SCI-228 Week 2 Lab Assignment: High Fructose Corn Syrup – Graded An A+

CI-228 Week 2 Lab Assignment: High Fructose Corn Syrup – Graded An A+ I decided to write about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). In this paper I will try my best to he lp alleviate some of the popular hypothesis that HFCS is responsible for a growing obesity epidemic in this US and world wide. Also I will briefly review the origin, composition, and certain misconceptions that have baffled health professionals as well as the public. HFCS was slowly starting to be experimented on from the 1950’s through the 1960’s. “Phenomenal growth over the ensuing 35 or more years made HFCS one of the most successful food ingredients in modern history”, Buck AW. High fructose corn syrup. In: Nabors LO, ed. Alternative sweeteners. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Marcel Dekker, 2001:391–411. HFCS was being developed as a replacement for sucrose (sugar). And as such the replacement had to be thoroughly tested and studied in order to be a suitable replacement. HFCS was being used in secret for quite a few years before ever hitting the main stream market. HFCS became the center of much discussion between scientists, writers, and the general public in the US and around the world. “Although there was considerable speculation in the 1980s that fructose was responsible for several metabolic anomalies, convincing proof that this was a significant health risk was never forthcoming”, Reiser S, Smith JC Jr, Mertz W, et al. Indices of copper status in humans consuming a typical American diet containing either fructose or starch. Am J Clin Nutr 1985;42:242–51. Hallfrisch J, Ellwood K, Michaelis OE, Reiser S, Prather ES. Plasma fructose, uric acid, and inorganic phosphorus responses of hyperinsulinemic men fed fructose. J Am Coll Nutr 1986;5:61–8. Hallfrisch J, Reiser S, Prather ES. Blood lipid distribution of hyperinsulinemic men consuming three levels of fructose. Am J Clin Nutr 1983;37:740–8. “Sucrose from sugar cane or sugar beets has been a part of the human diet for centuries; sucrose from fruit or honey has been a part of the human diet for millennia. Sucrose continues to be the benchmark against which other sweeteners are measured. However, sucrose has posed significant technological problems in certain applications: it hydrolyzes in acidic systems, changing the sweetness and flavor characteristics of the product, and it is a granular ingredient that must be dissolved in water before use in many applications”, Salomonsson I. Shelf life: sucrose hydrolysis. Copenhagen, Denmark: Danisco Sugar A/S, 2005. Internet: