In September, The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) filed a petition to the Food and Drug Administration that would give various food manufacturers the option to replace the name of high fructose corn syrup with “corn sugar” on the ingredients label of their products. High fructose corn syrup, a sweetener derived from corn, is a major ingredient in many foods and beverages.

Tyre C. Lanier, professor of food, bioprocessing & nutrition sciences, said the CRA is pushing for a name alteration because consumers have casted a negative light on high fructose corn syrup, suspecting the sweetener to contain greater amounts of fructose than other types of sugar.

According to Lanier, the name for high-fructose corn syrup came from its biochemical formation, not its health benefits.  

“[The CRA] thinks high-fructose corn syrup is being demonized because labels say ‘high fructose’ and in fact it’s no higher fructose than sucrose [table sugar] is,” Lanier said.  “It’s only called high fructose corn syrup because for the first time, they were able to take starch and convert it to sugar and the sugar was not glucose—they figured out a way to turn it into fructose.”

CRA president Audrae Erickson said the CRA is pushing for a name change because consumers deserve a better understanding of what they are eating or drinking.

“Consumers want to know what is in their foods and to have ingredient names that are clearly understood,” Erickson said. “‘Corn sugar’ accomplishes these objectives succinctly and simply. Most importantly, the term ‘corn sugar’ enables consumers to readily identify added sugars in the diet.”

According to Sarah Ash, professor of nutrition science, high fructose corn syrup is made to be chemically identical to table sugar.

“Corn syrup is naturally 100% glucose, but scientists convert some of those molecules to fructose molecules because fructose is sweeter than glucose,” Ash said. “Table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose, and corn sugar is made to be at most 55% fructose.”

Ash said the idea that high fructose corn syrup is worse for you than table sugar is an urban myth.

“It started when researchers began looking at fructose by itself and saw that it does produce metabolic changes, and people took that information and applied it to high fructose corn syrup as it if was pure fructose,” Ash said. “There haven’t been many reliable studies that seriously compare high fructose corn syrup to sugar.”

Another factor that led to high fructose corn syrup getting a bad reputation was that its use increased dramatically at the same time Americans started getting more obese in the second half of the twentieth century.

“It honestly became a scapegoat because Americans didn’t want to admit that they were eating and drinking more,” Ash said. “I’ve been in the industry long enough to see trends come and go. People always pick out food enemies.”

In an online Youtube lecture entitled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” University of California, San Francisco professor Robert H. Lustig, M.D., said high fructose corn syrup and table sugar are identical, but he is more concerned with the effects sugar can have on the human body after certain periods of time.

“There is absolutely no difference between high fructose corn syrup and sucrose,” Lustig said. “They’re both equally bad. They’re both dangerous. They’re both poison.”    

Lustig asserted that obesity problems are largely due to diets unknowingly high in sugar.  Habits as simple as drinking a soft drink every evening at dinnertime or lowering fat intake when on a diet rather than sugar intake are causes of weight gain and other problems, Lustig said.

According to Lustig, a hormone called leptin, produced from fat cells, communicates to the human brain that the stomach is full. He said too much sugar consumption in meals blocks leptin from getting to the brain, which is a major cause of overeating.      

“The fat’s going down, the sugar’s going up, and we’re all getting sick,” Lustig said.  

Lustig also said the Food and Drug Administration can’t mandate a limit on sugar in foods and beverages.  

“The liver doesn’t get sick after one fructose meal, it gets sick after a thousand fructose meals, but that’s how many we eat, so the FDA isn’t touching this,” Lustig said.

Mudhura Bhadke, a graduate student in computer science, says she prefers putting table sugar in her own food than it being already sweetened by the manufacturer.   

“In fact, anything that’s natural is obviously better,” Bhadke said. “It’s more healthy and it has the right vitamins and minerals and the right proportions, so it’s always the best.”

Cameron Winter, a senior in English, said his main concern regarding sweetened foods is price

“It’s really about what I can afford,” Winter said.  

In an article on the CRA website, Carolyn O’Neil, a registered dietitian, said the CRA wants Americans to consume all sugar, including high fructose corn syrup, in moderation.

“The last thing we want is for Americans to think that avoiding high fructose corn syrup is the answer,” she said. “All sugars should be consumed in moderation—corn sugar, table sugar, honey and fruit juice concentrates.”