonsense posted about crops and agronomics, what with the debates on global warming, ethanol, GMOs and now this.

This gets to a further pet peeve of mine, which is monoculture.

Monoculture is the practice of growing a single plant species or crop variety over a large area - a field of corn or a field of wheat. For technical reasons, this is the most efficient means of production for the large majority of crop species, as opposed to polyculture (which is the practice of growing a mixture of species in the same field).

The whole idea regarding crops is that you're supposed to rotate them, rather that build your income around one crop.
That's not the whole idea regarding crops.In fact, it's only a part of the managing and selecting the right crops to grow for best return on investment. Best practices typically involve some form of rotation; for grain crops, at least - perennials aren't so easily rotated, are they?

But crop rotations are rotations among monocultures.

Very few farmers build their income around one crop. Of course it's dumb; who told you otherwise?

This idiocy has led to the decline of the Family Farm, (among other reasons), and has created a mammoth imbalance in what we eat, how we get it, and in the infrastructure necessary to support the American farm. It's ultimately inexcusable.
Which of your ancestors left the family farm to seek an easier living in the city? Regular hours, paid holiday and vacations, guarantee income for much less physical labor? That's what led to the decline of the Family Farm; start your blame there.

What strikes me as more inexcusable is that an inordinate number of people have very little participation in what they eat, how they get it or are involved in the infrastructure necessary to support the American farm. If more people were involved in the physical production of their food, there would be less demand for fuels and less obesity.

[dakotajudo]

As said, there is no need to ban it, simply halt the corn subsidies - or dramatically reduce them, that takes corn produced alcohol out of gasoline (it is not long term feasible and it's production is more damaging pollution wise than the reduction in pollution it's use allows) and cuts most use of it for HFCS by simple economics.
Actually, halting subsidies would have little impact on corn production, but would greatly impact sugar production in this country - by about 5% compared to 30%.

Obviously, if you're going to talk about banning HFCS, you need to consider the economics of sugar production, and that commodity is even more heavily subsidized than corn (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120832449/abstract). Note I say commodity instead of crop, because relatively little sugar is grown here.

It should be noted that the practice of importing sugar has probably led to economic hardships for sugar producing countries. For example, Haiti was a largely self-sufficient island, until a few plantations owners were convinced to produce sugar as a cash crop for export, instead of growing food crops for local use.


That done, more food corn is available, costs for corn FOOD go down. More other food items get grown,
Not so much. Processed corn (ethanol, HFCS, corn starch) is relatively small portion of the total production; most corn is fed to cattle and more corn (than used for HFCS) is exported (http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Corn/ )

As for costs of corn FOOD, most of the cost comes from the processors, very little of the end cost to consumers comes from the price of grain.

crop rotation can happen more
You know that corn is grown in rotation with other crops, right? And one of the alternatives, sugar cane, - is largely grown without rotation - it is a perennial?


, soil is not depleted so very badly, the cycle creating fully depleted/heavy chem fertilizer use is at least slowed.........:):):) (there is more detail in here but it is boring to an awful lot of people - which is why many readers of this may not even know what the last few llines are about.).
You are overlooking a lot of the important details.

Soil is depleted by overproduction of all crops, not just corn. The simple fact is that we have many more people who expect to be fed than we have acres to fed them in a long-term, sustainable manner. And the same subsidy program you talked of banning earlier is the same subsidy program that allows farmers to take land out of production for a time; to allow soil to be replaced.

On a per-acre basis, yes, corn does require a lot of nitrogen. That's because corn yields about 2-3 times any other crop, per acre. On a bushel-yield basis, wheat requires more nitrogen. Your daily bread comes from heavy chemical fertilizer use.

The simple fact is that protein comes from nitrogen, and nitrogen is hard to come by in the soil. Almost anything you eat, ultimately, depends on nitrogen fertilizer. Even a lot of range-fed beef. Without nitrogen fertilizer on pasture land, how can you profitably produce beef, at less than a dollar a pound on the hoof?

So, if you want to discuss the economics of HFCS, you need to consider the nitrogen requirements of sugar beets and sugar cane. What is that, compared to corn?

More importantly, since sugar has no nitrogen, how do we reclaim the nitrogen used to grow the commodity? Corn byproducts are easily fed to cattle, so that nitrogen is reclaimed as beef.

[dakotajudo]

1. I completely agree with loss leader that my #1 problem with HFCS is that it is what pushes us to have overproduced corn which is SO overproduced
Corn acreage has been consistent, over the past few decades, at about 25% of the total crop cover, comparable to wheat and soybeans. What has driven corn production is the use of corn in cattle feed, both beef and dairy.

People want milk, we produce corn to meet that demand.


that we have to subsidize the industry with tens of billions in tax dollars every year
Corn subsidies peaked at about $9 billion in 2007, but most years are about $2-4 billion, which is comparable to the sugar industry subsidy.

But you do realize that corn subsidies are, for the most part, short term loans, that allow growers to defer selling crops to the off-peak season. This is good for consumers, in that it puts some of the burden (and the associated risk management) of warehousing crops to the producers and allows processors a more steady, reliable flow of grain over the entire year, not just at the peak of the harvest season.

For comparison, how many billions do we spend on subsidizing the education industry, in the form of government subsidized student loans?

monoculturing which is not good either for business or the environment. Again with the monoculturing.

Well, that and along with the fact that we feed cows corn when their bodies aren't even made to digest it,
Corn is a grass species, cattle are adapted to digest grass. How are they not made to digest corn? They do it quite well, I've seen in done.

and corn fed beef is more fatty and less nutritious than grass fed beef. Fat cows are fatty, regardless of what they are fed and there are little differences in the nutritional characters of corn vs grass fed beef. Beef is beef.

2. i used to live in the Netherlands. Their products are made with sugar instead of HFCS. European countries do tend to subsidized the sugar beet industry.

Doesn't work so well here, though, because we grow grain crops in much larger fields.

I'm sure your aware that beets are a root crop, and thus tend require more specialized machinery for harvest, storage and transport. Corn uses virtually the same harvest, transport and storage methods as other grains, so can be grown very easily in rotation with soybeans, wheat, oats, barley, etc....

So production of HFCS is much more economical here.

[Roadtoad]

Don't even get me started on the ignorance of most people about agriculture.

Perhaps we both should. I'm willing to admit that I don't know what I don't know. I cannot, and will not, tolerate willful ignorance of something so important.

Really. I haven't visited here on in months, largely because I was getting discouraged about the nonsense posted about crops and agronomics, what with the debates on global warming, ethanol, GMOs and now this.

Re-read the OP. ThaiBoxerKen, (whom I've met face to face, and is actually a very nice guy), was noting what others have said, and was calling bulls***. He's hard to snow when it comes to hard science, given his profession and general educational background. He asked a question, and things have expanded from there.

If you can't eat stuff with HFCS, it's up to you to take responsibility for what goes into your body.

Monoculture is the practice of growing a single plant species or crop variety over a large area - a field of corn or a field of wheat. For technical reasons, this is the most efficient means of production for the large majority of crop species, as opposed to polyculture (which is the practice of growing a mixture of species in the same field).

And while this is true, it's also been shown to some of us who grew up in and around the Ag community that polyculture tends to prevent soil depletion. (I say tends for good reason, one I'm sure you understand.) Efficiency does you little good if after ten years of growing turnips in the same field, your crop decreases in both quantity and quality.

That's not the whole idea regarding crops.In fact, it's only a part of the managing and selecting the right crops to grow for best return on investment. Best practices typically involve some form of rotation; for grain crops, at least - perennials aren't so easily rotated, are they?

Nor are orchards, but, (pardon the pun), we're talking apples and oranges at that point, aren't we? :D

But crop rotations are rotations among monocultures.

Not always, but they can be. Admitted. (I suppose you were here for an argument?)

Very few farmers build their income around one crop. Of course it's dumb; who told you otherwise?

I'm from Wheatland, CA. It happens. It's why several farmers have sold out and their fields are becoming home to McMansions. (And the buyers can HAVE them!)

It's true, few farmers do that. Several did that with sugar beets around Biggs, CA. They're out of business. Several did that with tomatoes around Woodland, CA. They're now out of business. I agree with what you say, but may I suggest that you meant "very few smart farmers build their income around one crop."

Which of your ancestors left the family farm to seek an easier living in the city? Regular hours, paid holiday and vacations, guarantee income for much less physical labor? That's what led to the decline of the Family Farm; start your blame there.

Much to my irritation, my Grandfather. I would have preferred to raise crops rather than fight traffic. Sure, there's less physical labor, and the money may be a little more secure, but there's been a huge trade-off in quality of life, and in personal liberty. Frankly, if I can find the property, I'd just as soon move back to a farm, and take my chances with the weather and pests. Beats the hell out of being told I'm fired because I won't take an illegal load.

It also bears mentioning tax laws regarding farms, and in California particularly, the passage of the Farm Tax under Governor Pete Wilson, (who's now promoting Meg Whitman for his old job, and doing so laying claim to being an anti-tax crusader. Oh, PLEASE!)

What strikes me as more inexcusable is that an inordinate number of people have very little participation in what they eat, how they get it or are involved in the infrastructure necessary to support the American farm. If more people were involved in the physical production of their food, there would be less demand for fuels and less obesity.

On that point, there's no argument. The biggest mistake we've made in this country is severed the connection between ourselves and what we eat. I've personally stood on kill floors and seen how we get our meats. I know damned well what goes into egg production, (and it's why I'm picky about where I get my eggs.) Happy California Cows might be funny on TV, but it's not the reality.

I know what goes into the production of peaches and walnuts, and spent some time hauling irrigation pipe around the orchards to make sure it's adequately watered, but also had to question the wisdom of some of the pesticides and herbicides used. (At some point, tolerances build, and you either have to find something new, or you have to hit them with strong concentrations. Neither is necessarily ideal.)

We have choices to make, but you can't make them unless you inform yourself, and learn more about the issues facing family farms. I'm still learning, and probably will continue to, even as I try to get my ass back where I belong.

[Roadtoad]

[snip]The simple fact is that protein comes from nitrogen, and nitrogen is hard to come by in the soil. Almost anything you eat, ultimately, depends on nitrogen fertilizer. Even a lot of range-fed beef. Without nitrogen fertilizer on pasture land, how can you profitably produce beef, at less than a dollar a pound on the hoof?

So, if you want to discuss the economics of HFCS, you need to consider the nitrogen requirements of sugar beets and sugar cane. What is that, compared to corn?

More importantly, since sugar has no nitrogen, how do we reclaim the nitrogen used to grow the commodity? Corn byproducts are easily fed to cattle, so that nitrogen is reclaimed as beef.

Not so easily answered, though, IIRC, soybean production added to the rotation tends to help. As does the addition of a good mulch produced on the property.

I say "tends." There is no magic bullet, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or uneducated.

The folly here is that someone is looking for one culprit, and there isn't one. And the solution isn't going to be found in jingoism.

[dakotajudo]

Perhaps we both should. I'm willing to admit that I don't know what I don't know. I cannot, and will not, tolerate willful ignorance of something so important.

I grew up on a family farm; we rotated among corn, oats, barley, and alfalfa; put up prairie hay, raised cattle, hogs, sheep and chickens. And, of course, put in a garden. My grandfather on Mom's side was also a farmer, and my brother is currently a farmer.

My first job, off the family farm, was as a farmhand for a guy from our church - he also raised soybeans and sunflowers. My first job in college was as a lab technician in a soil microbiology lab, Pioneer Hibreds, working on a seed inoculant against phytophthora root rot. That I worked summers and part-time during the school year, until I started grad school and worked on a masters in plant physiology. I also worked a couple summers at an herbicide research station and a horticulture research farm.

I started a PhD in soybean physiology, studying the mechanisms of pod set - I say started because as I reached the end and was looking at post-docs, I realized I didn't much care to pursue grants and took a job programming.

Ultimately, I've ended up writing software for a company that specializes in crop protection research - herbicides, fungicides and the like. My speciality is to support crop performance trials and plant breeding experiments; in the course of that I've taken several graduate courses in crop science and have collaborated with several plant breeders.

As part of that work, I've attended many times the annual Agronomy Society/Crop Science Society/Soil Science Society of America annual meetings; I get to leave the booth occasionally and sit in on presentations relating to crop science that I find interesting, not to mention simply visiting with the researchers as they stop by our stand.

The last teaching job I had was teaching plant science to agronomy undergraduates. So, when I say "don't get me started ..."

He's hard to snow when it comes to hard science, given his profession and general educational background. Well, you and I have a different opinion of TBK understanding of hard science.

And while I admit that I've taken this thread away from the original direction, I hope you noted that I've tried to add something about the agronomic trade-offs of banning HFCS for sugar.

I didn't state so explicitly, because others have already covered the important physiological points (while I was in grad school, I did take a few human physiology classes and did teach human physiology labs for several semesters). What's important there has been covered - while there are measurable differences in the bodies response to fructose vs glucose, the physiological difference between HFCS and sugar are negligible.

Since the health benefits of banning HFCS are negligible, we should try address the agronomic and economic issues.


And while this is true, it's also been shown to some of us who grew up in and around the Ag community that polyculture tends to prevent soil depletion. (I say tends for good reason, one I'm sure you understand.) Efficiency does you little good if after ten years of growing turnips in the same field, your crop decreases in both quantity and quality.
Again, I think you're a little confused on the finer distinction between monoculture and polyculture.

Monoculture is preferred because plants that are genetically identical tend to develop and mature at the same time and so can be harvested at the same time. This is important in corn where cross-pollination demands male flowers be shedding when female flowers are open; in soybeans, where pods shatter if left in the field to long, and in white wheat, which has a tendency to sprout prematurely. The first affects yield because unpollinated flowers do not set seed; the last two cause yield when some plants in the field become mature far ahead of the rest of the field.

Polyculture, although sometimes confused with crop rotation, is better understood as system of intercropping or mixed crops. That is, say, four rows of corn planted, then four rows of beans, etc. This presents a difficulty when competition between crops limits the yield of both.

Or mixed crops. This can be done easily in forage crops, like mixed alfalfa/clover/grass hay fields, but doesn't work so well for mixed wheat/barley/oats. Unless, of course, you want bread that you don't know what the exact composition is.


I'm from Wheatland, CA. It happens. It's why several farmers have sold out and their fields are becoming home to McMansions. (And the buyers can HAVE them!)

It's true, few farmers do that. Several did that with sugar beets around Biggs, CA. They're out of business. Several did that with tomatoes around Woodland, CA. They're now out of business. I agree with what you say, but may I suggest that you meant "very few smart farmers build their income around one crop."
Truck crops in CA is a very different kind of agriculture than corn/soybean rotations in the Midwest. As I noted before, sugar beets are specialty crops that don't necessarily rotate well with other crops. Same is true for tomatoes.

What you don't mention here is whether these farmers went out of business due to yield depression in their crops, which would be a failure directly linked to crop rotation, or due to commodity market fluctuations, which is more simply not having a diversity business plan.

Or disease pressure, which is a monoculture problem.

About the time I went to college, Dad stopped growing oats because there was increasing yield loss due to rust fungus. I remember coming in from combining, literally rust colored from the fungal spores.

The problem was partly due to the practice of seed retention; some seed from each harvest was kept year to year for planting (we didn't do this for the other crops, just oats and barley). Even though we rotated among corn and grains, the fungus stayed in the fields. And since there plant-pathogen interactions are very specific, the single variety we planted simply grew more and more susceptible to the disease. This, more than anything else, is the biggest drawback to monoculture, and why farmers include different varieties in their rotations as well a different crops. One field, with one variety, might fail, but not the entire oat crop.

Had we introduced different oat varieties (with different disease susceptibilities) we might have kept growing oats profitably longer. On the other hand, the oat breeder for the state says there's not much money for breeding and it's all he can do to keep up with disease pressures.

Frankly, if I can find the property, I'd just as soon move back to a farm, and take my chances with the weather and pests.
It's not the weather and pests that'll kill you; it's the start up costs.

I've personally stood on kill floors and seen how we get our meats. I know damned well what goes into egg production, (and it's why I'm picky about where I get my eggs.) Happy California Cows might be funny on TV, but it's not the reality.
That I can agree with; I've slaughtered a few cows myself. Nothing like the smell of raw hamburger that was walking free just a day before.

One of the problems with our system is that production is distributed, but processing has became centralized. I think of an incident a couple years ago, a video was shot showing cattle being abused at a processing plant in California. This led to a recall of beef from that plant; some of which was sent back from the school system in Sioux Falls, SD.

Sioux Falls, which used to be one of the larger hubs for the cattle trade; where we sold about 200 head of calves each season from our farm about 70 miles away; where John Morrel has a large beef and pork processing facility.


I know what goes into the production of peaches and walnuts, and spent some time hauling irrigation pipe around the orchards to make sure it's adequately watered, but also had to question the wisdom of some of the pesticides and herbicides used. (At some point, tolerances build, and you either have to find something new, or you have to hit them with strong concentrations. Neither is necessarily ideal.)
That sounds like a couple of my summer jobs. One year, I was the only one who passed the herbicide applicators license, so I did all the spraying in the apple orchards.

Don't know much about pesticides, but there's been little problem with the build up of tolerance to herbicides; certainly not to the extent that no-till farming is untenable.

And no-till farming is a good thing.


We have choices to make, but you can't make them unless you inform yourself, and learn more about the issues facing family farms.
I hope you've gathered, by now, that I'm pretty well informed on these issues, but that doesn't stop me from visiting with friends, neighbors and colleagues about these issues.

These on-line debates actually help, in that I frequently, when I read some thing here that strikes me as particularly ill-informed, make a visit to the crop science or animal science at the university and ask questions - I maintain my contacts. To the extent that, a couple years ago when I visited the dean of the grad. school about rehabilitating by PhD work, we spent a good part of our time together discussing the pros and cons of corn-fed vs grass-fed beef; I'd read a post here and he was a forage research specialist who'd studied alfalfa digestibility. As part of his research, he worked with cows fitted with valves, such that he could go in and extract stomach juices to test forage digestion in test tubes. Fun stuff.

[dakotajudo]

Not so easily answered, though, IIRC, soybean production added to the rotation tends to help.
This is where, if you were going to keep me honest, you point out that soybeans and other legumes are added to the rotation because they form symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria (Rhizobia).

And that sugar cane has an associated nitrogen fixing symbiote; although as I understand it, Azotobacter doesn't naturally infect sugar cane, but instead is opportunistic, so it might not be important in production fields.

As does the addition of a good mulch produced on the property.
But that doesn't scale well for production, does it? It's probably more efficient to turn cattle loose to graze on stubble and crap the nitrogen back.

With increasing total biomass production, disposal of corn stover is becoming an important topic among crop science researchers. I don't remember any discussion involving mulching at the last meetings; the focus seemed to be gathering stover from the field for use as an ethanol feedstock.

[Roadtoad]

I grew up on a family farm; we rotated among corn, oats, barley, and alfalfa; put up prairie hay, raised cattle, hogs, sheep and chickens. And, of course, put in a garden. My grandfather on Mom's side was also a farmer, and my brother is currently a farmer.

My first job, off the family farm, was as a farmhand for a guy from our church - he also raised soybeans and sunflowers. My first job in college was as a lab technician in a soil microbiology lab, Pioneer Hibreds, working on a seed inoculant against phytophthora root rot. That I worked summers and part-time during the school year, until I started grad school and worked on a masters in plant physiology. I also worked a couple summers at an herbicide research station and a horticulture research farm.

I started a PhD in soybean physiology, studying the mechanisms of pod set - I say started because as I reached the end and was looking at post-docs, I realized I didn't much care to pursue grants and took a job programming.

Ultimately, I've ended up writing software for a company that specializes in crop protection research - herbicides, fungicides and the like. My speciality is to support crop performance trials and plant breeding experiments; in the course of that I've taken several graduate courses in crop science and have collaborated with several plant breeders.

As part of that work, I've attended many times the annual Agronomy Society/Crop Science Society/Soil Science Society of America annual meetings; I get to leave the booth occasionally and sit in on presentations relating to crop science that I find interesting, not to mention simply visiting with the researchers as they stop by our stand.

The last teaching job I had was teaching plant science to agronomy undergraduates. So, when I say "don't get me started ..."

Actually, I wish I could get you started. One of the problems here on this board is that we get people with some information, but not to the extent that you have. Engaging in conversations with neighbors and friends who are in the business, as well as family members, is not the same thing.

And this is where a lot of us get into trouble. Like I said: You don't know what you don't know. As we should have learned from a couple of train-wreck level threads (now moderated), it helps to listen to those who took the time to earn the alphabet soup behind their names. Those letters are generally there for a reason. (And, by the same token, there's more than a few of us on the other end who've gotten into fights regarding what we know ourselves regarding our own professions.)

So, sorry, but I'd like nothing more that to get you started. You're clearly better informed.

Well, you and I have a different opinion of TBK understanding of hard science.

And while I admit that I've taken this thread away from the original direction, I hope you noted that I've tried to add something about the agronomic trade-offs of banning HFCS for sugar.

I did. And I'm grateful.

I didn't state so explicitly, because others have already covered the important physiological points (while I was in grad school, I did take a few human physiology classes and did teach human physiology labs for several semesters). What's important there has been covered - while there are measurable differences in the bodies response to fructose vs glucose, the physiological difference between HFCS and sugar are negligible.

Since the health benefits of banning HFCS are negligible, we should try address the agronomic and economic issues.

No argument there.

Again, I think you're a little confused on the finer distinction between monoculture and polyculture.

Monoculture is preferred because plants that are genetically identical tend to develop and mature at the same time and so can be harvested at the same time. This is important in corn where cross-pollination demands male flowers be shedding when female flowers are open; in soybeans, where pods shatter if left in the field to long, and in white wheat, which has a tendency to sprout prematurely. The first affects yield because unpollinated flowers do not set seed; the last two cause yield when some plants in the field become mature far ahead of the rest of the field.

Polyculture, although sometimes confused with crop rotation, is better understood as system of intercropping or mixed crops. That is, say, four rows of corn planted, then four rows of beans, etc. This presents a difficulty when competition between crops limits the yield of both.

Or mixed crops. This can be done easily in forage crops, like mixed alfalfa/clover/grass hay fields, but doesn't work so well for mixed wheat/barley/oats. Unless, of course, you want bread that you don't know what the exact composition is.

I suspect we're picking nits on this one. I appreciate the refinement, though, on the description, which clarifies a great deal. I should have considered the limitations on the crops, simply due to the loss of acreage.

As to the bread, (given one of my hobbies is baking bread): Have you been talking to my kids? :D

Truck crops in CA is a very different kind of agriculture than corn/soybean rotations in the Midwest. As I noted before, sugar beets are specialty crops that don't necessarily rotate well with other crops. Same is true for tomatoes.

What you don't mention here is whether these farmers went out of business due to yield depression in their crops, which would be a failure directly linked to crop rotation, or due to commodity market fluctuations, which is more simply not having a diversity business plan.

Or disease pressure, which is a monoculture problem.

Hadn't thought about that. This is one of the problems when you primary source is the Sacramento Bee.

About the time I went to college, Dad stopped growing oats because there was increasing yield loss due to rust fungus. I remember coming in from combining, literally rust colored from the fungal spores.

The problem was partly due to the practice of seed retention; some seed from each harvest was kept year to year for planting (we didn't do this for the other crops, just oats and barley). Even though we rotated among corn and grains, the fungus stayed in the fields. And since there plant-pathogen interactions are very specific, the single variety we planted simply grew more and more susceptible to the disease. This, more than anything else, is the biggest drawback to monoculture, and why farmers include different varieties in their rotations as well a different crops. One field, with one variety, might fail, but not the entire oat crop.

Had we introduced different oat varieties (with different disease susceptibilities) we might have kept growing oats profitably longer. On the other hand, the oat breeder for the state says there's not much money for breeding and it's all he can do to keep up with disease pressures.

This might explain a lot of my grandfather's work with hybrids and grafting. He was using black walnut for a base, but English walnuts for the crown. Seemed to be more disease resistant, but nothing's ever permanent or perfect. (This would also explain a lot regarding the glassy winged sharpshooter here in NorCal, which is wreaking havoc in the Napa Valley, particularly when people transport plants across county and state lines.

It's not the weather and pests that'll kill you; it's the start up costs.

Tractors and implements you expect to be expensive. It's the things like mechanic's tools, shovels, water pipe, sprinkler heads and stuff that eat away at the profit margin and put a lot of folks out of business. I report farm theft every chance I can, only to have county sheriffs and the like blow me off, ignoring the reality of what it costs for one 15-20 ft length of irrigation pipe.

That I can agree with; I've slaughtered a few cows myself. Nothing like the smell of raw hamburger that was walking free just a day before.

One of the problems with our system is that production is distributed, but processing has became centralized. I think of an incident a couple years ago, a video was shot showing cattle being abused at a processing plant in California. This led to a recall of beef from that plant; some of which was sent back from the school system in Sioux Falls, SD.

Sioux Falls, which used to be one of the larger hubs for the cattle trade; where we sold about 200 head of calves each season from our farm about 70 miles away; where John Morrel has a large beef and pork processing facility.

I followed that one closely, given the amount of time I've spent around meat packers, hauling it in, out, and around. (Though never pulling a bull wagon, thankfully. I should tell you about the noob inspector at Cordelia and her first bull wagon look-see.) It's for this reason I'm a believer in decentralization. While bringing it all to one plant might make it cheaper, I don't know if I trust this method to either make our food safer, or better.

Our family sold nearly everything to Dole. I wonder what might have happened if we'd been able to pick and choose who we sold to, rather than being stuck with one choice.

That sounds like a couple of my summer jobs. One year, I was the only one who passed the herbicide applicators license, so I did all the spraying in the apple orchards.

Don't know much about pesticides, but there's been little problem with the build up of tolerance to herbicides; certainly not to the extent that no-till farming is untenable.

And no-till farming is a good thing.

True.

I hope you've gathered, by now, that I'm pretty well informed on these issues, but that doesn't stop me from visiting with friends, neighbors and colleagues about these issues.

These on-line debates actually help, in that I frequently, when I read some thing here that strikes me as particularly ill-informed, make a visit to the crop science or animal science at the university and ask questions - I maintain my contacts. To the extent that, a couple years ago when I visited the dean of the grad. school about rehabilitating by PhD work, we spent a good part of our time together discussing the pros and cons of corn-fed vs grass-fed beef; I'd read a post here and he was a forage research specialist who'd studied alfalfa digestibility. As part of his research, he worked with cows fitted with valves, such that he could go in and extract stomach juices to test forage digestion in test tubes. Fun stuff.

I only wish I had your list of contacts. Frankly, running a farm and running regionally with a truck might work out, but that's only going to happen when you have solid information behind you. Plenty of drivers I know do it, but their time in the sleeper berth ain't spent watching online porn, but rather reading everything from MSDS sheets from chemical producers to reading trade journals for what they're growing. There isn't a lot of time spent on the romantic side of matters.

Nor am I interested in doing that. I'm in a situation where I need to diversify my income, and a step back to what my family did in California since the 1850's -- minus robbing the Wells Fargo stagecoaches -- might be in order. I won't get rich, but if I can find the right location, it might be nice to at least make ends meet once in a while. Probably not very likely in a farm situation, but I've got enough family that made it work long enough, is still possible, given the right crop base, and ideally, the right location. With pressures mounting from the housing industry in California, it sure as hell won't be here.

[Roadtoad]

This is where, if you were going to keep me honest, you point out that soybeans and other legumes are added to the rotation because they form symbiosis with nitrogen fixing bacteria (Rhizobia).

And that sugar cane has an associated nitrogen fixing symbiote; although as I understand it, Azotobacter doesn't naturally infect sugar cane, but instead is opportunistic, so it might not be important in production fields.

Again, your experience and education come into play here. I didn't know the technical end of this, which would further explain a great deal.

Me? Keep you honest? I think it's more the other way around.

But that doesn't scale well for production, does it? It's probably more efficient to turn cattle loose to graze on stubble and crap the nitrogen back.

With increasing total biomass production, disposal of corn stover is becoming an important topic among crop science researchers. I don't remember any discussion involving mulching at the last meetings; the focus seemed to be gathering stover from the field for use as an ethanol feedstock.

Well, cattle or goats. This assumes you want to produce milk or cheese along with your other row crops. And, as you point out, there's greater emphasis on using every bit of the plant you can to produce biofuels, which may or may not work.

Right now, they're building two biomass power plants in the Imperial Valley, (and, yes, I've hauled equipment and construction material there, though I'm not certain as to their effectiveness, or if they've even come on line yet.) This is well and good, but what do you do with the leftovers? The manure from National Beef in Brawley, or the plant matter that's been gathered and allowed to ferment? My question would be if that's any use after it's been run through the slurry, and would it help enrich what soil is being used for cropland? What studies have been done?

As to HFCS, it would seem the questions here have led to a much broader debate regarding Ag practices in this country, which may be the greater debate.

[CaveDave]

Heh, heh. I always tell my student's on the first day of class than any misteaks I make are deliberately intended to test there knowledge and there willingness too confront authority.... ;)

I would assume you intended the first (red), but did you also intend the other three (two yellow, one blue)?

Those last (homophones) are mighty common, and not caught by spell checking.;)

Cheers,

Dave

[bokonon]

This public lecture "Sugar: the bitter truth", by Robert Lustig (http://chc.ucsf.edu/coast/faculty_lustig.htm), Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology and Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF talks about sugar, fructose and HFCS and their effects. He agrees that HFCS is not significantly worse than sucrose, but also says much more about both.

dBnniua6-oM
Thanks for that link. He's saying much the same thing that Taubes says in "Good Calories, Bad Calories." I've always been pretty cavalier about what I ate, but that's beginning to change. Relating food to biochemistry makes both more enjoyable.

Now, isn't anybody out there making glucose soft drinks, syrups, and powders?

[Roadtoad]

And, yet, we've just had someone place better, more reliable information regarding this subject on this thread. I think I'd rather go with someone who's got a better handle on this subject.

[bokonon]

And, yet, we've just had someone place better, more reliable information regarding this subject on this thread. I think I'd rather go with someone who's got a better handle on this subject.
Is this directed at my post immediately above yours? Because if it is, I suspect you've neither read the book nor watched the video, and have no idea whether this thread contains "better, more reliable information."

You can "go with" whoever you want. I'm going to make more of an effort to avoid sugar and fructose than I have in the past, based on a few science facts I've learned from some helpful links in this thread that I've taken the time to investigate.

Some of the reliable information in this thread that the links have supported:

1. HFCS is no better and no worse than sucrose in its effects on the body.
2. Those effects are bad, because the "fructose" in both can only be metabolized by the liver, and do not result in the metabolic feedbacks that tell the body to stop eating which would be provided by other sources of calories.

One fact provided by the video which I've not seen in this thread: eating fructose is the metabolic equivalent of eating fat, as far as where it ends up in your cells. Eating fat is actually better, though, because it DOES provide the feedbacks that will help limit consumption.

[Roadtoad]

Is this directed at my post immediately above yours? Because if it is, I suspect you've neither read the book nor watched the video, and have no idea whether this thread contains "better, more reliable information."

You can "go with" whoever you want. I'm going to make more of an effort to avoid sugar and fructose than I have in the past, based on a few science facts I've learned from some helpful links in this thread that I've taken the time to investigate.

Some of the reliable information in this thread that the links have supported:

1. HFCS is no better and no worse than sucrose in its effects on the body.
2. Those effects are bad, because the "fructose" in both can only be metabolized by the liver, and do not result in the metabolic feedbacks that tell the body to stop eating which would be provided by other sources of calories.

One fact provided by the video which I've not seen in this thread: eating fructose is the metabolic equivalent of eating fat, as far as where it ends up in your cells. Eating fat is actually better, though, because it DOES provide the feedbacks that will help limit consumption.

Not directly, no. It's just a blanket grumble regarding how some threads have gone of late. You can lump this one in with some twoofer threads I've read of late, along with some others. Things seem to be headed in the direction of woo in a great many threads that I've been reading, (a few posts here are there, too), and I'm trying like hell to get away from that. I haven't been that far out of the silliness that I can't get sucked back in again.

Sorry.

[Prometheus]

I would assume you intended the first (red), but did you also intend the other three (two yellow, one blue)?

Those last (homophones) are mighty common, and not caught by spell checking.;)

Cheers,

Dave

Yes, they were all intended--including the fifth and sixth ones, which you did not find. :p

[CORed]

Sounds like we need more subsidies for honey.

But how will the bees cash the checks?

[CORed]

Remember when the word "sugar" was bad? It was about the time they took the word off many cereals so now we have Super Golden Crisp, Corn Pops, and []Frosted Flakes.

Even recently I noticed the trend of labeling something as having "cane juice" instead of sugar, as if to have people say "Oh, juice! It must be better for you!"

They took sugar out of the names, but not the products.

[casebro]

But how will the bees cash the checks?

They use their driver's licenses as IDs. ;)

[CaveDave]

Yes, they were all intended--including the fifth and sixth ones, which you did not find. :p

Ummm, was one too many dots in the ellipsis?

I give up, enlighten me, please.:)

Cheers,

Dave

[Prometheus]

Ummm, was one too many dots in the ellipsis?

I give up, enlighten me, please.:)

Cheers,

Dave

Heh, heh. I always tell my student's on the first day of class than any misteaks I make are deliberately intended to test there knowledge and there willingness too confront authority.... ;)

:pedant

[23_Tauri]

On the link between corn syrup and Type 2 diabetes, I found this article from 2004 in Nature:

http://www.nature.com/news/1998/040510/full/news040510-5.html

I don't have a subscription so can't read the full text. Does anyone here have access?

I did find this summary of the study:

"A new study attributed the significant rise of diabetes cases to the growing consumption of refined carbohydrates. The study also supported evidence that the advice from public health regarding limiting their intake of sugary foods and lowering their fat intake might have backfired. Over the past 40 years, the number of obese people and those diagnosed with diabetes has risen dramatically.

Experts blamed these rising health problems on the high numbers of sedentary lifestyles and poor diets.

A study gathered information on food composition and consumption over the years 1909 to 1997. Data from these findings were compared to the rates of disease from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When researchers evaluated the results they found that the drop in fiber consumption and heavy consumption of corn syrup found in most processed foods were at the root of the problem, not the number of proteins, fats or carbohydrates.

Other studies have shown that people who consumed a great deal of carbohydrates over a long period of time were in the higher risk brackets of developing diabetes.

The study also revealed that the amount of corn syrup people ate really escalated around the time the low-fat craze began to take off. Many nutritionists have recommended whole grain alternatives over refined carbohydrates, which they warned to keep away from. "

However, there's nothing here that I've read so far to suggest that fructose is any worse than sucrose, just that fructose has become much cheaper and therefore more ubitiquous in the Western diet, therefore increasing people's intake of refined carbohydrates generally.

[23_Tauri]

Apologies, I didn't provide the link to the summary (in italics) in the above post. Here it is:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/05/26/corn-syrup-diabetes.aspx

[dakotajudo]

As to the bread, (given one of my hobbies is baking bread): Have you been talking to my kids? :D

Have you started using white wheat flour? Not white flour, "white wheat flour".

About 15 years ago or so, there was an initiative, sponsored in part by the USDA, to push for the development and production of wheat varieties that lacked pigment in the seed.

It relates to this point, I'd missed:

This is also the reasoning behind the white vs. brown or wild rice and processed flour vs. whole wheat. It's not really about fiber for your pooper or preventing fat absorbtion. The processed ones have simpler carbs that break down faster than the less processed (or less-domesticated) variants. It's also why "wheat bread" is almost as junky as regular bread, and why you actually want "100% whole wheat" on the label.
The difference between white flour and whole wheat flour is that white flour has been processed to remove the bran and the germ, leaving only the endosperm; the endosperm has mostly carbohydrate and the proteins needed for proper bread making (high protein wheat is about 12-16% protein). The vitamins are in the germ.

The two flours, whole or white, aren't so much different in starch content as are the two classes of grains - hard or soft wheats. Hard wheats are used to make bread; soft wheats noodles and pastry.

Anyway, there has been extensive development of hard white wheats to replace the more commonly grown hard red wheats. The major incentive to do this is that white grains can be used to produce white flour, that consumers prefer, with less processing and are ultimately healthier.

The story of white wheat is informative here, because many of the same people (or, at least, the same bureaucracy) that fostered the development of a more healthy alternative to white flour have been involved in the decision to promote HFCS production.

The issues relating to HFCS are being debated by very educated people at very high levels, but it's not easy to shift market forces and consumer preferences.


This might explain a lot of my grandfather's work with hybrids and grafting. He was using black walnut for a base, but English walnuts for the crown. Seemed to be more disease resistant, but nothing's ever permanent or perfect.
Disease resistance (or stress tolerance in general) tends to come at a cost of production or quality. So for many perennial species, a highly productive (but stress sensitive) shoot is graft onto a more disease tolerant root stock.

Again, with wheat, there is a well known fragment of rye chromosome that has been translocated into some wheat lines. This translocation makes wheat very disease and drought resistance, but yields poor quality bread. Farmers would prefer to grow a disease resistant wheat (because that reduces their risk of catastrophic loss), but processers don't want to buy it.

Which, again relates to banning HFCS in that how do we best balance the need for reliable methods of food production with the demands of consumers?



Tractors and implements you expect to be expensive. It's the things like mechanic's tools, shovels, water pipe, sprinkler heads and stuff that eat away at the profit margin and put a lot of folks out of business. I report farm theft every chance I can, only to have county sheriffs and the like blow me off, ignoring the reality of what it costs for one 15-20 ft length of irrigation pipe.
That stuff's mostly fixed cost. It's the ongoing competition for land - you need to compete with larger, more established groups (I say groups - sometimes a family farm is a family farm, sometimes it's 2 or 3 or a dozen siblings and cousins that have formed a corporation) that get bid higher on land, since they can distribute the risk and cost and tolerate a lower profit margin.



I only wish I had your list of contacts.
Simple enough. Find the nearest land-grant university and get involved with the county extension agents.

The land-grant university system is based on land donations from the federal government, given with the mandate to promote and foster agricultural production, from publicly funded research (like the white wheats lines) to educational opportunities for small producers. The USDA *wants* small producers to succeed and have programs to help.

Go to state fairs, visit the booths, go to the various field days sponsored by the university research programs. Many, if not most, of the crop researchers depend on interaction and funding from the producers; if nothing else you may find seasonal employment on a research station as way to get started.

Or full time, for that matter. Researchers need good reliable, mechanically inclined, field hands. Some researchers have multiple (dozens) of research stations scattered throughout a state - perhaps your trucking experience would be a plus.

A friend of mine, from grad school, worked as a research tech for the winter wheat program; did well enough to buy a small acreage, raises chickens.

[23_Tauri]

Here's another study, slightly different angle. A possible link between high levels of reactive carbonyls in HFCS and diabetes in children.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-08/acs-swn081007.php

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. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are “bound” and chemically stable, the researcher notes.

KrazyKemist, do you know anything about reactive carbonyls?

[dakotajudo]

Is this directed at my post immediately above yours? Because if it is, I suspect you've neither read the book nor watched the video, and have no idea whether this thread contains "better, more reliable information."
Well, Lustig speaks well, but he is misleading on a few points.

based on a few science facts
You do realize that few people who do science use the phrase "science facts"? It marks you as a dabbler.

HFCS is no better and no worse than sucrose in its effects on the body.
I don't think you can say "no better and no worse"; a more precise phrasing is that the differences are small; that is, below the level of statistical significance, depending on the type of study (see, for example http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/87/5/1194 ).

We have to consider that there are difference between affects of acute consumption (one soda) vs chronic consumption (2-3 sodas per week over 10 years) and national health policy (what are the effects on the population of a switch from sugar to HFCS sweeteners). There is as yet little evidence, on an epidemiological level, that HFCS and sucrose consumption are different, but we don't want to dismiss them as being identical. It may very well be that there are detectable differences, but the differences are masked by the general over-consumption of sugars in any form.

What we should also note from this is that while the metabolic differences arising from fructose content are hard to distinguish when the carbohydrate choices are HFCS or sugar, there are differences between fructose containing carbs and non-fructose carbs, as in starch.


2. Those effects are bad, because the "fructose" in both can only be metabolized by the liver, and do not result in the metabolic feedbacks that tell the body to stop eating which would be provided by other sources of calories.
Again, an over-simplification. Fructose is primarily metabolized in the liver, but it can also be metabolized elsewhere. We need to remember that pretty much anything ingested is filtered through the liver. Is fructose metabolized mainly in the liver because that's the first organ ingest fructose reaches, or because only the liver contains the necessary metabolic machinery? It's an important point, because of the difference in what happens when the liver is saturated with fructose.

Interestingly, metabolism in the CNS may interact with the processing of satiety signals (http://www.pnas.org/content/105/44/16871.full)

Fructose does result in metabolic feedbacks, it's just that these signals are not a strong or sustained.


One fact provided by the video which I've not seen in this thread: eating fructose is the metabolic equivalent of eating fat, as far as where it ends up in your cells. Eating fat is actually better, though, because it DOES provide the feedbacks that will help limit consumption.

Not really, fructose is metabolized in the liver to triose phosphates, which can then be converted to glucose and glycogen, exported as lactate or incorporated into triglycerides. Not quite the equivalent as fat.

[casebro]

But Tauri, ingested sugar gets broken down into the same fructose as it gets metabolized. The enzymes in saliva start the process right in your mouth. Reactive carbonyls RIGHT IN YOUR MOUTH !!! No wonder I get cavities. ;) So, you'll have to show that sucrose digestion does NOT make the same by-products. As well as more complex carbohydrates. Or at least, what component in HFCS is responsible for the reactive carbonyls.

[dakotajudo]

On the link between corn syrup and Type 2 diabetes, I found this article from 2004 in Nature:

http://www.nature.com/news/1998/040510/full/news040510-5.html


I can't tell from the link (it's a link to a news summary, not an original research article), but I suspect it references this study: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/5/774

A more recent summary (in fact, the whole issue addresses HFCS) references this article, can be found at http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/88/6/1716S

[bokonon]

You do realize that few people who do science use the phrase "science facts"? It marks you as a dabbler.
Oh, the shame. Just out of curiosity, what does the phrase "You do realize that few people who do science use the phrase 'science facts'? It marks you as a dabbler" mark you as?

I don't think you can say "no better and no worse"; a more precise phrasing is that the differences are small; that is, below the level of statistical significance, depending on the type of study (see, for example http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/87/5/1194 ).Thanks, that's going to help a lot when it comes time for me to decide what to eat. Or drink! Wow, I almost forgot. Hey, DOUBLE thanks!

We have to consider that there are difference between affects of acute consumption (one soda) vs chronic consumption (2-3 sodas per week over 10 years) and national health policy (what are the effects on the population of a switch from sugar to HFCS sweeteners). There is as yet little evidence, on an epidemiological level, that HFCS and sucrose consumption are different, but we don't want to dismiss them as being identical. It may very well be that there are detectable differences, but the differences are masked by the general over-consumption of sugars in any form.Is there an app for that? I haven't been able to find my RCH-meter since the move, and without it I think I may have to fall back on "they're identical" when I'm scanning the menu at Fatburger. More shame...

What we should also note from this is that while the metabolic differences arising from fructose content are hard to distinguish when the carbohydrate choices are HFCS or sugar, there are differences between fructose containing carbs and non-fructose carbs, as in starch.Or glucose, as in the link Pixel42 provided.

Not really, fructose is metabolized in the liver to triose phosphates, which can then be converted to glucose and glycogen, exported as lactate or incorporated into triglycerides. Not quite the equivalent as fat.I stand corrected. I don't remember the last time I exported lactate, but is it still a science fact that excess glucose, glycogen, and triglycerides are stored as fat? I think they are in dabblers, anyway. Could be wrong.

Fat does still make you feel fuller -- damn, more dabbler babble -- Fat does still induce a stronger sensation of satiety than an equivalent number of calories of ingested fructose, does it not?

[23_Tauri]

But Tauri, ingested sugar gets broken down into the same fructose as it gets metabolized. The enzymes in saliva start the process right in your mouth. Reactive carbonyls RIGHT IN YOUR MOUTH !!! No wonder I get cavities. ;) So, you'll have to show that sucrose digestion does NOT make the same by-products. As well as more complex carbohydrates. Or at least, what component in HFCS is responsible for the reactive carbonyls.
Indeed casebro. Sucrose = fructose + glucose whilst we're still chewing, and I'm convinced from what I've read so far indicates that fructose is no more unhealthy than other sugars (it's just cheaper and it's being added to everything). This is why I found this study curious, because it suggests fructose is chemically different to sucrose by way of these reactive carbonyls, which maybe aren't produced by the reaction when it happens within the body. Like you say, what component in HFCS is responsible? Now I'm no chemist (I even failed chemistry 'O' level, to my dismay) so I'll follow the links dakotajudo has posted and see if I can learn more.
If any chemists can shine any light on this study I would be very interested.

[bokonon]

I'm no chemist, but the study smells suspicious to me. Why is he making (implied) claims about sucrose vs fructose in soda if he's not testing any soda with sucrose in it? What's the deal? Test "11 different carbonated drinks containing HFCS" and then say "reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar" as though you're comparing Apple Snapple with Orange Nehi? There's no water or carbon dioxide or "cola syrup" in table sugar either.

Maybe his study was funded by the sugar growers.

ETA: Waiting for "actually, table sugar is hydrophilic, and the atmosphere between the granules..." from some not-a-dabbler...

ETA2: "Ho's group is also probing the mechanisms by which carbonation increases the amount of reactive carbonyls formed in sodas containing HFCS. They note that non-carbonated fruit juices containing HFCS have one-third the amount of reactive carbonyl species found in carbonated sodas with HFCS,"

So, again, why no test of sugar-based carbonated beverages?

"Funding for this study was provided by the Center for Advanced Food Technology of Rutgers University." Did they provide ALL the funding?

ETA3: The only other study I can see that the CFAFTORU funded was something showing that garlic fights antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Are there others?

[bokonon]

I'm still not a chemist, but I found this:

http://catapultfitness.blogspot.com/2009/02/high-fructose-corn-syrup-controversy.html

though the article states that sucrose does not have reactive carbonyls by virtue of the fact that fructose and glucose are bound together in sucrose, this overlooks the fact that sucrose is in fact hydrolyzed in soft drinks into - you guessed it - fructose and glucose.

For instance, The Soft Drinks Companion: A Technical Handbook for the Beverage Industry, Maurice Shachman, pp. 81 - 82, states:

The sugar inversion process takes place under acidic conditions and speeds up with a decrease in pH. Soft drinks are flavored with acids to achieve the sourness notes essential for their taste profiles. They are therefore acidic drinks, usually in the pH+3 range. This is especially true of the sour fruit flavors, such as lemon and other citrus fruit species. Cola beverages that often use phosphoric acid as the acidulant are at even lower pH values. In carbonated soft drinks, the dissolved carbon dioxide is converted to carbonic acid, which further adds to the acidification of these drinks. Regardless of the exact acid content of such beverages, they can all be considered to a lesser or greater degree, as acidic solutions. As such, some inversion of the sucrose in these beverages will take place.


So, even if the drinks starts with sucrose, much if not most of it will be broken down into unbound fructose and glucse by the acid in the soda. In fact, according to Marov and Dowling (1990)*, at typical storage times and temperatures, more than 90% of the sucrose in soft drinks can by hydrolyzed. Therefore, even if a soft drink is sweetened with sucrose, unbound glucose and fructose will start to appear immediately and be available to participate in carbonyl forming reactions.

My best guess is that, no matter WHO provided the funding, Ho's experiment was deceptive by design.

[Nosi]

Anyhow, I really doubt that banning this, that, or the other is really going to have a huge impact on the problem of obesity in the West. People like their food mountainous, sweet, fat, and "fast" and they're going to shovel it in regardless of the health risk or ingredient bans.

Well, New York's mayor is planning to put a 'sin' tax of $0.12 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256310/The-Coca-Cola-tax-New-York-mayor-proposes-12-cents-levy-sugary-soft-drinks.html) a can of that sweet Coke. He says it's a measure for New Yorker's health, but I suspect it's the health of New York's bottom line rather than New Yorker's bottoms that are on his mind.:sarcasm:

Michael Bloomberg says tax could raise $1billion of much-needed money for schools and health care.

[bokonon]

is it still a science fact that excess glucose, glycogen, and triglycerides are stored as fat?
No, it is NOT a science fact, Heada Dabbler.

Excess glucose may be converted to fat and stored.

Triglycerides are already fat.

Glycogen will be converted to glucose if the body senses that the blood needs more of it. I think the "needs more" part implies that this will not be excess glucose, so it should probably end up being metabolized for energy rather than being stored as fat.

Learn something new every day...

[Nosi]

On a societal level, though, I think calories in the U.S. are too cheap for our own good. If all sweeteners were as expensive as maple syrup, I bet people would eat a lot more fresh fruit.

I've come across a lot of bitter, hard fresh fruit in the grocery store. It does not ripen and become sweet with time. It rots. Something to do with breeds crossbred for travel rather than sweet taste. Like with those sour strawberries that bounce if they're dropped? Yuck! Then those equally sour blackberries that are as big as goldfish and sour as pills.

The delectably sweet fruit DOES NOT travel well. That is a major problem for growers and fruit lovers. The only solution is bottling or canning the stuff in the off-season. That can get very expensive.

[Nosi]

Sounds like we need more subsidies for honey.

Honey is a more difficult food to create dependent on bees (suffering terribly from colony collapse disorder (http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=disappearing-bees-have-devastated-r-09-08-25) throughout the USA and other nations) and sufficient supplies of consistently blooming, pesticide free flowers.

Corn can exist as a mono-crop for extended periods of time with out collapsing with heavy fertilizer input. It's not good for the environment or the long term health perhaps of it's eaters, but for those who profit short term, that may not be of highest priority.

[Roadtoad]

Honey is a more difficult food to create dependent on bees (suffering terribly from colony collapse disorder (http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=disappearing-bees-have-devastated-r-09-08-25) throughout the USA and other nations) and sufficient supplies of consistently blooming, pesticide free flowers...(snip)

And this is where we need Joshua Korosi.

[Prometheus]

I've come across a lot of bitter, hard fresh fruit in the grocery store. It does not ripen and become sweet with time. It rots. Something to do with breeds crossbred for travel rather than sweet taste. Like with those sour strawberries that bounce if they're dropped? Yuck! Then those equally sour blackberries that are as big as goldfish and sour as pills.

The delectably sweet fruit DOES NOT travel well. That is a major problem for growers and fruit lovers. The only solution is bottling or canning the stuff in the off-season. That can get very expensive.

Sure, but if all the cheap, empty calories were more expensive that wouldn't be as strong a disincentive to eat fruit, and there'd be a stronger market for local growers.

Of course there'd be some pretty jarring economic trade offs. As I understand it, the reason we're in the situation we currently find ourselves in in the U.S. is because the Nixon administration deliberately chose to incentivize the production of cheap, empty calories as opposed to expensive whole foods in order to bring the total cost of food down. In hindsight, this was probably not the best idea. It's not like we've got a food shortage here.

[MikeMangum]

There's that. There's also that whole condescending thing: "oh, you're only a level four vegan? I'm a level five! I won't eat anything that casts a shadow. Savage!"

This.

So much of it is about food as morality and using stances on food for self righteousness.

[Roadtoad]

Sure, but if all the cheap, empty calories were more expensive that wouldn't be as strong a disincentive to eat fruit, and there'd be a stronger market for local growers.

Of course there'd be some pretty jarring economic trade offs. As I understand it, the reason we're in the situation we currently find ourselves in in the U.S. is because the Nixon administration deliberately chose to incentivize the production of cheap, empty calories as opposed to expensive whole foods in order to bring the total cost of food down. In hindsight, this was probably not the best idea. It's not like we've got a food shortage here.

Right. When in doubt, blame Tricky Dick Nixon! :D

Actually, if this is the case, I wouldn't at all be surprised. Nixon's abuse of power seemed to know no bounds, and his notion that if the President did it, it was okay seemed to be used to cover a multitude of egregious sins, including the murder of Salvador Allende, which no one seems to think was such a bad thing for some perverse reason. (Which I don't accept, BTW.)

I would love to see the role Federal subsidies play in all of this. At least I can get my head around the economics, even if I'm having trouble getting it around the science.

[Roadtoad]

This.

So much of it is about food as morality and using stances on food for self righteousness.

So, you're obviously aware of the Slow Food Movement.

It was a great idea, and I wanted to get into it. Just couldn't, though, when the hungrier-that-thou crowd seemed to take it over.

[Prometheus]

So, you're obviously aware of the Slow Food Movement.

It was a great idea, and I wanted to get into it. Just couldn't, though, when the hungrier-that-thou crowd seemed to take it over.

They still publish great cookbooks. :)

[CaveDave]

:pedant

doh!!!

D

[23_Tauri]

I'm still not a chemist, but I found this:

http://catapultfitness.blogspot.com/2009/02/high-fructose-corn-syrup-controversy.html

My best guess is that, no matter WHO provided the funding, Ho's experiment was deceptive by design.
Thanks for the link bokonon, I think that lady writes a cogent article. I confesss I do find it slightly suspicious when a food product becomes the latest scapegoat for all our nutritional ills, and then further research finds even more reasons to give the product a lynching.

Whatever the shortcomings of Ho's methodology, and I find that not comparing HFCS fizzy drinks with sucrose fizzy drinks (that's what we call sodas this side of the pond) is an omission. It means we can't have confirmation that the sucrose is broken down to fructose by carbonation, releasing those blasted carbonyls. However, I'm inclined to conclude there's no difference in health effects from sucrose vs HFCS fizzy drinks. Bottom line is they all rot your teeth, stress your pancreas and make you fat. Whatever happened to good old fashioned water? Or tea?

[steenkh]

I just found this thread. My wife suffers from fructose malabsorption, which means that she gets terrible bellyaches when she eats anything with a higher content of fructose than glucose. The growing use of HFC is a big problem, because it means she cannot eat more and more foods, and it is especially troublesome that HFC is supplanting normal sugar in products that we used to buy, without making it immediately clear on the package, so she has to find out the hard way, through pain!

We would support a ban, if that will ever be realistic :)

[Safe-Keeper]

Who knows? But ask yourself this: Isn't it the responsibility of the consumers to read the damned labels themselves and ask if they want that crap in their bodies? If you don't have the brains to read a label and make such a decision, isn't this nothing more than a form of evolution in action? The dmub get deleted.

I always wonder this when someone complains that "more research is required" because a product or phenomenon can "hurt you over time". What if they do? Lots of things in the world can make us sick over time. Tanning yourself on the beach has been proven (ancient knowledge:p) to expose you to quantities of ultraviolet radiation of sufficient strength to cause burns or even skin cancer, and participants in this activity are recommended to apply a special lotion to their skin to shield themselves from the deadly rays. Coca-Cola is known to cause all sorts of ailments.

Where are the lobbies that seek to ban tanning and the drinking of Coca-Cola? Oh, and with all their raving about "consumer freedom"... don't we have as much of a right to consume genetically modified foods, aspartame and other victims of fear-mongering as they do to avoid them? Or does "consumer choice" only apply when we choice what they want us to choose?

ETA:
I just found this thread. My wife suffers from fructose malabsorption, which means that she gets terrible bellyaches when she eats anything with a higher content of fructose than glucose. The growing use of HFC is a big problem, because it means she cannot eat more and more foods, and it is especially troublesome that HFC is supplanting normal sugar in products that we used to buy, without making it immediately clear on the package, so she has to find out the hard way, through pain!

We would support a ban, if that will ever be realistic :)
How many people suffer from this, though? Products containing nuts, or traces thereof, have warnings on their packaging because a significant number of people suffer from nut allergy. Is the number of people with "HFCS allergy" high enough to warrant warning stickers?

[Roadtoad]

How many people suffer from this, though? Products containing nuts, or traces thereof, have warnings on their packaging because a significant number of people suffer from nut allergy. Is the number of people with "HFCS allergy" high enough to warrant warning stickers?

You missed what Steenkh said at the end: "...If that will ever be realistic." It's not, and I would suspect that he and his wife spend a great deal of time reading labels.

I have to read labels as well, watching for sodium and sugar content. I wind up eating a lot of raw greens and the like simply because processed foods have so much extra crap in them. I'd appreciate it if we could have just basic foods, but that doesn't seem to be in the works for right now. So, you do what you can, and take responsibility for your own health.

You're making a valid point, it's just this one corner of it that needs to be considered.

[dakotajudo]

Oh, the shame. Just out of curiosity, what does the phrase "You do realize that few people who do science use the phrase 'science facts'? It marks you as a dabbler" mark you as?
It simply marks me as someone who got impatient with ignorance. Sorry if that touched a nerve. If you have any meaningful education or experience, I'll retract that statement.


I stand corrected. I don't remember the last time I exported lactateYou have. If you exercise, you do it regularly. But more on that later.


Fat does still make you feel fuller -- damn, more dabbler babble -- Fat does still induce a stronger sensation of satiety than an equivalent number of calories of ingested fructose, does it not?
Doesn't seem to, no.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/62/5/1086S
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117979065/abstract

Since fat is highly dense calories, it may actually lead to overconsumption of calories - satiety is related to food volume; people tend to eat a constant weight of food:
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/130/2/268S

[dakotajudo]

This is why I found this study curious, because it suggests fructose is chemically different to sucrose by way of these reactive carbonyls,

Fructose is different from sucrose with regard to reactive carbonyls.

I'll explain it, but first I want you to consider this - the link you find curious is not the published study, but press release from the American Chemical Society about an upcoming presentation.

Most any large research society, such as the ACS, will have on staff a number of journalists whose jobs are to talk to researchers and attempt to communicate their research to the public. Sometimes there is miscommunication between the researcher and the journalist; perhaps the journalist simply doesn't understand the science.

So, as I attempt to explain reactive carbonyls, please put yourself in the position of a reporter trying to follow the chemistry for a story.

Here goes.

From any past chemistry or biology courses, does then name Benedict's reagent ring a bell?

Benedict's reagent is used to test for the presence of what are called reducing sugars. All monosaccharides (glucose or fructose) are reducing sugars; some disaccharides, like table sugar, are not. Complex carbohydrates like starch are also non-reducing.

We used Benedict's reagent to test, in physiology labs, for the presence of reducing sugars (i.e. glucose) in urine, and to test for the breakdown of starch into monosaccharides. It's a nice test for an undergraduate lab, because Benedict's reagent starts a light blue and changes from green to yellow to red - it's a colorful assay.

How does this work? Benedict's reagent contains a blue copper salt. When that copper salt is reduced (by the reducing sugar), it forms a reddish precipitate; more sugar means more precipitate and more color.

It is a double-bonded oxygen (aldehyde or ketone) group on the sugars - a reactive carbonyl group - that reduces copper. Sucrose is non-reducing because the "fructose and glucose components are 'bound' " through the reactive carbonyl. (It's more complicated than that - sugars are in equilibrium between open and closed forms and the unbonded carbonyl can still be reactive, but let's stick with simple here).

If we were to add an anti-oxidant, such as green tea, to a solution containing reducing sugars, we might reduce the effects of the reactive carbonyls. And that, ultimately, is the purpose of this study:
Ho and his associates also found that adding tea components to drinks containing HFCS may help lower the levels of reactive carbonyls. The scientists found that adding epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a compound in tea, significantly reduced the levels of reactive carbonyl species in a dose-dependent manner when added to the carbonated soft drinks studied. In some cases, the levels of reactive carbonyls were reduced by half, the researchers say.

That study tells you that given a choice between bottled tea or bottled soda, go with the tea. Better better yet make your own tea fresh with table sugar (no carbonation or time for hydrolysis).

It's a study about tea.

Now, do you think you could, by yourself with just notes from a conversation, summarize my point correctly? I wouldn't expect you to, you're not a chemist. This simply emphasizes the difficulty in communicating science to non-scientists. But consider that when reading press releases.

[dakotajudo]

No, it is NOT a science fact, Heada Dabbler.

Excess glucose may be converted to fat and stored.

Triglycerides are already fat.

Glycogen will be converted to glucose if the body senses that the blood needs more of it. I think the "needs more" part implies that this will not be excess glucose, so it should probably end up being metabolized for energy rather than being stored as fat.


Close, but not quite.

Glycogen is not "converted" to glucose in the same sense that glucose is converted to fat. Glycogen is a polymer of glucose; glucose is simply added or removed as needed.

Blood does not particularly need glucose, however, other organs in the body do need, so levels of glucose in the blood are tightly regulated, mainly because the brain does not metabolize fats well. However, there is more research suggesting that lactate (lactic acid, more commonly) is also an important energy source for the brain.

Glycogen is typically hydrolyzed under two conditions - fasting and exercise. During fasting - that is, the period after eating when absorption of carbohydrates has stopped - glycogen is released from the liver to maintain blood glucose levels. Glucose levels can also be raised by the process of gluconeogenesis, where fats are oxidized to sugars. This is a much more complex and time consuming process than hydrolysis of glycogen.

Glycogen is also released during exercise, and that's where things get interesting. Normally, at low to moderate levels of activity, muscle cells tend to oxidize fats. At higher demands, especially when oxygen is not available, glycolysis of glucose to lactate is the only way to meet the energy demands of muscle.

But, as I stated, muscles tend to prefer fats as an energy source. This leads us to an important that should be raised in the HFCS debate.

It seems that an of excess of sugar calories, HFCS or not, contributes to diabetes. It also seems that obesity, via insulin insensitivity, contributes to diabetes. We might simply surmise, then, that the excess of sugar calories leads to obesity thus to diabetes.

But we need to remember this - muscles prefer fat, and this fat can be used directly for energy; it's not simply storage. The contribution of obesity to diabetes can be modified, then, through physical activity (I'm leaving out some details about fats cells as endocrine glands here).

The direct contribution of sugars to diabetes (through insulin secretion) can also be modified through physical activity - muscles have insulin-independent glucose transporters that reduced blood sugar during activity.

I could go on a bit more, but it's time for practice - let me simply state that from the previous points, it should be obvious that the world would be a better place if we simply got off our collective fat asses and grew our own food.

[casebro]

Fructose is different from sucrose with regard to reactive carbonyls.

<snip>

Here goes.

<snip>

From any past chemistry or biology courses, does then name Benedict's reagent ring a bell?

<snip>

How does this work? Benedict's reagent contains a blue copper salt. When that copper salt is reduced (by the reducing sugar), it forms a reddish precipitate; more sugar means more precipitate and more color.

It is a double-bonded oxygen (aldehyde or ketone) group on the sugars - a reactive carbonyl group - that reduces copper. Sucrose is non-reducing because the "fructose and glucose components are 'bound' " through the reactive carbonyl. (It's more complicated than that - sugars are in equilibrium between open and closed forms and the unbonded carbonyl can still be reactive, but let's stick with simple here).


<snip>

So according to dakotajudo, then, sucrose has just as many reactive carboxyls as HFCS, right? Once the the polysaccharide bonds are broken, maybe in the can, then the carboxyls are allover anyhow. Correct?

[StanBearclaw]

Handy table for carbonyl comparisons:

http://i43.tinypic.com/2euiykp.jpg

(source (http://www.nutrociencia.com.br/upload_files/artigos_download/Frutose%20e%20Obesidade%20(JNutr%202009).pdf))

Looks like we better ban coffee and cheese while we're at it.

[StanBearclaw]

So according to dakotajudo, then, sucrose has just as many reactive carboxyls as HFCS, right? Once the the polysaccharide bonds are broken, maybe in the can, then the carboxyls are allover anyhow. Correct?

Here's another table showing how much soda you'd need to drink (over 70 gallons) in order to match the level of methylglyoxal your body produces on its own every day:

http://i42.tinypic.com/2u8j50j.jpg
(source) (http://www.nutrociencia.com.br/upload_files/artigos_download/Frutose%20e%20Obesidade%20(JNutr%202009).pdf)

[Andrew Wiggin]

Right. When in doubt, blame Tricky Dick Nixon! :D


Nixon eats grapes!

A

[Marcus]

Close, but not quite.

Glycogen is not "converted" to glucose in the same sense that glucose is converted to fat. Glycogen is a polymer of glucose; glucose is simply added or removed as needed.

Blood does not particularly need glucose, however, other organs in the body do need, so levels of glucose in the blood are tightly regulated, mainly because the brain does not metabolize fats well. However, there is more research suggesting that lactate (lactic acid, more commonly) is also an important energy source for the brain.

Glycogen is typically hydrolyzed under two conditions - fasting and exercise. During fasting - that is, the period after eating when absorption of carbohydrates has stopped - glycogen is released from the liver to maintain blood glucose levels. Glucose levels can also be raised by the process of gluconeogenesis, where fats are oxidized to sugars. This is a much more complex and time consuming process than hydrolysis of glycogen.

Glycogen is also released during exercise, and that's where things get interesting. Normally, at low to moderate levels of activity, muscle cells tend to oxidize fats. At higher demands, especially when oxygen is not available, glycolysis of glucose to lactate is the only way to meet the energy demands of muscle.

But, as I stated, muscles tend to prefer fats as an energy source. This leads us to an important that should be raised in the HFCS debate.

It seems that an of excess of sugar calories, HFCS or not, contributes to diabetes. It also seems that obesity, via insulin insensitivity, contributes to diabetes. We might simply surmise, then, that the excess of sugar calories leads to obesity thus to diabetes.

But we need to remember this - muscles prefer fat, and this fat can be used directly for energy; it's not simply storage. The contribution of obesity to diabetes can be modified, then, through physical activity (I'm leaving out some details about fats cells as endocrine glands here).

The direct contribution of sugars to diabetes (through insulin secretion) can also be modified through physical activity - muscles have insulin-independent glucose transporters that reduced blood sugar during activity.

I could go on a bit more, but it's time for practice - let me simply state that from the previous points, it should be obvious that the world would be a better place if we simply got off our collective fat asses and grew our own food.
Very informative posts, thanks.

There is one thing I'm not clear on. My impression has always been that muscles will always use glucose first, glycogen second, and only resort to fat if these resources are exhausted. Why would say that muscles prefer fat? As you say, fats metabolize slower, you will "hit the wall" if you run out of glycogen, whether or not you have been crossing the anaerobic threshold.

[casebro]

Looks like stanbearclaw put the kibosh on the whole debate. Not only is honey worse than HFCS, you own body is KILLING YOU WITH CARBOXYLS!!!

[bokonon]

Glycogen will be converted to glucose if the body senses that the blood needs more of it.

Close, but not quite.

Glycogen is not "converted" to glucose in the same sense that glucose is converted to fat. Glycogen is a polymer of glucose; glucose is simply added or removed as needed.

Close, but not quite.

Glycogen includes polymers of glucose, but it also includes the 37-kD protein glycogenin. The protein can be thought of as the "trunk" upon which the "branches" of glucose polymers are stored. Glycogen breakdown (glycogenolysis) requires three enzymes in a 3-phase process:

1. Glycogen phosphorylase catalyzes glycogen phosphorolysis to yield glucose-1-phosphate
2. Glycogen debranching enzyme prunes glycogen's branches, making more glucose residues available to glycogen phosphorylase
3. Phosphoglucomutase converts glucose-1-phosphate to glucose-6-phosphate

Glucose-6-phosphate may then be converted (using glucose-6-phosphotase) to free glucose for export through the bloodstream, but other metabolic pathways are also possible.

While I suppose it could be argued that glycogen is not converted to glucose in "the same sense" (depending on what you meant by that) that glucose is converted to fat, I believe the only person who used that phrase is you.

A useful way to visualize it might be that glucogen is converted to glucose the same way a tree's dry branches are converted to a pile of kindling for fuel. Of course, it's not quite as simple, as the steps of glycogenolysis just listed make clear, but for purposes of this discussion insistence on such a detailed description might mark one as a "quibbler".

Blood does not particularly need glucose, however, other organs in the body do need, so levels of glucose in the blood are tightly regulated, mainly because the brain does not metabolize fats well.
You've made a couple of errors here, but I think the first one is my fault. When I said "the blood needs more of it," the meaning I intended to convey was that levels of glucose in the bloodstream were low. I can see that my words were ambiguous, causing you to counter a point which I hadn't intended to argue.

That said, your statement that "blood does not particularly need glucose," is incorrect. You correctly observe that the brain does not metabolize fats well. Neither do red blood cells -- virtually all the energy used by erythrocytes must be supplied by environmental glucose.

muscles tend to prefer fats as an energy source.

My impression has always been that muscles will always use glucose first, glycogen second, and only resort to fat if these resources are exhausted. Why would say that muscles prefer fat? As you say, fats metabolize slower, you will "hit the wall" if you run out of glycogen, whether or not you have been crossing the anaerobic threshold.

You're both right. Stored fat, in the form of fatty acids, provides 50-70% of the energy the body uses.

That said, if glucose is available (which will usually be true after a meal, if carbohydrates were consumed), the cells will preferentially use that. Normally, when blood glucose or insulin levels are high, the level of fatty acids in the blood will drop. Fatty acids and triglycerides will flow into adipose tissue, where they will be stored as triglycerides.

Glucose will also be converted to triglycerides and stored, as well as being used by muscle (and other) cells for energy. As this happens, of course, the level of glucose in the blood will fall.

As the level of blood glucose drops, the levels of triglycerides and free fatty acids in the bloodstream will steadily rise. These provide the muscles' main source of energy between meals.

[novaphile]

...I won't eat anything that casts a shadow.

I'm intrigued, is there any food that won't cast a shadow?

Jellyfish perhaps?

[novaphile]

If they mean food that grows underground, does that mean that there's a kind of vegetarian that subsists on crickets, worms, moles and naked mole rats?

[novaphile]

And cows on cloudy days?

[bokonon]

A useful way to visualize it might be that glucogen is converted to glucose the same way a tree's dry branches are converted to a pile of kindling for fuel.
Oops, sorry for the typo. This should, of course, read "glycogen is converted."

Also, for any sticklers out there, the analogy should probably read "the same way a tree is converted," with the understanding that the trunk of the tree is not itself converted. And the tree itself is more spherical than phallic. And you can stick branches back on and they can grow. And there's no roots, like, it's just a little stumpy "trunk" and lots of hairy branching branches.

Wouldn't want to push anyone's "impatience" button...

[Marcus]

As the level of blood glucose drops, the levels of triglycerides and free fatty acids in the bloodstream will steadily rise. These provide the muscles' main source of energy between meals.
How do you see glycogenolysis fitting in here? Would you say that this pathway is shorter than the one for extracting energy from fatty acids, and would be used preferentially during periods of heavy demand (exercise)?

[bokonon]

How do you see glycogenolysis fitting in here? Would you say that this pathway is shorter than the one for extracting energy from fatty acids, and would be used preferentially during periods of heavy demand (exercise)?
I wouldn't speculate on whether "pathway length" is an important reason, but glycogen is stored by the muscles as well as the liver, and it is definitely used when muscle energy requirements rise during exercise. The little I've read on the subject suggests that the glycogenolysis is stimulated by the muscle contractions themselves, but that's probably just shorthand for some metabolic cascade that's either poorly understood or more complicated than the researchers in question cared to describe.

[casebro]

My understanding of muscles is that we have a mix of fiber types. Fibers susceptible to a red dye (red oil 'o') are called 'red fibers', and are fat burning. Un-stainable 'white fibers' burn glucose. The white fibers are anaerobic, and run out of energy as they run out of stored oxygen. The red fibers are aerobic, and can continue to work by using fresh oxygen brought in with fresh fats from the blood stream. I suspect that the liver has an easier time converting stored fats in muscle fuel than converting stored fats into glucose. So, aerobic exercise 'burns fat'.

The liver stores some glycogen, for quick use as glucose. About ten minutes worth. But the body typically stores 100,000 calories of fat. About a month's worth.

Fiber ratio can be from 70/30 to 30/70. Muscle biopsy shows my own legs are about 70% white fibers. So I ought to be a sprinter (Ha ha) or a shot putter.

Body builders who typically do sets of max weight for low reps are building white fiber mass.

Anyway, since only a small amount of carbs are stored, the rest turned into fats, there is no point to 'carb loading'. Low carb diets ought to be easier on the liver, since there is no conversion of carbs to fats necessary- ingested fats are stored as fats.

An aside: Hmm, I don't think we evolved this whole system as vegetarians, would we? Man and dogs out pace any animal on the planet so far as all-day endurance goes. We are built to run down fat sources.)

[krazyKemist]

How do you see glycogenolysis fitting in here? Would you say that this pathway is shorter than the one for extracting energy from fatty acids, and would be used preferentially during periods of heavy demand (exercise)?

Glycogenolysis is used for more intense effort, when oxygen is in short supply.

In intense (anaerobic) effort :

First 2-3 seconds : ATP

ATP from phosphocreatine : 2 to 5 sec.

up to 20 sec. : glycogenolysis + glycolysis (limited by lactate production)

Glycogen reserves will last for about 3 days if fasting. After that time it will become difficult to do intense exercise.

Glycogen reserves are normally kept for use in intense effort, and lipids will be prefered if there is sufficient oxygen during exercise.

[23_Tauri]

Fructose is different from sucrose with regard to reactive carbonyls.
...snip....
Now, do you think you could, by yourself with just notes from a conversation, summarize my point correctly? I wouldn't expect you to, you're not a chemist. This simply emphasizes the difficulty in communicating science to non-scientists. But consider that when reading press releases.
Hello dakatojudo and thank you for your post. Sorry for my delay in replying but I’ve been a bit unwell these past few days. I follow your point as I can see how even a simplified (in chemist-speak) version of this test for reactive carbonyls could be misinterpreted once it has passed through the filters of several journalists with a brief to provide a synopsis of the study.

The problems of communicating science to the non-scientists reminds me of the issues surrounding the current debate over climate change in the media. As your post highlights, this plagues all scientific fields.

[dakotajudo]

So you've found glycogenolysis. But you skimmed over glycogen synthesis, didn't you?


Glycogen includes polymers of glucose, but it also includes the 37-kD protein glycogenin. The protein can be thought of as the "trunk" upon which the "branches" of glucose polymers are stored.
Glycogen synthase can only extend an existing alpha-1-4 glycosidal chain, it cannot initiate the synthesis of such a chain. That reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme glycogenin; the reaction is started when glycogenin attaches a glucose polymer to itself. Two glycogenin typically form a dimer at the center of a large complex of on the order of 10,000 glucose residues. Not particularly important in the context of understanding sugar metabolism and the issues of HFCS; simpler just to call glycogen a glucose polymer.

The tree trunk analogy is misleading when applied to glycogenin; it's a dimer.

Instead, we need to remember that glycogen is composed primarily of glucose residues linked by alpha 1-4 bonds (that is the number 1 and number 4 carbons in the 6 carbon ring are involved). However, side branches from this main chain are added via alpha 1-6 bonds. The trunk of your tree is the single alpha 1-4 chain attached to glycogenin.

If we consider two main components of starch, amylose and amylopectin, the former is predominantly alpha 1-4 bonds while the latter has some alpha 1-6 branches, though not as many as glycogen.

Which begs the question - starch is biochemically very similar to glycogen, so why should the use of sugars derived from starch be an issue? More importantly, where does the fructose in HFCS come from? The primary hydrolysis product of starch is glucose. Is the isomerization of glucose to fructose, in the final step of HFCS production, necessary?


1. Glycogen phosphorylase catalyzes glycogen phosphorolysis to yield glucose-1-phosphate
2. Glycogen debranching enzyme prunes glycogen's branches, making more glucose residues available to glycogen phosphorylase

Hm. Glycogen phosphorylase catalyzes the hydrolysis of alpha 1-4 bonds; it does not hydrolyze alpha 1-6 bonds. Nor does glycogen phosphorylase act on glucose chains of shorter than 4 residues. Debranching enzyme doesn't so much "prune" as transfer short glucose chains to longer chains, making these short chains available to glycogen phosphorylase. The hydrolysis of the alpha 1-6 bond doesn't happen until after the other residues have been transferred.

What happens next is an important point in metabolism:

3. Phosphoglucomutase converts glucose-1-phosphate to glucose-6-phosphate


It can. Glucose-1-P can also be attached to UTP and be stuck right back on to glycogen.

We don't want to get caught in thinking that our storage molecules are necessary static structures; they're always in a state of flux. With regards to glycogen, we need to consider that there is a pool of glucose-1-P, being attached and removed from glycogen as metabolic demands warrant; that is, there is net synthesis of glycogen under conditions where the downstream metabolites accumulate, causing a buildup of glucose-1-P (for example, when cells are relatively inactive and the products glycolysis are not processed further).

Glycogen synthase (indirectly, of course) simply pulls from the available glucose-1-P pool, whether that glucose-1-P was recently from a recently digested meal or had been stored in glycogen since the beginning of glycogen.

The activity of the various enzymes (glycogen synthase or glycogen phosphorylase) are regulated not only by the availability of substrate, or the accumulation of product, but by chemical regulation of the enzymes themselves. Many enzymes are made more or less active by phosphorylation (activated/deactivated, or conversion, if that's your thing) and the degree to which these enzymes are phosphorylated are frequently regulated hormonally. This is one point where hormones such as insulin and glucagon regulate blood sugar and, to some extant, body composition.

Which leads to why two calorically identical sugars, fructose and glucose, can have different effects on metabolism:

Glucose-6-phosphate may then be converted (using glucose-6-phosphotase) to free glucose for export through the bloodstream, but other metabolic pathways are also possible.

Oh, I'm so disappointed! You've come so close to the heart of the HFCS issue, yet you didn't bring us close enough.

Glucose-6-P is isomerized (note that I don't use converted here) to fructose-6-P, then to fructose-1,6-P. Only after these steps can 6-carbon chain originally structured as glucose be cleaved to form two 3-carbon (triose) sugars; that's glycolysis in a nutshell.

Fructose is a necessary intermediate in glycolysis. Why, oh why, is fructose considered so evil! (Eh, I ran my first 5K of the season this morning, I'm a little giddy).

Because fructose is phosphorylated to fructose-1-P and split directly into triose-P sugars, bypassing fructose-1,6-P (and nowhere near glucose-6-P).

Both glucose-6-P and fructose-1,6-P are key in regulating the balance between glucose stored as glycogen and glucose converted to fat, and to controlling glycolysis.

While glucose-6-P can be readily diverted either way (via some kinetically simple phosphorylations), and fructose-1,6-P less readily with a loss of phosphate energy, it's even less simple to reassemble the two 3-C units to form a single 6-C sugar.

Instead, it's more likely that the triose sugars are decarboxylated (that's an irreversible step) to acetyl-CoA and from that metabolic pool to either TCA or lipid synthesis.

Of course, triose-P can be converted back to glucose via gluconeogenesis, but there's an energy cost; it requires a couple phosphates (more than liberated by glycolysis) to reassemble glucose from triose-P. It's more metabolically efficient to continue to either TCA or lipid synthesis. (This in part explains why lipid metabolism is preferred in muscle cells; during the fasting state, raising blood sugar via gluconeogenesis is wasteful).

Simply, then, energy found in fructose is more easily stored in fat than in glycogen.


While I suppose it could be argued that glycogen is not converted to glucose in "the same sense" (depending on what you meant by that) that glucose is converted to fat, I believe the only person who used that phrase is you.
This is because you've only completed part your study. I've described in part how glucose is converted to triose-P, but you need to continue to from triose-P through pyruvate and to acetyl-CoA. Follow acetyl-CoA and consider its role in beta-oxidation. Then ponder how acetyl-CoA can be regenerated to triose-P.

But to simplify.

Glycogen consists of glucose subunits; these subunits are still recognizably glucose. Fatty acids are hydrocarbon chains that bear little resemblance to glucose (hint - hydrocarbon chains are repeating units of H-C-H, carbohydrates are H-C-O-H).


You've made a couple of errors here, but I think the first one is my fault. When I said "the blood needs more of it," the meaning I intended to convey was that levels of glucose in the bloodstream were low. I can see that my words were ambiguous, causing you to counter a point which I hadn't intended to argue.

That said, your statement that "blood does not particularly need glucose," is incorrect. You correctly observe that the brain does not metabolize fats well. Neither do red blood cells -- virtually all the energy used by erythrocytes must be supplied by environmental glucose.
I made no error here; the metabolic demands of blood cells - erythrocytes or leukocytes - are simply trivial in the context of a debate about HFCS. That's why I used the qualifier "particularly".

What I intended to further clarify your ambiguous statement about blood glucose. When we try to understand the correlation between HFCS (and sugars, in general) we need to remember that not only have we, as a population, increased our sugar content, we have decreased our physical activity.

And physical activity (via insulin-independent glucose transporters and other hormonal mechanisms) alters carbohydrate metabolism beyond simply burning calories; in a way that's tied to the regulation of blood sugar concentrations.



That said, if glucose is available (which will usually be true after a meal, if carbohydrates were consumed), the cells will preferentially use that. Normally, when blood glucose or insulin levels are high, the level of fatty acids in the blood will drop. Fatty acids and triglycerides will flow into adipose tissue, where they will be stored as triglycerides.

Glucose will also be converted to triglycerides and stored, as well as being used by muscle (and other) cells for energy. As this happens, of course, the level of glucose in the blood will fall.

As the level of blood glucose drops, the levels of triglycerides and free fatty acids in the bloodstream will steadily rise. These provide the muscles' main source of energy between meals.

High blood sugar levels trigger the release of insulin; when insulin levels are high, blood sugar levels decrease. As blood sugar levels decrease, glucagon is released; this leads to a rise in blood sugar. This, of course, triggers insulin, and homeostasis is maintained.

Insulin affects blood sugar, in various target cells, by, among other metabolic processes: increased glucose uptake into cells, increased glycogen synthesis and decreased gluconeogenesis. Glucagon has opposing effects.

Similarly, glucagon promotes, and insulin tends to inhibit, lipolysis - leading to an increase the amount of fatty acids in the blood. But you seem to be conflating the general regulation of blood sugar and lipids, with the specific demands of muscle cell metabolism.

It's important to understand the hormonal regulation of both blood composition and cellular metabolism, independently, because:
The little I've read on the subject suggests that the glycogenolysis is stimulated by the muscle contractions themselves, but that's probably just shorthand for some metabolic cascade that's either poorly understood or more complicated than the researchers in question cared to describe.
It's actually quite straight-forward.

The primary hormone associated with exercise - epinephrine - is an anti-insulin in it's effects on blood composition (and thus complements glucagon). When epinephrine levels rise during exercise, both blood sugar and blood lipids increase.

That, of course, only takes care of glycogenolysis in the liver. In the muscles themselves, why, epinephrine simply inhibits glycogen synthesis (and see my point about the glucose-1-P pool above).

Epinephrine itself, of course, is released during increased muscle activity.

Glycogenolysis may also be directly up-regulated, via glycogen phosphorylase. Glycogen phosphorylase can be activated by an unusual bioproduct of muscle contraction - AMP. Typically, ADP is regenerated via the usual mechanisms (as krazyKemist listed), but some ATP can be generated in the short term from two ADP; that is, ADP + ADP -> ATP + AMP. Your reference on glycogenolysis should have included this.

[QUOTE=bokonon;5715178]I wouldn't speculate on whether "pathway length" is an important reason, but glycogen is stored by the muscles as well as the liver, and it is definitely used when muscle energy requirements rise during exercise.[QUOTE=bokonon;5715178]

Pathway length is of course an important reason. Glycolysis occurs in the cytoplasm and has relatively few intermediates or cofactors. TCA (and therefore lipid oxidation) occurs in mitochondria (double membrane separating the site of TCA from the site of glycolysis, the the site of ATP utilization); many more intermediates and, as you might remember, does not result, directly, in but one ATP. The major final product is effectively electrons, which must be transported through a membrane (via several protein complexes and a lipid-diffusing carrier) to create a proton gradient; the protons moving back drive the machinery of ATP synthesis.

More energy, but slow, very slow, compared to glycolysis. And, again as you probably remember, the electrons? They mostly end up on oxygen. No oxygen, TCA slows down. During highly intense exercise, what we call anaerobic, the demand for ATP is greater than the ability to deliver oxygen.


On an evolutionary note - I find the partitioning between glycolysis and TCA to be of particular interest. The convoluted series of steps between the two highlight the diverse metabolic history of our archaic (as in archaebacteria) ancestor and its mitochondrial symbiote. We see similar metabolic "hoops" in the interaction between the cytoplasm and plastids.


Marcus, I'll leave you with a link to the classic reference for the "cross-over effect" - the point at which muscle cells prefer carbohydrate over lipid. To be honest, this is getting harder to keep on topic (with regard to HFCS, anyway), so I'll probably not go more into that. When I took a graduate course in exercise physiology, the section on just muscle bioenergetics took a third of a semester - Brooks was one of the co-authors of the textbook used in that course. Myself, I'd had multiple courses in biochemistry and still found it surprising; muscle cell metabolism is quite different than, say, E. coli.

See http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/76/6/2253

[Marcus]

Marcus, I'll leave you with a link to the classic reference for the "cross-over effect" - the point at which muscle cells prefer carbohydrate over lipid. To be honest, this is getting harder to keep on topic (with regard to HFCS, anyway), so I'll probably not go more into that. When I took a graduate course in exercise physiology, the section on just muscle bioenergetics took a third of a semester - Brooks was one of the co-authors of the textbook used in that course. Myself, I'd had multiple courses in biochemistry and still found it surprising; muscle cell metabolism is quite different than, say, E. coli.

See http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/76/6/2253
I have derailed this thread a bit, but thanks to everyone, especially dakotajudo in this very detailed post, for correcting my understanding of exercise physiology.

[shawmutt]

So, you're obviously aware of the Slow Food Movement...


Is that, like, eating turtles and escargo?

Here's a recent study on the effects of HFCS vs. sucrose on rats. I don't have access to the article: sciencedirect.com (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0N-4YGHGM1-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F26%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8aaf4b3489ff395ee128700d9fd4710c)

Abstract
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) accounts for as much as 40% of caloric sweeteners used in the United States. Some studies have shown that short-term access to HFCS can cause increased body weight, but the findings are mixed. The current study examined both short- and long-term effects of HFCS on body weight, body fat, and circulating triglycerides. In Experiment 1, male Sprague–Dawley rats were maintained for short term (8 weeks) on (1) 12 h/day of 8% HFCS, (2) 12 h/day 10% sucrose, (3) 24 h/day HFCS, all with ad libitum rodent chow, or (4) ad libitum chow alone. Rats with 12-h access to HFCS gained significantly more body weight than animals given equal access to 10% sucrose, even though they consumed the same number of total calories, but fewer calories from HFCS than sucrose. In Experiment 2, the long-term effects of HFCS on body weight and obesogenic parameters, as well as gender differences, were explored. Over the course of 6 or 7 months, both male and female rats with access to HFCS gained significantly more body weight than control groups. This increase in body weight with HFCS was accompanied by an increase in adipose fat, notably in the abdominal region, and elevated circulating triglyceride levels. Translated to humans, these results suggest that excessive consumption of HFCS may contribute to the incidence of obesity.

[Roadtoad]

Is that, like, eating turtles and escargot?

Boooooooooooooo!!!!!!!! :p

[krazyKemist]

Is that, like, eating turtles and escargo?

Here's a recent study on the effects of HFCS vs. sucrose on rats. I don't have access to the article: sciencedirect.com (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0N-4YGHGM1-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F26%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8aaf4b3489ff395ee128700d9fd4710c)

I have access to it via my university.

Here is the summary of results:

Experiment Diet End point body weight (g)
Experiment 1
Males: 8 weeks 1. 24-h HFCS + ad libitum chow 470 ± 7
2. 12-h HFCS + ad libitum chow 502 ± 11
3. 12-h sucrose + ad libitum chow 477 ± 9
4. Ad libitum chow 462 ± 12
Experiment 2
Males: 6 months 1. 24-h HFCS + ad libitum chow 767 ± 24
2. 12-h HFCS + ad libitum chow 718 ± 28
3. Ad libitum chow 616 ± 36
Experiment 2
Females: 7 months 1. 24-h HFCS + ad libitum chow 355 ± 12
2. 12-h HFCS + 12-h chow 323 ± 9
3. 12-h sucrose + 12-h chow 333 ± 10
4. Ad libitum chow 328 ± 10


What I find suspicious about these results is that they did not include a sucrose group in their long-term experiment on males (they say that's because they did not see any weight gain in the short experiment). I could not find any mention of the number of animals per group in the paper. The only significant results to me are those in the short term experiment on males, where there is a difference between 12 hrs HFSC and 12 hrs sucrose; in the long term on males, there is no data on succrose, and in the long term on females, the difference between a 24hrs access vs a 12-hrs access is frankly unsurprising.

My final verdict : unconvincing. Some key groups are missing to draw a useful conclusion. However the short term results on males are intriguing.