Corn-A-Phobia

Thank you, Corn Grower's Association! If it weren’t for your latest commercials, we as a society would be still be stuck with another ridiculous nutrition myth circulating in our midst. The commercials that you have produced are fabulous.

Normally, and appropriately, I would give a skeptical eye towards any lobby-backed industry spouting nutrition information for its own self-marketing purposes. But not this time. These recent commercials have cleared up one of the most common misconceptions about one of the most widely-used food products: high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

It has gotten a quite a bad rap for far too long. Mothers across America have shunned their children from it. Self-proclaimed nutrition gurus have avoided it like the plague. Hopefully, with these latest commercials the “corn-a-phobics” will begin to lighten up (proverbially).

As a dietitian, I am acutely aware of how one nightly news report or one “expert’s” opinion can turn into a full-blown, widespread pandemic of false information. It starts out very innocently but before you know it, society has inducted a complete theoretical change in their behavior based on false information. White bread is bad, potatoes turn to sugar, caffeine gives you cancer, calcium causes kidney stones.

The list goes on and on and to my chagrin, people adopt these schools of thought. The truth is that sound bites don’t tell the full story. But how can the average consumer listen to these claims and weed through them without access to the scientific resources from whence they came? I’m sympathetic, truly. So for this one item, I’m very thankful that the truth is out in the open - high fructose corn syrup is not the devil.

In case you haven’t seen them, the state the facts: HFCS is not intrinsically less healthier than other sweeteners, it has the exact same amount of calories as sugar, it is made from corn, has no artificial ingredients, and is okay when eaten in moderation. So, why the controversy?

Over the past 30 years, use of HFCS in the food supply has increased more than 1000%. In the United States, 64% of the population is overweight and 30% of those people are obese. Therefore, a conclusion was drawn that HFCS was the culprit. But, researchers hesitate to put the blame fully on HFCS, but rather on the fact that the American diet has become increasingly higher in all sugars, with larger portions eaten, and less physical activity.

The bottom line: eating a high calorie diet and not exercising won’t make up for reading labels to solely avoid this one ingredient of HFCS. So, take a deep breath and go back to examining labels for the Real Slim Shady: saturated fat… and its evil cousin trans fat.