4 ms·

is there any actual truth that real sugar is not as bad as HFCS? If I drink an american coke every day am I really worse off than if I have the cane sugar coke?

smolder 2mo ago
I don't think so. I've seen things that say fructose has worse effects than sucrose in terms of spiking your blood sugar or whatever but that's minor compared to the overall impact of any sugar. Sugar is sweet because we were once starving beasts and calories were good. Now it's a hazard. And corn syrup gets dumped into all kinds of processed foods in the US because of how cheap it is, and how much people like sweet stuff. We have shaped our food culture in a way to maximize short term profit at the expense of making everyone fat and disabled longer term.
- vel0city 2mo ago
  > I've seen things that say fructose has worse effects than sucrose Sucrose is 50% fructose. HFCS is ~42-55% fructose. Its "high fructose" compared to just straight corn syrup, which is 0% fructose (practically pure glucose).
- modo_mario 2mo ago
  >I've seen things that say fructose has worse effects than sucrose in terms of spiking your blood sugar or whatever but that's minor compared to the overall impact of any sugar That sounds pretty major. You can be not in the slightest bit obese and the blood sugar spikes will still be bad for your brain, your insulin regulation, etc as far as I understand it.
cung 2mo ago
Yes, you get pure fructose which is processed by your liver. With normal sugar you get a mix of fructose and sucrose, so less fructose. Excessive consumption of fructose leads to fatty liver and is just generally bad for you.
- fl4regun 2mo ago
  it is not "pure fructose" - they have different levels but usually it is 50% fructose syrups. Lots of fruits have similar ratios to that too, fructose isn't the problem so much as the quantity of it being ingested, but high quantities are glucose or other sugars are also bad when they come in liquid or otherwise highly digestible and fast absorbing foods. Also sucrose, which is table sugar, is indeed also 50% fructose.
- tptacek 2mo ago
  This isn't true. Your body breaks sucrose into fructose and sucrose almost instantaneously; in fact, sucrose is so easy to break down that it happens in Coke bottles. Fructose is bad for you, but you're getting just as much of it from table sugar as you would from HFCS.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - switchbak 2mo ago
    "breaks sucrose into fructose and glucose almost instantaneously" - I presume what you meant to write? And that's absolutely true. I think it's easy to hate (more) on HFCS because it literally says "high fructose" in it, and thus easy to come to that conclusion.
    - tptacek 2mo ago
      Yeah sorry, so many -croses and -coses!
- vel0city 2mo ago
  HFCS is a mixture of fructose and ~~sucrose~~ glucose. If it was pure fructose it wouldn't be as an effective of cane sugar replacement.
  - maxerickson 2mo ago
    Fructose mixed with glucose, not sucrose (the same typo is in several comments here). Sucrose is composed of glucose and fructose linked together. When corn starch is processed, the produced syrup is nearly 100% glucose. Because fructose tastes sweeter, lots of corn syrup is further processed, converting much of the glucose into fructose, hence the name high fructose corn syrup.
QuercusMax 2mo ago
I remember watching a video (something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo, but probably not that exact one) where they did the analysis and determined that Mexican cane-sugar coke contains the exact same proportion of sugars as HFCS coke - and it's because of the chemistry of how the sugars break apart in the presence of acid in the liquid. So in theory an extremely fresh mexican coke might be different, but in practice you're getting the same thing.
porridgeraisin 2mo ago
Not really other than the micronutrient dimension which is not relevant in most commercial preparations. What matters most is the other stuff you're having it with. You want to have fiber _at the same time_ as refined carbs/any kind of sugar/jaggery/honey/palm sugar/... In a coke you're just getting sugar and water which is terrible.
tptacek 2mo ago
No. They're metabolically equivalent. "High fructose" corn syrup is "high" relative to normal corn syrup, not relative to sugar, some of the HFCS formulae in packaged food has less fructose than table sugar, and, most importantly, your body is a well-oiled machine at breaking down sucrose, which is cleaved enzymatically immediately upon it entering your gut; there's no material slowdown in digestion from eating sucrose. (The key thing to remember is that sugar is bad for you; it's not that HFCS is good, but rather that cane sugar is just as harmful.) Two fun additional notes: * There's a video somewhere showing how cane sugar breaks down into fructose and glucose in bottled sodas anyways, and * Perhaps unsurprisingly, taste testers can't reliably distinguish between HFCS and cane sugar formula Coke.
- vel0city 2mo ago
  Yeah, a big part of the flavor difference between Mexican Coke and American Coke really comes down to the extra sodium in the Mexican Coke variety. You can get the US formula coke with cane sugar during Passover in markets with a high Jewish population. Taste it, it'll be practically the same as HFCS US Coke and not like Mexican Coke. Because, it has the same amount of salt as the US variety.
  - TylerE 2mo ago
    The bigger difference, imo, is that Coke just tastes better out of a glass bottle. Orifice size and shape makes a big difference in taste and mouthfeel.
    - vel0city 2mo ago
      I definitely agree that the container can make a big difference on how we can perceive beverages, and I don't doubt it's a part of the experience fans of Mexican coke enjoy even if they don't realize that's playing a role.
  - selectodude 2mo ago
    Ironically, the coca-cola in Mexico uses high fructose corn syrup. It's the Mexican coke they export to the US that has sugar - which breaks down to glucose and fructose in the presence of phosphoric acid anyway. Anyway, the only thing Mexican about Mexican Coke is the "Medio Litro" on the bottle.
mschild 2mo ago
I'm unaware of any large scale studies on this topic. Both are pretty bad health-wise and should be avoided in regular large doses by anyone regardless. I pointed it out because its often used instead of sugar for cost reasons.

smolder 2mo ago

I don't think so. I've seen things that say fructose has worse effects than sucrose in terms of spiking your blood sugar or whatever but that's minor compared to the overall impact of any sugar. Sugar is sweet because we were once starving beasts and calories were good. Now it's a hazard. And corn syrup gets dumped into all kinds of processed foods in the US because of how cheap it is, and how much people like sweet stuff. We have shaped our food culture in a way to maximize short term profit at the expense of making everyone fat and disabled longer term.

vel0city 2mo ago
> I've seen things that say fructose has worse effects than sucrose Sucrose is 50% fructose. HFCS is ~42-55% fructose. Its "high fructose" compared to just straight corn syrup, which is 0% fructose (practically pure glucose).
modo_mario 2mo ago
>I've seen things that say fructose has worse effects than sucrose in terms of spiking your blood sugar or whatever but that's minor compared to the overall impact of any sugar That sounds pretty major. You can be not in the slightest bit obese and the blood sugar spikes will still be bad for your brain, your insulin regulation, etc as far as I understand it.

cung 2mo ago

Yes, you get pure fructose which is processed by your liver. With normal sugar you get a mix of fructose and sucrose, so less fructose. Excessive consumption of fructose leads to fatty liver and is just generally bad for you.

fl4regun 2mo ago
it is not "pure fructose" - they have different levels but usually it is 50% fructose syrups. Lots of fruits have similar ratios to that too, fructose isn't the problem so much as the quantity of it being ingested, but high quantities are glucose or other sugars are also bad when they come in liquid or otherwise highly digestible and fast absorbing foods. Also sucrose, which is table sugar, is indeed also 50% fructose.
tptacek 2mo ago
This isn't true. Your body breaks sucrose into fructose and sucrose almost instantaneously; in fact, sucrose is so easy to break down that it happens in Coke bottles. Fructose is bad for you, but you're getting just as much of it from table sugar as you would from HFCS.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- switchbak 2mo ago
  "breaks sucrose into fructose and glucose almost instantaneously" - I presume what you meant to write? And that's absolutely true. I think it's easy to hate (more) on HFCS because it literally says "high fructose" in it, and thus easy to come to that conclusion.
  - tptacek 2mo ago
    Yeah sorry, so many -croses and -coses!
vel0city 2mo ago
HFCS is a mixture of fructose and ~~sucrose~~ glucose. If it was pure fructose it wouldn't be as an effective of cane sugar replacement.
- maxerickson 2mo ago
  Fructose mixed with glucose, not sucrose (the same typo is in several comments here). Sucrose is composed of glucose and fructose linked together. When corn starch is processed, the produced syrup is nearly 100% glucose. Because fructose tastes sweeter, lots of corn syrup is further processed, converting much of the glucose into fructose, hence the name high fructose corn syrup.

QuercusMax 2mo ago

I remember watching a video (something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo, but probably not that exact one) where they did the analysis and determined that Mexican cane-sugar coke contains the exact same proportion of sugars as HFCS coke - and it's because of the chemistry of how the sugars break apart in the presence of acid in the liquid. So in theory an extremely fresh mexican coke might be different, but in practice you're getting the same thing.

porridgeraisin 2mo ago

Not really other than the micronutrient dimension which is not relevant in most commercial preparations. What matters most is the other stuff you're having it with. You want to have fiber _at the same time_ as refined carbs/any kind of sugar/jaggery/honey/palm sugar/... In a coke you're just getting sugar and water which is terrible.

tptacek 2mo ago

No. They're metabolically equivalent. "High fructose" corn syrup is "high" relative to normal corn syrup, not relative to sugar, some of the HFCS formulae in packaged food has less fructose than table sugar, and, most importantly, your body is a well-oiled machine at breaking down sucrose, which is cleaved enzymatically immediately upon it entering your gut; there's no material slowdown in digestion from eating sucrose. (The key thing to remember is that sugar is bad for you; it's not that HFCS is good, but rather that cane sugar is just as harmful.) Two fun additional notes: * There's a video somewhere showing how cane sugar breaks down into fructose and glucose in bottled sodas anyways, and * Perhaps unsurprisingly, taste testers can't reliably distinguish between HFCS and cane sugar formula Coke.

vel0city 2mo ago
Yeah, a big part of the flavor difference between Mexican Coke and American Coke really comes down to the extra sodium in the Mexican Coke variety. You can get the US formula coke with cane sugar during Passover in markets with a high Jewish population. Taste it, it'll be practically the same as HFCS US Coke and not like Mexican Coke. Because, it has the same amount of salt as the US variety.
- TylerE 2mo ago
  The bigger difference, imo, is that Coke just tastes better out of a glass bottle. Orifice size and shape makes a big difference in taste and mouthfeel.
  - vel0city 2mo ago
    I definitely agree that the container can make a big difference on how we can perceive beverages, and I don't doubt it's a part of the experience fans of Mexican coke enjoy even if they don't realize that's playing a role.
- selectodude 2mo ago
  Ironically, the coca-cola in Mexico uses high fructose corn syrup. It's the Mexican coke they export to the US that has sugar - which breaks down to glucose and fructose in the presence of phosphoric acid anyway. Anyway, the only thing Mexican about Mexican Coke is the "Medio Litro" on the bottle.

mschild 2mo ago

I'm unaware of any large scale studies on this topic. Both are pretty bad health-wise and should be avoided in regular large doses by anyone regardless. I pointed it out because its often used instead of sugar for cost reasons.