High Fructose Corn Syrup

We are sometimes told that the body handles all types of sugar in the same way. What we are usually not told is that while sucrose (table sugar and starches) is metabolized in the muscles and used for energy, fructose is metabolized in the liver. There it is turned to fat and stored in the body for future use.

This makes sense when we consider that most fruit ripens in the fall.  Before central heating people used to need to store extra fat to keep warm in the winter.  This would see them through when food was scarce during that season.

In the tropics where fruit is available all year around people were admired for their abundant size.  It was quite the fashion.  The last queen of Hawaii was exceedingly large! 
In fruit, this conversion process is somewhat mediated by the fact that the fructose is bound by the fiber in the fruit. (This is a good reason to eat the whole fruit and not just the fruit juice. Also, we probably would not eat 4 or 5 oranges in one sitting but we might drink the juice of 4 or 5 oranges.) This fiber protection is not the case with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), because it has no fiber. Obesity in this country has skyrocketed since the introduction of HFCS into the food supply.

Weight gain further results because when we consume HFCS, the hunger hormones, ghrelin and leptin aren’t activated. This results in overeating since hunger is not suppressed by those hormones when they are not activated like they are supposed to be.

“Additionally, cancer cells love HFCS. They gobble it up, reproduce and take over the body in ways that table sugar-fed cancer cells can’t match – even though plain ol’ sugar feeds cancer cells, too.” reports Jordan S. Rubin, founder and CEO of Garden of Life, NY Times bestselling author and natural hearth expert.

It pays to read the labels!  All sugars are not created equal.