Foods With High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) Contains More Kcal Than Mentioned On Label?

Hgreen56

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Q: Now let’s talk about the difference between high fructose corn syrup and fructose found in fruit.



RP: The funny thing about that is if you look at the fructose and glucose content, it seems to be not very different from any old sugar, maybe 45/55 percent, rather than a 50/50 balance fructose and glucose. But people actually thought to analyze what is in the stuff (other than fructose and glucose). And it turns out that the reason people get fat on soft drinks that contain HFCS is that it contains a huge amount of calories that are neither fructose or glucose. It’s the syrupy component, basically a type of corn starch or corn syrup, which they don't count because it isn’t fructose or glucose. But, it’s there, as calories.

what does this mean? that foods with high-fructose corn syrup like coke, soda, icecream, Cereal Bars, Breads, candy etc etcc contains more kcal & sugar than mentioned on label?
 

Jessie

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I think if it's filtered properly it's not much different then sucrose. A big portion of my sugar calories come from coke, just standard HFCS coke. I'll get the real sugar pepsi when they're available, but my store is frequently sold out of those. I don't sweat it much though. I've not noticed any weight gain from using the stuff sweetened with HFCS.
 

Grapelander

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RP (41:33): they analyzed it (HFCS) and found it contained polysaccharide material containing 4 to 5 times the calories that the original sugar had.
 

rzero

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There have been some serious doubts about this lab analysis expressed on this forum. I don't recall the exact details, but you can search for yourself. The criticism of the method and lack of repeatability made me very skeptical of its validity.

If this is true, imagine the potential class-action lawsuits. If there are any lawyers here, look into it...

This would mean a can of Coke could have 750 Calories.
 

rei

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no it does not mean that. It means the polysaccharide is a large molecule with that many times more calories. But it is found in very small of total amounts of stuff. I would be surprised if there was 10% more calories than advertised, the real issue to focus on what is the health effect of these polysaccharides besides calories.
 

rzero

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no it does not mean that. It means the polysaccharide is a large molecule with that many times more calories. But it is found in very small of total amounts of stuff. I would be surprised if there was 10% more calories than advertised, the real issue to focus on what is the health effect of these polysaccharides besides calories.


Carbohydrate Analysis of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) Containing Commercial Beverages
The carbohydrate analysis of HFCS is based on methods which first hydrolyze the syrup into simple sugars before quantitative analysis. We have examined whether HFCS can be hydrolyzed under the same conditions suitable for hydrolyzing sucrose. A new GC/MS method for the quantitation of fructose and glucose as their methoxyamine derivatives and 13C labeled recovery standards was used to determine the carbohydrate content of HFCS in 10 commercial beverages. Samples were analyzed before and after acid hydrolysis. The carbohydrate contents in commercial beverages determined without acid hydrolysis were in agreement with the carbohydrate contents provided on the food labels. However, the carbohydrate contents of beverages determined after acid hydrolysis were substantially (4–5 fold) higher than the listed values of carbohydrates. As fructose and glucose in HFCS may exist as monosaccharides, disaccharides and/or oligosaccharides, analysis of the carbohydrate content of HFCS containing samples may yield widely different results depending on the degree of hydrolysis of the oligosaccharides. With inclusion of mild acid hydrolysis, all samples showed significantly higher fructose and glucose content than the listed values of carbohydrates on the nutrition labels. The underestimation of carbohydrate content in beverages may be a contributing factor in the development of obesity in children.
 

rzero

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Here is a skeptical comment from another site:
I would also note that the FASEB abstract you present has never been published in a peer reviewed journal. The fact is the method that the abstract used to determine the amount of sugar has not been validated as an appropriate method to determine carbohydrate content; acid hydrolysis has the ability to create small molecules that would be inappropriately identified as sugars. HPLC is the more appropriate method and has been validated and used for several decades.
 

yashi

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Thanks @rzero for digging that up. Seems like that is what Peat is referring to. The real question now becomes how many calories the body actually gets from these sugars. Just that it hasn't been published in a peer review journal doesn't necessarily mean there isn't validity to it (I just listened to a podcast with haidut and how often he runs into problems with his studies when the results are going too much against current dogma). But yeah, certainly interesting to think about the methods that our calorie measurements actually come from.
 

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