Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Is high fructose corn syrup bad for you?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
- 0:08Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Join Josh and Chuck,
- 0:12Speaker 1: the guys who bring you Stuff you Should Know, as
- 0:14Speaker 1: they take a trip around the world to help you
- 0:16Speaker 1: get smarter in a topsy turv economy. Check out the
- 0:19Speaker 1: all new super Stuffed Guide to the Economy from house
- 0:22Speaker 1: stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes. Hey,
- 0:27Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant, right, Josh,
- 0:33Speaker 1: you want to bite? I thought you loved me mine, dude,
- 0:36Speaker 1: pick two bites. But it's got high fruit toast corns
- 0:39Speaker 1: for it in it, so well, you know what they
- 0:42Speaker 1: say about that stuff? What that it's uh that uh
- 0:48Speaker 1: that it's made from corn, has the same calories as sugar, honey,
- 0:52Speaker 1: and it's fine and moderation. You only brought one the
- 0:56Speaker 1: end and seen, Chuck. I feel dirty right now. We
- 1:00Speaker 1: were clearly riffing on popular commercial yes, touting high fruit
- 1:04Speaker 1: toast corn syrup. Yeah, um, which is kind of a
- 1:07Speaker 1: big deal these days, right Chuck? It is indeed? Yeah,
- 1:10Speaker 1: So Chuck and I are going to talk about um
- 1:13Speaker 1: high fruit toast corn syrup, and you know, maybe some
- 1:16Speaker 1: of the concerns what it is and whether or not
- 1:18Speaker 1: it actually is bad for you. So we will get
- 1:22Speaker 1: to that right this moment. Right, And welcome to Matt,
- 1:25Speaker 1: our guest producer for the week. Yes, thank you for
- 1:27Speaker 1: Matt for filling in for Jerry, who is on vacation
- 1:30Speaker 1: hopefully not enduring any life threatening circumstances as is usually
- 1:34Speaker 1: the case. Right, And we love young and talented Matt,
- 1:37Speaker 1: so welcome. Yeah, young talented and well groomed Matt. How's
- 1:42Speaker 1: it going, Matt? Alright, so on the high fruit toast
- 1:45Speaker 1: corn syrup. Chuck. Okay, so this stuff didn't exist before
- 1:49Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven. Did you know that? Okay? Um, let
- 1:53Speaker 1: me explain. Let me explain a little further. Okay, Um,
- 1:57Speaker 1: So in ninete some researchers figured out that you could
- 2:01Speaker 1: take a glucos and corn syrup. I think corn syrup
- 2:04Speaker 1: is like all glucose, and glucose is uh one of
- 2:08Speaker 1: our primary energy sources. And did you know that insulin's
- 2:12Speaker 1: job is to actually go in and basically open the
- 2:16Speaker 1: cellular membrane to let the glucoast in for burning. Okay, um,
- 2:20Speaker 1: well anyway, so if you want a lot of energy,
- 2:23Speaker 1: you could basically pound a bottle of corn syrup, just
- 2:26Speaker 1: playing old corn syrup. Um. But these these researchers figured
- 2:30Speaker 1: out in nine that if you added a couple of
- 2:33Speaker 1: enzymes at different stages, you could convert glucose into fruit
- 2:38Speaker 1: toast and fruit tose josh, as you know, is naturally occurring.
- 2:44Speaker 1: It's a simple sugar. It's produced by a lot of
- 2:46Speaker 1: different plants, and it's really really sweet, and it's more
- 2:50Speaker 1: soluble in water than glucose, which is also a simple sugar.
- 2:54Speaker 1: So that's why it's good for things like soft drinks
- 2:57Speaker 1: and products like that. Plus it's also cheaper. Well yeah, sure,
- 3:01Speaker 1: and we'll get to the reason why it's twoper in
- 3:03Speaker 1: a minute. Did we mention my cold in this one?
- 3:05Speaker 1: Uh no, you have a cold. I have a terrible cold. Everyone.
- 3:08Speaker 1: I'm very sorry if I do that, so in advance,
- 3:12Speaker 1: right right, But we also should say really quick to
- 3:14Speaker 1: just so people have their sugar understanding. There's also table
- 3:18Speaker 1: sugar is what people probably think of a sugar that
- 3:21Speaker 1: is sucross, and that's what you get when you combine
- 3:24Speaker 1: fruit toast and glucose. Well that's what UM high fruit
- 3:27Speaker 1: toast corn syrup is as well. Is it common. It's
- 3:30Speaker 1: sucros too, it's just in a slightly different amount. There's
- 3:33Speaker 1: about tim percent more fruit toast and high fruit toast
- 3:35Speaker 1: corn syrup than there isn't common table sugar, which doesn't
- 3:38Speaker 1: sound like a lot initially it doesn't, but don't don't
- 3:41Speaker 1: give it away. Yeah, okay, so UM seven they figure
- 3:46Speaker 1: this out, there's the enzymatic action and then budda boom baha,
- 3:49Speaker 1: being you've got high fruit toast corn syrup. I get
- 3:51Speaker 1: the impression that at the at the time it was
- 3:55Speaker 1: probably a very costly process. And then in the seventies
- 3:59Speaker 1: people went back to it and and uh they basically
- 4:03Speaker 1: UM perfected the process made it cheaper. Now, the concept
- 4:07Speaker 1: of like using UM high fruk test corn syrup really
- 4:13Speaker 1: dovetails nicely with what we hear in the States called
- 4:16Speaker 1: a farm bill, and that is this massive bill which
- 4:19Speaker 1: they they deliberate every five or seven years. I'm not sure,
- 4:24Speaker 1: actually I can't remember either. Um anyway, Uh, the farm
- 4:28Speaker 1: bill uh gives tons of money to corn producers to
- 4:34Speaker 1: the point where, uh you can overproduce corn corn we
- 4:38Speaker 1: do not need because everybody's got a cob in their mouth,
- 4:42Speaker 1: and um, they'll still get money for it. Plus, corn
- 4:46Speaker 1: is useful in a lot of different ways, so like
- 4:49Speaker 1: corn syrup, and so we have an abundance and over
- 4:53Speaker 1: abundance really of corn and chuck out. That's absolutely true.
- 4:57Speaker 1: There was, Um you can use corn and ethanol. You
- 5:00Speaker 1: can't use it in high freak toast corn serrup. The
- 5:02Speaker 1: thing is is we used to before the seventies and
- 5:05Speaker 1: we we started throwing corn into corn syrup production. Um,
- 5:11Speaker 1: we used to send a lot of that surplus corn
- 5:13Speaker 1: to Africa right as food aid. So in the seventies,
- 5:17Speaker 1: on the day that they perfected the high fruit toast
- 5:20Speaker 1: corn syrup process, some poor Ethiopian uh shuddered and didn't
- 5:26Speaker 1: know why that was why. Oh yeah, food aids definitely
- 5:29Speaker 1: dried up. And people also make the argument that the
- 5:32Speaker 1: same we're gonna have an even bigger problem with with food,
- 5:36Speaker 1: not just exporting it, but here too if it becomes
- 5:39Speaker 1: a viable fuel like ethanol. So they're basically going to
- 5:43Speaker 1: be using up the corn for the high fruit disc
- 5:45Speaker 1: corns are up ethanol, and there's not enough to feed
- 5:48Speaker 1: the world. Is that what you're saying, they'll use it
- 5:49Speaker 1: for whatever they can make the most money off of. Obviously,
- 5:52Speaker 1: good point. Yeah, um so okay, so that was my
- 5:56Speaker 1: little aside, my little hippie liberal aside there, Chuck, very nice. Okay.
- 6:00Speaker 1: So in the seventies we've got the high fruk toast
- 6:03Speaker 1: corn syrup thing down and the world becomes a wash
- 6:06Speaker 1: in the stuff. It's in absolutely everything it is, and
- 6:10Speaker 1: it's in products that you would never even think associate
- 6:13Speaker 1: with sweetness, like it becomes. Corn syrup isn't very sweet initially,
- 6:17Speaker 1: but high fruit dost corn syrup is really sweet, and
- 6:20Speaker 1: it's in things like crackers that you wouldn't even imagine.
- 6:22Speaker 1: And they're starting to put it in meats too because
- 6:24Speaker 1: it's a great preservative. So that's again, there's only ten
- 6:31Speaker 1: percent more fruit toast in high fruit toast corn syrup
- 6:34Speaker 1: than there is a regular table sugar, and everybody knows
- 6:37Speaker 1: you should eat sugar and moderation, right, So, um, I
- 6:42Speaker 1: guess approaching it in that respect, you wouldn't really think
- 6:45Speaker 1: that there's any kind of problems with it, right, But
- 6:48Speaker 1: it's really taken hold it has And also this I
- 6:51Speaker 1: think the thing that that really started to generate concern
- 6:54Speaker 1: is over the past couple of decades, it's become clear
- 6:57Speaker 1: that about the time high fruc toast corn serr replaced
- 7:01Speaker 1: table sugar um in um products like soft drink, that
- 7:06Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, the incidents of type two diabetes
- 7:11Speaker 1: and obesity in the US started to climb as well. Right,
- 7:14Speaker 1: I got a step for you. I want to hear
- 7:16Speaker 1: if you're talking, how much it's really taken over the
- 7:19Speaker 1: other sugars. In nineteventy more than of sweetener consumed in
- 7:24Speaker 1: the US was sucros by It dropped to almost in half,
- 7:31Speaker 1: and the rest of the sweetener sent was hyproc dose
- 7:35Speaker 1: corns scrupt and that was at seven. Now I bet
- 7:37Speaker 1: it's even off the charts here, it's even more prevalent.
- 7:40Speaker 1: Yeah and and uh so yeah, so public opinions starting
- 7:43Speaker 1: to turn, which is why the Cord counselor somebody started
- 7:47Speaker 1: the ad campaign. Right, um, and uh, what's what's the problem. Well,
- 7:54Speaker 1: the problem is I got another stat which is kind
- 7:57Speaker 1: of indicated. Uh. They did a study in of middle
- 8:01Speaker 1: school students and they found that nearly one third of
- 8:03Speaker 1: their caloric intake was added sugars and we're not talking
- 8:07Speaker 1: about like fruits and vegetable sugars. No, those are called
- 8:10Speaker 1: natural sugars. They're not usually taking into account when you're
- 8:14Speaker 1: talking about sugar intake. Added sugar and stuff like high
- 8:17Speaker 1: fruit toast corn service not naturally occurring. So one third
- 8:20Speaker 1: and so in two thousand five they didn't not a
- 8:23Speaker 1: study another study. Sorry, and Americans uh that year consumed
- 8:28Speaker 1: forty two pounds of high fruc dose corn sup per person. Okay,
- 8:32Speaker 1: but again you can say, well, they could be consuming
- 8:35Speaker 1: table sugar in the same amounts. They could be getting
- 8:38Speaker 1: the same caloric intake from table sugar in the same amounts.
- 8:41Speaker 1: What's the problem? Why is everyone picking on high fruit
- 8:44Speaker 1: corn STARp. Do you want me to tell you that
- 8:46Speaker 1: sounds like a great set up? Okay, thanks, I just
- 8:49Speaker 1: set myself. You know, there's like self aliops, you throw
- 8:53Speaker 1: it up and then you jump up and slam it.
- 8:55Speaker 1: You dunk it. Have no idea a boomerang, I don't know.
- 8:59Speaker 1: It's like a frisbee that you can play with by yourself.
- 9:01Speaker 1: We'll go no, it's not like that at all. It's basketball. Uh.
- 9:05Speaker 1: Since Australians writing in now, yeah, we just raised their
- 9:08Speaker 1: ire um again, I'm going to set myself up. Do
- 9:12Speaker 1: you want to know why, I'll tell you why. Here's
- 9:15Speaker 1: the problem with fruit toast our bodies don't use it
- 9:20Speaker 1: like we use glue coast Like glue coast is such
- 9:23Speaker 1: a common energy source for us that we can metabolize
- 9:26Speaker 1: it just about any way. It can go to just
- 9:28Speaker 1: about any cell or organ or you know, um, anywhere
- 9:31Speaker 1: in the body and say hey, metabolize me pal, and
- 9:35Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we've got some energy. Right with
- 9:38Speaker 1: fruit toast um, there's only one organ that can possibly
- 9:42Speaker 1: metabolize it, and that's the liver. And the liver has
- 9:45Speaker 1: a certain limit of what how much fruit toast it
- 9:48Speaker 1: will process in their energy, and after that it turns
- 9:51Speaker 1: them into triglycerize, which we like to call facts. So
- 9:54Speaker 1: that's one of the problems. Well. And and and since it's
- 9:57Speaker 1: in everything from like bread to crackers and things that
- 10:00Speaker 1: seemingly and meets for preservatives, it's, uh, we're getting way
- 10:04Speaker 1: way too much of it. Sure, it's kind of like
- 10:07Speaker 1: that episode of Seinfeld where like everybody's eating this low
- 10:10Speaker 1: fat yogurt. You can't believe it's low fat, but it
- 10:13Speaker 1: turns out it's not they had it tested exactly. So
- 10:16Speaker 1: everybody's putting on all this weight. And I think that's
- 10:19Speaker 1: kind of what happened to America over the last couple
- 10:21Speaker 1: of decades, where unknowingly consuming this tremendous amount of sugar
- 10:26Speaker 1: uh and it gets converted into fats very easily, and
- 10:30Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're a fat diabetic nation. I've
- 10:32Speaker 1: got some stats. I love your stats to your hand
- 10:35Speaker 1: on my knee while you read them. I will UH.
- 10:37Speaker 1: In two thousand seven, and this is kind of makes sense.
- 10:41Speaker 1: Colorado is the only state in the whole country with
- 10:44Speaker 1: less than of his population uh qualifying as obese healthy. Yeah,
- 10:50Speaker 1: they hike in all that stuff, which is good. Um.
- 10:53Speaker 1: And another one as far as diabetes goes, between ninety
- 10:56Speaker 1: four and two thousand four, uh a new diagnosed ease
- 11:00Speaker 1: of type two diabetes increased by which is a big jump.
- 11:04Speaker 1: And a lot of people think that the the HFCs
- 11:07Speaker 1: has something to do with that. Ye. Wait, a way
- 11:09Speaker 1: to throw an acronym in there, buddy like that? Yeah. Yeah.
- 11:12Speaker 1: Can I say one other problem with fructose, okay, it
- 11:16Speaker 1: is that there is ten more in high fruc toose
- 11:22Speaker 1: corn syrup than in regular table sugar, and when you
- 11:25Speaker 1: start to eat a lot of it and it starts
- 11:27Speaker 1: to appear in all sorts of different foods, that ten
- 11:29Speaker 1: percent really starts to add up. So that would also
- 11:32Speaker 1: account for why we're a much a meteor country than
- 11:35Speaker 1: we were before. Except Colorado. Of course, everything's fine in Colorado. Um.
- 11:40Speaker 1: But but ultimately, again back on the metabolic level, UM,
- 11:45Speaker 1: there's been studies that show that the taste of artificial
- 11:49Speaker 1: sweeteners or added sugars like high fruit toose corn syrup
- 11:53Speaker 1: actually make us want to eat more. And it's not
- 11:57Speaker 1: has nothing to do with what we're doing with that metal.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Likely it's the taste we love to taste so much.
- 12:03Speaker 1: It's like crack to us. So when we eat something
- 12:06Speaker 1: that contains glucoset right, um, and when we eat anything generally, uh,
- 12:11Speaker 1: there's this chemical that's producing the stomach is called grellin.
- 12:16Speaker 1: I know it's it's kind of terrible name, but it's
- 12:18Speaker 1: actually really important. Grolan travels up to the brain and says, okay, stop,
- 12:24Speaker 1: this person doesn't need to eat anymore. Here, she's full.
- 12:28Speaker 1: We got all the nutrients we need down here, so
- 12:30Speaker 1: just cut it off for a little while. And then well,
- 12:32Speaker 1: you know, another chemical will let you know when we're hungry, right, Um,
- 12:37Speaker 1: we don't produce grilling when we eat fruit toast, so
- 12:41Speaker 1: the brains never getting those signals that it's used to
- 12:43Speaker 1: getting saying stop. So, which is why you can sit
- 12:46Speaker 1: there and eat Little Debbie brownies by the box full
- 12:49Speaker 1: all day long. Yeah those are good. Twiss cake rolls
- 12:53Speaker 1: ain't too bad either. Yeah, not to pick on Little Debbie.
- 12:56Speaker 1: It's a Little Debbie is a fine, fine company and
- 13:00Speaker 1: are from the only company using high fruit tose corn.
- 13:03Speaker 1: It's everywhere, It's everywhere. So, Josh, I think we're at
- 13:07Speaker 1: the point now where we can talk about what you
- 13:08Speaker 1: can do if you're worried about something like this, which well,
- 13:13Speaker 1: clearly everything in moderation, just like the cheesy little commercial
- 13:16Speaker 1: says that we mocked. Um. But what you need to
- 13:19Speaker 1: do is you need to start checking the packaging of
- 13:23Speaker 1: your of your foods, and better yet, you can try
- 13:27Speaker 1: to start avoiding package foods as much as you can.
- 13:30Speaker 1: That's really where it's at. I mean, I had a
- 13:32Speaker 1: friend that had high blood pressure and his doctor said,
- 13:35Speaker 1: you can do a couple of things. You can either
- 13:36Speaker 1: get on this medication or you can start eating fresh
- 13:40Speaker 1: foods and avoid package foods. Medication. No, yeah, absolutely no. No,
- 13:45Speaker 1: he controlled it through diet, dude, and he quit buying
- 13:47Speaker 1: anything in a box, anything in a package. He fresh
- 13:50Speaker 1: like in the yard. Yeah, he ate fresh fruits and vegetables.
- 13:53Speaker 1: He ate meat, um, and his blood pressure dropped dramatically.
- 13:59Speaker 1: Meats he found in the yard. Cats he raised cattle
- 14:02Speaker 1: in his good but um, yeah, I mean it's always
- 14:05Speaker 1: best to avoid packaged foods. When you look at any
- 14:08Speaker 1: kind of packaged food ingredients, it's it's kind of frightening
- 14:11Speaker 1: what's in there. Well, one of the problems is that
- 14:13Speaker 1: high frue toast corn syrup is substantially cheaper than regular sugar.
- 14:16Speaker 1: It is, so that means the food prices are cheaper,
- 14:19Speaker 1: which is I guess by extension or my hypothesis or theory,
- 14:24Speaker 1: I would say, because I'm sure it's been tested. Why
- 14:27Speaker 1: the poorer classes also tend to be the most malnourished
- 14:30Speaker 1: because the stuff that they're eating is so processed, so packaged,
- 14:33Speaker 1: and so chuck full of not just stuff like high
- 14:36Speaker 1: fruit toast corn syrup, but all sorts of other preservative
- 14:39Speaker 1: that we shouldn't be eating. But are cheap and allow
- 14:42Speaker 1: companies to produce cheap food. It's a horrible vicious cycle.
- 14:45Speaker 1: But I mean, try try eating organic in this economy. Pal,
- 14:49Speaker 1: you can't do it. You have to be like filthy
- 14:52Speaker 1: rich to eat organic these days. But you know what's
- 14:56Speaker 1: not cheap? What the diabetes? No, that's true. It's an
- 14:59Speaker 1: excellent in hospital stays and heart attacks. Uh so that's great.
- 15:04Speaker 1: Do yourself a favorite. You'll save some dough in the
- 15:06Speaker 1: long run if you if you eat better and take
- 15:08Speaker 1: care of yourself. Plus you'll keep your foot. Yeah. True.
- 15:12Speaker 1: So there's high freuk toast corn syrup. Um. We I
- 15:15Speaker 1: guess we'll just sit back and expect an angry season
- 15:18Speaker 1: desist letter from the corn Council or somebody right right,
- 15:20Speaker 1: we love corn corns great, I love corn on the
- 15:22Speaker 1: coblic You would not believe me too, It's one of
- 15:24Speaker 1: my favorite anyway. Um, that's high freak toast cord syrup.
- 15:27Speaker 1: And followed by our disclaimer that Chuck and I actually
- 15:30Speaker 1: do like corn and American farmers in America in general.
- 15:34Speaker 1: So there you go, And are we plugging anything these days?
- 15:38Speaker 1: We can give a quick mention to the blog. You know,
- 15:40Speaker 1: we have a blog on the website you can access,
- 15:42Speaker 1: and I think most folks are catching on. Now we're
- 15:45Speaker 1: getting some good numbers, and hell, let's plug the thing
- 15:48Speaker 1: that we're making money off of. Well yeah, sure, okay,
- 15:51Speaker 1: the super Stuff Guide to the Economy with Josh and Chuck.
- 15:56Speaker 1: You can buy that for four bucks on iTunes and
- 15:58Speaker 1: learn about econom x and get a little better understanding
- 16:01Speaker 1: of what's going on in the world. And uh, it's
- 16:04Speaker 1: a time for listener mail. Yeah, Chuck, So Josh, I
- 16:11Speaker 1: was impressed with this one. This is uh not a
- 16:13Speaker 1: high kup, but it is a poem. And a seventeen
- 16:16Speaker 1: year old named Daniel in Colorado wrote us a sonnet.
- 16:20Speaker 1: There's like more than an eight percent chance he's not obese,
- 16:25Speaker 1: okays in Colorado force Alright, so here we go. From Daniel,
- 16:29Speaker 1: I would that there were just one reason why the
- 16:32Speaker 1: podcast did delight me fully, so that I might be
- 16:35Speaker 1: in hasty time. Supply a nicely packaged blurb so you
- 16:39Speaker 1: might know. I'll ask. No single reason will suffice. The
- 16:42Speaker 1: podcast is a pleasure labyrinthine. To try to craft a
- 16:47Speaker 1: reason too precise would make a burly rope of stingy twine.
- 16:51Speaker 1: But in those fleeting moments in the night. One wonders
- 16:54Speaker 1: does one really need to know whether one can really
- 16:56Speaker 1: die of fright? Or if How Anger Works is at proposed?
- 17:00Speaker 1: But though it may be triviality, the podcast comes to
- 17:04Speaker 1: us completely free. How about that? That was great? I
- 17:08Speaker 1: couldn't write one of these. Oh no, definitely not. Try
- 17:11Speaker 1: try fitting labyrinthine in So Daniel in Colorado, seventeen years old?
- 17:15Speaker 1: You is he? Is he an adult? He's seventeen? Okay? Great,
- 17:21Speaker 1: good to know that he may or may not be
- 17:22Speaker 1: an adult either way. Thank you very much, Daniel. We
- 17:25Speaker 1: appreciate the effort, and we've always also said you can
- 17:29Speaker 1: only gripe so much because it is free, right sure.
- 17:32Speaker 1: Thank you for supporting that point. If you want to
- 17:35Speaker 1: send us a gorgeous poem, or just type the word
- 17:37Speaker 1: labyrinthine and uh in an email and send it to us, um,
- 17:41Speaker 1: you can shoot that over to stuff podcast at how
- 17:46Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
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