The War For Your Opinion on Sugar

Ah, the Internet: a forum for the free exchange of ideas. A place where you can learn that each year, Americans consume, per capita, the weight of boxer Sugar Ray Leonard in actual sugar. A place where a few keystrokes can bring you the straight dope on nearly anything. A place where many people have dedicated nine-to-five jobs writing technically and rhetorically erudite articles espousing mutually incompatible "truths." A place where some people will happily deceive you, because it is their job. A place where doctors, plumbers, and that guy from the cell phone kiosk at the mall all go after work to sift fact from fiction, for the pure pursuit of truth. A place where simply Googling "high fructose corn syrup" will expose you to kilos of "real truth" from one of three HFCS information camps: 1) The "HFCS is totally harmless" camp; 2) The "HFCS is the same as table sugar, which is not to say it's harmless" camp, or 3) The "HFCS is the main culprit in many health problems, and should be regulated, if not illegal" camp.

This should not be a metaphysical issue. We are not discussing what precisely would happen if Neo had put the red and blue pills into a smoothy and chugged it.

Meanwhile, Foods For Living does not carry any products which contain HFCS. I've never heard a customer question this decision, and I've heard many praise it. In the wake of reflecting on the Dr.Oz "scandal" and the role of a humble grocery store in a complex national dialogue, I thought it prudent to look a little closer at HFCS, and FFL's decision not to sell it. I mean, they sell alcohol, and that's literally poisonous, so what gives?

Jennifer K. Nelson is the Director of Clinical Nutrition/Dietetics at the Mayo Clinic. She has this to say on the Mayo Clinic website:

"Research has shown that high-fructose corn syrup is chemically similar to table sugar. Controversy exists, however, about whether or not the body handles high-fructose corn syrup differently than table sugar. At this time, there's insufficient evidence to say that high-fructose corn syrup is any less healthy than other types of sweeteners. We do know, however, that too much added sugar — not just high-fructose corn syrup — can contribute unwanted calories that are linked to health problems, such as weight gain, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and high triglyceride levels. All of these boost your risk of heart disease." Classic Camp 2.

I'd like to point out two things about the above statement. 1) Nelson clearly states the health dangers of a dietary sugar surplus. 2) Nelson is a scientist in high academic standing. This predisposes her to both couching her language in qualifiers—"At this time," "insufficient evidence"—and avoiding prematurely absolute proclamations that could later damage her reputation. This is in no way a criticism of Nelson—it's simply an examination of the tentative, evidence-based statements of presumably impartial health professionals. Having insufficient evidence is certainly not the same as stating that HFCS is simply dandy and nothing to worry about.

What's interesting about Nelson's statement is that it IS incompatible with any statement of certitude regarding HFCS' innocuousness or uniquely harmful effects. The only thing it asserts is that sugar, in excess, is bad.

So what's excessive?

Well, 160 pounds per year, per American is excessive. Since technology evolves much, much faster than biology, we have created a world where we can afford to do something pleasing (eat sugar all the time) that is metabolically destructive. Our bodies still closely resemble those of our ancestors for whom 20 teaspoons a year would have been typical.

But HFCS is delicious. That's why manufacturers put it not just in soda and candy, but bread, "juice," cereal, yogurt, salad dressing, "nutrition" bars, frozen pizza, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese... wait, what? That's right, even pizza and "pasta" aren't safe from the subsidized, sugary tentacles of HFCS.  

"But Greg," you might say,"lacing all those products with sugar in a transparent ploy to sidestep good

sense with deliciousness must be expensive!"
"Wrong, you poor sap!" I'd say. As a corn-derived product, HFCS enjoys the benefit federal subsidies for corn growers. What do the corn growers' associations do with all the that extra money?

Well, lobbying is always nice... though traditional sugar has lobbyists too.

But spiffy "informative" websites don't hurt either: Here's sweetsurprise.com.

If you like your corn info with a side of propaganda, that should do nicely. Meanwhile, here's an article from Princeton, espousing many ideas in radical opposition to the ideas at SweetSurprise.

But, you know, here's an article from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, stating the opposite conclusion of the Princeton article. The AJCN is not a Big Agriculture mouthpiece to my knowledge, so I think we can at very least take their conclusions as being genuine.

But here's another doctor claiming the opposite thesis, again. His presentational style makes me suspicious, but his points sound, to the layperson, valid. Which is the precisely the problem with scientific inquiry in the sphere of media. All reasonably well-stated cases sound equally plausible to the uneducated, myself included.

So what's a local health food store to do?

As dozens of sources from all corners of industry and medicine will tell you, Americans are obese and dying unnecessary deaths, and sugar is a key offender. (Do you really even need to click any of these links to know that?)

Let's imagine your objective was to get out of shape, destroy your body from the inside out, and die as quickly as possible. The only rule is that you must stick to common grocery items and common rates of consumption. Would you go for the wine right away, hoping to induce liver failure with a glass or two an evening? Or would you remember the fine people of Europe, and despair at their long, skinny, wine-sodden lives? Obviously, your best bet would be to do as your countrymen do now. Eat sugary foods, AKA "nearly any foods," constantly. Hope for diabetes. Even "reducing your sugar intake" to a level that is still many times higher than our biology is equipped to deal with will be catastrophic eventually, so don't worry.

Whether or not HFCS doesn't truly require digestion and therefore gets a metabolic wave-on-through from security, or is simply run of the mill sugar, it's not a good idea to consume it endlessly, in great quantities. Since cane sugar is much more expensive and precludes liberal inclusion in every last grocery item, sticking to cane sugar makes it easy to stop killing yourself sweetly. And since the jury is still conspicuously out, even in reputable scientific circles, it just makes sense for Foods For Living to draw a glycemic line in the sand. Whatever your conclusions on HFCS, I suggest looking before you leap (in a huge sugar pile).

I should say now that I come at this as an armchair epistemologist, and not as a member of a specific camp. As always, I express only my own views, and not those of FFL as a whole.