'High Fructose Corn Syrup Isn't That Bad'

Diet and Nutrition
1

I was told by a girl I went to highschool with that High Fructose Corn syrup is equal in “nutritional value” to natural unprocessed cane sugar, and that cutting out HFC WILL NOT assist in dropping fat. This is what is wrong with the state of American nutritional knowledge. Any thoughts?

Edit: As a sidenote, I have lost 60 pounds of what I perceive to be mostly fat since mid-March, so it really makes me mad when someone who doesn’t work out or care about their body tells ME what works and what doesn’t.

2

It is true that HFCS is no different than regular fructose sugar. But that doesn’t make it good.

3

Exactly, I explained to her that in dropping out HFCS from a diet, one also tends to forgo overly processed foods such as cheez-its, packaged cookies and all kinds of other dietary nightmares. She continued to argue that it has no impact. This girl is phenomenally unhealthy. The kind of person who thinks that switching to light beer makes her healthier as a person.

4

I proceeded to explain to her that by cutting out HFCS, you also tend to forgo the dietary nightmare that are processed snack foods like cheez-its and packaged cookies. She still contends that HFCS isnt that bad. She is phenomenally unhealthy in diet and exercise and is the kind of girl who thinks switching to light beer makes one a healthier person.

5

Nutritionally equal yes. I think it may make people tend to eat more or something. Kinda tired about hearing about it. It’s not good for you.

6

oh sorry for the double post, first time I said it, it didnt appear at all, so I re-did it. Still getting used to posting here. I just get steamed when people tell me my methods don’t work, when they clearly have, at least for me.

7

Get used to it. As you continue to improve yourself, all the people in your life are going to to tell you how this doesn’t work, or that isn’t healthy or tons of other stuff. Just ignore them. Either they’ll eventually see it work for you and change…or they’ll die early from a heart attack. That’s life.

8

haha, in the end I told her to enjoy her donuts, cookies and heart disease and ignored the rest of her nonsense.

9

[quote]benos4752 wrote:
Get used to it. As you continue to improve yourself, all the people in your life to weak to do the same are going to to tell you how this doesn’t work, or that isn’t healthy or tons of other stuff. Just ignore them. Either they’ll eventually see it work for you and change…or they’ll die early from a heart attack. That’s life.[/quote]

Wait till a family member smoking a cigarette tells you how unhealthy something you’re doing is.

10

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]benos4752 wrote:
Get used to it. As you continue to improve yourself, all the people in your life to weak to do the same are going to to tell you how this doesn’t work, or that isn’t healthy or tons of other stuff. Just ignore them. Either they’ll eventually see it work for you and change…or they’ll die early from a heart attack. That’s life.[/quote]

Wait till a family member smoking a cigarette tells you how unhealthy something you’re doing is.[/quote]

Ironically enough, the only family member I have who smoked cigs praised me for my effort and then disappointed my by saying it would be too hard for her to quit.

11

[quote]7thSonofa7thSon wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]benos4752 wrote:
Get used to it. As you continue to improve yourself, all the people in your life to weak to do the same are going to to tell you how this doesn’t work, or that isn’t healthy or tons of other stuff. Just ignore them. Either they’ll eventually see it work for you and change…or they’ll die early from a heart attack. That’s life.[/quote]

Wait till a family member smoking a cigarette tells you how unhealthy something you’re doing is.[/quote]

Ironically enough, the only family member I have who smoked cigs praised me for my effort and then disappointed my by saying it would be too hard for her to quit.[/quote]

which is why people tend to ridicule people for their success/tell them things that blatantly aren’t true (such as cutting HFCS from your diet has not effect). They think they can’t do it so they tend to rationalize their own failures so they can feel as if they haven’t failed…

It’s an exercise in futility…

Basically just do you and fuck the nay-sayers…

12

[quote]7thSonofa7thSon wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]benos4752 wrote:
Get used to it. As you continue to improve yourself, all the people in your life to weak to do the same are going to to tell you how this doesn’t work, or that isn’t healthy or tons of other stuff. Just ignore them. Either they’ll eventually see it work for you and change…or they’ll die early from a heart attack. That’s life.[/quote]

Wait till a family member smoking a cigarette tells you how unhealthy something you’re doing is.[/quote]

Ironically enough, the only family member I have who smoked cigs praised me for my effort and then disappointed my by saying it would be too hard for her to quit.[/quote]

Lol OP has 7 posts. The series your name refers to is a pretty interesting one…haven’t gotten around to reading the final book yet though.

And you’ll get used to people spewing BS like that, and they’ll almost always be in worse shape than you. Just smile and nod, or invest some time in educating them if you deem it worth the time it’ll take. Either way, don’t let it get to you or make you doubt yourself.

13

She’s pretty much on the ball.

If you drank a crapton of hfcs soda each day, it would be bad for you and you’d get fat. If you replaced it with hippie soda that uses cane sugar, or calorically equal fruit juice, you’d get just as fat. you’d get some vitamins from the fruit juice, but you’d still get fat.

Your progress isn’t from avoiding HFCS, per se, it’s from avoiding junk food in general.

14

[quote]7thSonofa7thSon wrote:
I was told by a girl I went to highschool with that High Fructose Corn syrup is equal in “nutritional value” to natural unprocessed cane sugar, and that cutting out HFC WILL NOT assist in dropping fat. This is what is wrong with the state of American nutritional knowledge. Any thoughts?

[/quote]

Yes.

My thoughts are that you are grossly uninformed and what “knowledge” you do have is based on buzzwords and alarmism. You are whining about someone else being incorrect and believing that they are informed when you yourself are incorrect and believing you are informed. Funny how that works.

The girl you are attempting to ridicule is actually entirely correct. Nutritionally, HFCS and Sucrose (“natural” sugar) are identical. Chemically, they differ on slightly and the those differences are irrelevant in the context of how the human body handles them.

Cutting out HFCS will not assist in dropping fat if you simply replace it with an equal number of calories, in the context of a normal diet. You’re trying to assert that HFCS is specifically bad, but your only rationale for that is that it is in a lot of foods that you believe are bad.

Congrats on your weight loss. Please realize that you lost 60 lbs because you either ate fewer calories or burned more, or both. Your progress has nothing to do with simply dropping any foods containing HFCS and it especially has nothing to do with how much you do or do not know about nutrition. The fact that you had 60 lbs to drop in the first place is evidence that you were severely overweight to begin with and that simple lifestyle based interventions would have been more than adequate to produce the results you have shown without delving into your arcane “methods”.

15

[quote]Stronghold wrote:

[quote]7thSonofa7thSon wrote:
I was told by a girl I went to highschool with that High Fructose Corn syrup is equal in “nutritional value” to natural unprocessed cane sugar, and that cutting out HFC WILL NOT assist in dropping fat. This is what is wrong with the state of American nutritional knowledge. Any thoughts?

[/quote]

Yes.

My thoughts are that you are grossly uninformed and what “knowledge” you do have is based on buzzwords and alarmism. You are whining about someone else being incorrect and believing that they are informed when you yourself are incorrect and believing you are informed. Funny how that works.

The girl you are attempting to ridicule is actually entirely correct. Nutritionally, HFCS and Sucrose (“natural” sugar) are identical. Chemically, they differ on slightly and the those differences are irrelevant in the context of how the human body handles them.

Cutting out HFCS will not assist in dropping fat if you simply replace it with an equal number of calories, in the context of a normal diet. You’re trying to assert that HFCS is specifically bad, but your only rationale for that is that it is in a lot of foods that you believe are bad.

Congrats on your weight loss. Please realize that you lost 60 lbs because you either ate fewer calories or burned more, or both. Your progress has nothing to do with simply dropping any foods containing HFCS and it especially has nothing to do with how much you do or do not know about nutrition. The fact that you had 60 lbs to drop in the first place is evidence that you were severely overweight to begin with and that simple lifestyle based interventions would have been more than adequate to produce the results you have shown without delving into your arcane “methods”.[/quote]

And boom goes the dynamite.

16

New study out of Princeton. Highlights:

Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

HFCS compared to regular sugar “…caused abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in triglycerides.”

“Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn’t true.”

“When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they’re becoming obese – every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don’t see this; they don’t all gain extra weight.”

17

[quote]Stronghold wrote:

[quote]7thSonofa7thSon wrote:
I was told by a girl I went to highschool with that High Fructose Corn syrup is equal in “nutritional value” to natural unprocessed cane sugar, and that cutting out HFC WILL NOT assist in dropping fat. This is what is wrong with the state of American nutritional knowledge. Any thoughts?

[/quote]

Yes.

My thoughts are that you are grossly uninformed and what “knowledge” you do have is based on buzzwords and alarmism. You are whining about someone else being incorrect and believing that they are informed when you yourself are incorrect and believing you are informed. Funny how that works.

The girl you are attempting to ridicule is actually entirely correct. Nutritionally, HFCS and Sucrose (“natural” sugar) are identical. Chemically, they differ on slightly and the those differences are irrelevant in the context of how the human body handles them.

Cutting out HFCS will not assist in dropping fat if you simply replace it with an equal number of calories, in the context of a normal diet. You’re trying to assert that HFCS is specifically bad, but your only rationale for that is that it is in a lot of foods that you believe are bad.

Congrats on your weight loss. Please realize that you lost 60 lbs because you either ate fewer calories or burned more, or both. Your progress has nothing to do with simply dropping any foods containing HFCS and it especially has nothing to do with how much you do or do not know about nutrition. The fact that you had 60 lbs to drop in the first place is evidence that you were severely overweight to begin with and that simple lifestyle based interventions would have been more than adequate to produce the results you have shown without delving into your arcane “methods”.[/quote]

Firstly, Thank you for your input. Secondly, I specifically stated that by cutting out HFCS from your diet, you are effectively also removing a large quantity of junk food from your diet as well. I am well aware of how I lost weight, and that I was in fact grossly overweight (275 at 6’1"). However, I hardly consider my “methods” to be “arcane” as I simply cleaned up my diet, monitored my caloric intake, specifically where those calories were coming from, and hit the gym with a single-minded purpose. I am fairly certain most people on this site who have made a concerted effort to lose weight and succeeded will agree that those are pretty much standard weight-loss fare.

My frustration comes more from the fact that the girl in question feels a need to tear down my accomplishments in order to validate her own lifestyle (one which I have myself forsaken). I understand that this will be very common in my life for as long as I continue to train hard and respect my body, but since this is still new to me, I am not yet accustomed to having people rain on my one man parade.

18

[quote]Chris Shugart wrote:
New study out of Princeton. Highlights:

Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

HFCS compared to regular sugar “…caused abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in triglycerides.”

“Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn’t true.”

“When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they’re becoming obese – every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don’t see this; they don’t all gain extra weight.”

[/quote]

Sounds like a case of terrible for you vs. really terrible for you.

19

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Sounds like a case of terrible for you vs. really terrible for you.[/quote]

I think that sums it up nicely.

20

[quote]Chris Shugart wrote:
New study out of Princeton. Highlights:

Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

HFCS compared to regular sugar “…caused abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in triglycerides.”

“Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn’t true.”

“When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they’re becoming obese – every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don’t see this; they don’t all gain extra weight.”

[/quote]

And the winner, by way of Knockout… CHRIS SHUUUUGAAAARRT!

haha, but the terrible vs more terrible idea is why I eat ANY type of sugar, HFCS or not, extremely sparingly. Honestly, I regard fruit as a treat at this point.