|  | Diet Nutrition | Nutrition

Differences Between HFCS & Corn Syrup

During the manufacturing process of corn syrup, most of the nutritious properties of corn are refined out, until all that's left is cornstarch. Enzymes are then added to the cornstarch to create corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup. There are several differences between the two, but both are used as sweeteners for almost all sweetened foods stocked on the shelves at your local grocer.

  1. Corn Syrup

    • The enzymes that are added to the refined cornstarch, during the process of making corn syrup, modifies the sugar content already present in it to make a glucose-based sweetener. Glucose is a simple sugar molecule that needs to broken down in the liver with insulin before it can supply the entire body with energy. Furthermore, glucose is stored as energy in muscle cells, which have a larger storage capacity and burn off excess sugar quite easily.

      Corn syrup is a lot less sweet than high fructose corn syrup. Its primarily used for candy making, baking and large-scale cooking. Because of its high viscosity, corn syrup doesn't dissolve as easily as high fructose corn syrup, and many food producers prefer not to use it as their sweetening and preserving agent. As a result, corn syrup is not as widely used as high fructose corn syrup.

    High Fructose Corn Syrup

    • Enzymes are added to cornstarch to make high fructose corn syrup modify its natural sugar content to make a fructose-based sweetener. Like glucose, fructose is also a simple sugar. However, unlike glucose, fructose doesn't need insulin to be broken down and releases its energy a lot slower. Additionally, there is a limited amount of storage for fructose in the body, especially because its directly metabolized in the liver since most cells in the body can't metabolize it themselves.

      High fructose corn syrup is much sweeter than regular corn syrup and isn't something you can buy on its own in a grocery store. Instead, high fructose corn syrup is widely used by U.S. food manufacturers to sweeten and preserve anything from soft drinks to canned soup to bread. It's more widely used because it's very easy to dissolve high fructose corn syrup in just about anything. It is also cheaper to make and use than real granulated sugar. Furthermore, high fructose corn syrup significantly increases foods' shelf life in comparison to foods made with other sweeteners.

    Health Risks and Problems

    • Studies at Princeton University have that revealed high fructose corn syrup causes abnormal weight gain, particularly in the abdomen as a result of a rise of blood fats called triglycerides (a direct by-product of a liver overwhelmed with fructose). When compared with similar studies about glucose, the results were not nearly as dramatic, because the body is better equipped for breaking it down. Furthermore, dietitians argue that foods with high levels of fructose do not send signals to the brain that the stomach is full and you should stop eating.

Nutrition - Related Articles