“High Fructose Corn Syrup: A Revolution in the Making
(Parts I and II )”
Bee Culture (June and July 2004), Vol. 132 (5,6)
By
Malcolm T. Sanford
It was during my stint as a
graduate student at the University of Georgia that I attended my first
convention of the American Beekeeping Federation.1 I recently became a 31-year member of that
organization and have participated at most of its national meetings during my
active career as an extension Apiculturist.
I got many ideas from those conventions, but that first one sticks in my
mind. At one of the booths in the
commercial exhibition area, I saw a fountain running a clear liquid. The person manning the display proudly
informed me this was a brand new bee food on the market. It was the first time I was to hear the words
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Little
did I know that I was seeing and participating in a revolution in-the-making.
Over the next few years, HFCS
invaded commercial beekeeping and more than a few sideliners and hobbyist
operations in the bargain. The material
had a lot to recommend it. It was
inexpensive to purchase (cheaper than sugar), especially in large
quantities. Most important, though, it
came in liquid form. This threatened
(joyously so for anyone who had fed many a colony of bees like myself) to end
one of beekeeping’s most time-consuming and
labor-intensive tasks, making cane syrup by mixing usually by hand cane sugar
crystals and water. This was somewhat of
a two-edged sword in the early days, because it meant that the larger the
volume the less expensive the feed.
Smaller operations were often put at a disadvantage because the material
was cheaper and more easily available in large (tanker truck) loads. Today smaller volumes are available, but at a
cost. A local supplier will sell a
5-gallon bucket (you bring the bucket) for a little less than $10.00.
As beekeepers began to
convert to HFCS, several things became apparent. One was that the syrup came in two types from
the manufacturer, HFCS 42 and HFCS 55.
The number refers to the amount of fructose solids present in the
material. For a period there was a
debate in beekeeping circles about the merits of both products. HFCS 42 was less expensive and appeared to
provide the bees with all that they needed.
However, the fact that it had fewer solids meant that a specific volume
of the 42 variety was less nutritious than its HFCS 55 cousin. In addition, the 42 variety, because of the
way it is manufactured (older technology), may have a number of “contaminant
sugars” that 55 does not. Finally, it is
difficult if not impossible to recover HFCS 42 should it crystallize. This is apparently due to the larger amount
of glucose (dextrose) present than in 55. Thus, the beekeeper must ensure that the bees
consume it fairly quickly, especially in colder weather. My most recent information is that the vast
majority of beekeepers use HFCS 55, whereas the 42 variety is only employed, if
at all, in the southern
HFCS is made from corn. It is the
inevitable result of a very large corn-growing industry in the
Sweetness is the bottom line
for HFCS. Fructose is sweeter tasting
than sucrose (cane sugar) or glucose (dextrose or grape sugar), as well as most
other sugars commonly in use. Thus, less
of it is needed to increase sweetness.
Honey is such a sweet product because it too contains a high amount of
fructose. Chemically speaking honey is
very similar to HFCS. This brings into
play another situation corresponding to the arrival of HFCS, economic
adulteration of honey.
Because of its relatively
high price, honey has been the target of adulteration for centuries. In an effort to make a profit, there are few
strategies more economically rewarding than adding some cheap ingredient to
honey, and charging a higher price for the whole shebang as if it was a pure
product. Because of its chemical nature,
HFCS is almost the perfect material to adulterate honey. Why not add a material selling for 14 cents a
pound to honey and sell the resultant product at forty cents? And if its worth
doing at that price level, think of the profit margins at today’prices.
For some folks, this is
simply too good a proposition to pass up.
According to a study by Dr. Gary Fairchild at the University of Florida
and funded by the National Honey Board, within the
range of the observed data, a one percent increase in quantity or supply
(adulterated or not) results in a producer price decrease of 5.07 percent and a
retail decrease of 3.88 percent.3
The bottom line, he says, is the simple fact that expanding
supply (from any source) results in a negative price response. When this comes from adulterated product, it
is just plain wrong and illegal, hurting industry participants at all levels of
the market, from producer (price) to consumer (adulterated product).
Honey adulteration using HFCS
was especially rampant in the late 1980s and 1990s, when it was virtually
impossible for regulators to determine that honey had in fact been adulterated
(in some cases up to 80%) with HFCS.
This practice was so epidemic that the American Beekeeping Federation
developed a program of testing suspect honey samples sent in by
beekeepers. This was only possible,
however, through the efforts of Dr. Jonathon White,4
who literally came out of retirement to develop a reasonable testing
procedure. According to the Syndicat des Producteurs
de Miel de France, “It is only when
the result of the mathematical formula is below 5% that it is deemed certain
that a truly natural honey is being dealt with. This technique has become
the official method for the Association of Official Analytical Chemists,
registered in 1991 under the n° 991-41. It is used throughout the world.”5 This
landmark research led to a curbing of HFCS adulteration, and was responsible
for putting out of business some of the major outfits engaged in this deceptive
practice.6 At least one
company now aggressively markets this testing procedure.7
Dr. White’s test
uses isotope ratio analysis (Stable Carbon Isotope Ratio Analysis or SCIRA) and
is based on an interesting and simple premise.
It turns out that plants assemble their sugars differently depending on
their evolutionary history. Honey generally
comes from what are called “flowering plants,”or the
angiosperms of the plant world. One
division or class of these plants is known as dicotyledons
or simply dicots.
They are named because they have two seed leaves, but for bees and
beekeepers they are important because of their sexual organs, flowers that
produce pollen and nectar. Another class
of the angiosperms is called monocotyledons or monocots. This includes the grasses; they have one seed
leaf and do not produce classical “flowers.”
The dicots assemble or manufacture their
sugars differently than the monocots. Thus,
by comparing the carbon ratios in resultant sugars using isotope analysis, one
can determine if a substance like honey comes from the nectar of a dicot or comes from a grass like corn (HFCS). Legitimate honey in the vast majority of
cases comes only from dicots. Sugar cane too comes from a grass. It is mostly sucrose, however, and requires
an enzyme from the bees (invertase) to produce a
product rich in one of its components, fructose (fruit sugar). Thus, cane sugar syrup, modified and then
stored by bees as a part of the honey crop (in supers), is also considered a
honey adulterant.
Although on the surface both
sugar cane syrup and HFCS appear similar, can it be taken for granted that the
use or “metabolism” of these products by honey bees is the same and/or there is
no risk involved in using them? This is
a complex question and to my knowledge there is no specific answer developed
for honey bees. From a users standpoint, after almost four decades of use by
beekeepers, it must be concluded that there seems to be little risk involved.
On the other hand, astute
observation in the field by beekeepers reveals some interesting
conclusions. Comparing their use of the
two main bee foods, cane sugar syrup and HFCS, has convinced some that the two
foods do in fact function differently.
Thus, several use them in distinct ways:
cane syrup is employed to help colonies build population and comb,
whereas HFCS is used simply to maintain populations. Intuitively this makes sense, given that
nectar, responsible in nature for building colony populations, is mostly
sucrose just like cane syrup. It
requires the bees to actively invert the sugar using their own enzyme
system. HFCS on the other hand does
not. Questions still persist, however,
at least in this writer’s mind. Does the
stimulation provided by the sucrose of cane sugar make for a bigger and better
colony buildup and comb building than does HFCS, which requires no enzyme to be
added by the insects? And what
differences, although extremely subtle, might be seen among colonies fed nectar
or cane sugar or HFCS, given they have distinct stable carbon isotope ratios?
HFCS is the result of
processing corn into another product.
There are two ways this can be accomplished, through either acid or
enzyme hydrolysis. The process most used
employs enzymes just like honey bees do when they convert (invert) sucrose from
nectar or cane syrup into its two principle components, fructose and glucose by
adding the enzyme invertase.
According to the Corn
Refiners Association, “Corn syrup technology advanced significantly with the
introduction of enzyme-hydrolyzed products. In 1921, crystalline dextrose
hydrate was introduced. Then in the mid-1950's, the technology for commercially
preparing low conversion products such as maltodextrin
and low DE syrups was developed. The purification and crystallization of
dextrose meant for the first time that corn based sweeteners could compete in
some markets that had been the sole domain of the sugar industry.
“The next developments
involved enzyme catalyzed isomerization of dextrose
to fructose. The first commercial shipment of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
took place in 1967. The fructose content of the syrup was around 15 percent.
Further research enabled the industry to develop a higher conversion and the
first commercial shipment of HFCS-42 or 42 percent fructose syrup took place a
year later. Further refinements in the process were developed in the late
1970's and by the mid 1980's, HFCS became the
sweetener of choice for the soft drink industry in the
The use of HFCS in soft
drinks really set the stage for the current consumption trends, and the
technology to produce the product continues to improve: “High
fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a primary sweetening agent, is currently produced
in a long, multistep process under highly exacting
processing conditions. To obtain commodity scale quantities of a fructose-rich
(55 percent) corn syrup mixture, which has a sweetness equivalent to sucrose,
manufacturers must recycle the glucose rich stream from an ion exchange
separation step many times. This entire process requires that the active enzyme
(glucose isomerase, or GI) be immobilized and that the process be conducted
under precise temperature and pH conditions.
“Goal: To develop a stable cross-linked
crystalline CLEC® enzyme form of glucose
isomerase (GI). The additional thermostability of the CLEC® form of the GI should
enable
a more direct conversion of glucose to fructose syrup and eliminate the
chromatography and water evaporation steps from HFCS processing.”9
Although
the vast majority of HFCS is produced via enzymes, there continues to be some
manufactured by the older technology, acid hydrolysis.10 Some of this material (called in some
cases “off spec,” and thus rejected by food manufacturers) may still be
available and has been found to be damaging to honey bees in
The
first part of this series discusses the rise of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
use in beekeeping and some of the consequences of this new bee food for the
apicultural industry. In addition, it
reveals a little of the history of corn processing and specifics of corn syrup
manufacture. In the second part, I will
describe the ubiquitous use of HFCS in the human food chain, and what the
future might hold for this amazingly successful food product.
References:
1.
http://www.abfnet.org/ American Beekeeping
Federation web site accessed April 20, 2004.
2.
http://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
Environmental Working Group web site accessed April 20, 2004.
3.
Fairchild,
Gary F., John P. Nichols and Oral Capps, Jr.
2003. "Observations on Economic Adulteration of High-Value Food
Products: The Honey Case." Journal of Food Distribution Research
34(2): 38-45.
4.
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/speccolls/FindingAids/white.html
Penn State Libraries web site accessed April 19, 2004.
5.
http://www.apiservices.com/spmf/adulteration.htm
Apiservices web site accessed April 19, 2004.
6.
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/departs/1997/397_irs.html
FDA Investigations web site accessed April 20, 2004.
7.
http://www.iso-analytical.com/page9.html
Isoanalytical web page accessed April 20, 2004.
8.
http://www.corn.org/web/history.htm
Corn Refiners Assocation web site accessed April 20,
2004.
9.
http://www.oit.doe.gov/agriculture/factsheets/corn_syrup_processing.pdf
Office of Industrial Technologies Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy U.S. Department of Energy web site accessed
April 20, 2004.
10.
http://www.corn.org/web/history.htm
Corn Refiners Association web site accessed April 20, 2004.
11.
http://apis.ifas.ufl.edu/apis97/apfeb97.htm#3
Apis Newsletter web site, February 1997, accessed
February 20, 2004.
High Fructose Corn Syrup: A Revolution in the Making
(Part II)
By
Malcolm T. Sanford
Last month I discussed how
using High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has revolutionized one of the most labor
intensive and messy jobs in beekeeping, mixing and providing food to bees. One of the reasons for this is that HFCS is
less expensive than honey and often sugar cane as well. This certainly is true if one factors in the
costs of mixing by hand cane sugar and water to make sugar syrup. The low cost is only true, however, because
of the vast scale of the highly subsidized corn-producing industry, and new
technological advances to process the corn’s starch (complex sugars) into its
simpler sugars like fructose and glucose (dextrose) as I discussed last
month. The driving force to reduce
manufacturing costs of HFCS continues to be use of the material in the human
food chain.
A few years ago, research
showed that diets high in fats and a substance called “cholesterol” were found
to be responsible for a condition called atherosclerosis, clogging and the
arteries leading to heart attacks and strokes.
A landmark work in this area, the Framingham Study, revolutionized how
physicians looked at fat and cholesterol in the diet.1
From the
The food industry quickly
picked up on this trend. Suddenly, the
words “fat free” and “no cholesterol” were found everywhere. My favorite continues to be “cholesterol
free- never had it, never will” on foods of vegetable origin. Left out of this message is the fact that
cholesterol is an animal product; it never will be found in vegetables; as such
this claim is misleading and redundant at best.
Also left out in the cacophony was the fact that people, as animals,
make their own cholesterol. It doesn’t
come just from foods containing the substance.
Certain foods containing fat and cholesterol, nevertheless, were
immediately suspect, like eggs and cheese (dairy products), and it was not
recommended to consume much of them, if at all.
As one can imagine, the egg and dairy industry were not happy with this
situation.
Drawn into the “no fat” and
“no cholesterol” fads were a variety of institutions, including the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. From this came the now infamous food pyramid,
which showed that instead of a lot of animal fats, people should instead
consume complex carbohydrates (starches) like bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes. There are many now who are reconsidering how
to draw the pyramid as fats and proteins are no longer considered quite as
“bad” nor carbohydrates quite as “good” as noted by the Messenger-Inquirer
concerning suggestions to the USDA: “The national debate on carbohydrates was
reflected, with carb-friendly industries cautioning
against sticking them with the dreaded top of the pyramid -- the smallest slot,
reserved for foods deemed less healthy. Walnut growers were the most prolific,
with more than 20 letters touting the nut's alpha-linolenic
acid, an essential fatty acid that cannot be manufactured by the body.”3
There ‘s a problem with no fat foods; they don’t taste very
good. The food industry, in search of
something to improve the taste of its products, while reducing or eliminating
fats, came to the conclusion that the best way was to sweeten the product
line. HFCS is a perfect vehicle for
this, being cheap and readily available.
The result of this is that almost all processed foods have some amount
of HFCS. These include things like “no
fat” salad dressing. It’s also found in
things not normally thought to contain sweets at all: pizza, yogurt, and beer.
Enter the newest thing to
catch the public’s and physician’s attention, the obesity epidemic. People are over weight because they eat more
calories than they burn. Surprise,
carbohydrates are a big reason for this; they contain a lot of energy and if it
isn’t used up, it turns to fat. Added
weight also brings on other conditions like diabetes, the inability to maintain
a balanced sugar level in the blood, often directly influenced through
consumption of carbohydrates.
In an effort to loose weight
some are re-examining the wisdom that fats and cholesterol are all bad. Suddenly, an old, but now resurrected dietary
regimen proposed by Dr. Atkins has taken hold.
This states that carbohydrates must be minimized and one can often do
that by substituting proteins and fats.
Foods like eggs and cheese, anathema to the “no fat” philosophy, have
been given a new lease on life.4
At the same time, concentrated orange juice, once considered “healthy,” is now being eschewed because it
has a high carbohydrate level; it is full of fructose.
Carbohydrates can measured by
something called the glycemic index (GI). Rick Mendoza, a writer on diabetes concludes:
“Before the development of the glycemic index
beginning in 1981, scientists assumed that our bodies
absorbed and digested simple sugars quickly, producing rapid increases in our
blood glucose level. This was the basis of the advice to avoid sugar, a
proscription recently relaxed by the American Diabetes Association and others.
“Now we know that simple
sugars don't make your blood glucose rise any more
rapidly than some complex carbohydrates do. Of course, simple sugars are simply
empty calories, and still should be minimized for that reason. Many of the glycemic
index results have been surprises. For example, baked potatoes have a glycemic index considerably higher than that of table
sugar.”
Honey and fructose have
moderate to high GI’s. And then there’s
HFCS. Nobody eats this solely of course
and that’s a problem when one attempts to determine health benefits. But there is a lot of it consumed. An article in the Washington Post concludes,
“That switch largely reflects the steady growth of high-fructose corn syrup,
which climbed from zero consumption in 1966 to 62.6 pounds per person in 2001.”6
Much of the HFCS story is not
well studied and so it is “murky,” the title of one article on the World Wide
Web by Weston A. Price Foundation Board Member Linda Forristal,
“Consumers trying to avoid genetically modified foods should avoid HFCS. It is almost certainly made from genetically
modified corn and then it is processed with genetically modified enzymes. I've seen some estimates claiming that
virtually everything—almost 80 percent—of what we eat today has been
genetically modified at some point.
Since the use of HFCS is so prevalent in processed foods, those figures
may be right.
“But there's another reason
to avoid HFCS. Consumers may think that
because it contains fructose—which they associate with fruit, which is a
natural food—that it is healthier than sugar.
A team of investigators at the USDA, led by Dr. Meira
Field, has discovered that this just ain't so.
“Sucrose is composed of
glucose and fructose. When sugar is
given to rats in high amounts, the rats develop multiple health problems,
especially when the rats were deficient in certain nutrients, such as copper. The researchers wanted to know whether it was
the fructose or the glucose moiety that was causing the problems. So they repeated their studies with two
groups of rats, one given high amounts of glucose and one given high amounts of
fructose. The glucose group was
unaffected but the fructose group had disastrous results. The male rats did not
reach adulthood. They had anemia, high
cholesterol and heart hypertrophy—that means that their hearts enlarged until
they exploded. They also had delayed
testicular development. Dr. Field
explains that fructose in combination with copper deficiency in the growing
animal interferes with collagen production.
(Copper deficiency, by the way, is widespread in
"’The medical profession
thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar,’ says Dr. Field, ‘but every
cell in the body can metabolize glucose.
However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of
the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics,
plugged with fat and cirrhotic.’
“HFCS contains more fructose
than sugar and this fructose is more immediately available because it is not
bound up in sucrose. Since the effects
of fructose are most severe in the growing organism, we need to think carefully
about what kind of sweeteners we give to our children. Fruit juices should be strictly avoided—they
are very high in fructose—but so should anything with HFCS.”7
A recent article in the AARP Bulletin has a title, “What’s Worse
Than Sugar.”
According to author M.F. Cohen quoting Dr. George Bray, Professor at
Not so says the Corn Refiners
Institute on its web site, where it put responses to three myths that it sees
in many published reports attacking HFCS:
“
“As a result of this ‘good
food/bad food’ debate, there have been a number of recent inaccurate news
reports regarding a product found in many of the foods we consume each day:
high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
Following is a list of the three major inaccurate ‘myths’ contained in
recent news reports, accompanied by the corrected technical facts:
MYTH #1: Studies performed on pure fructose can immediately be
extrapolated to HFCS.
FACT: HFCS and pure fructose are
not the same product. HFCS is made up of only about half fructose (and
about half glucose). Humans rarely
consume pure fructose. "Fructose in the absence of other dietary sugars is
unrealistic," said John S. White, Ph.D., of White Technical Research
Group. "Fructose has always been in
the human diet and there's nothing extraordinary about it. But it's always found in about a 50 percent
ratio to glucose. The percentage is
what's important, not the total amount of fructose in grams. The sugars have a buffering
effect on one another and don't act independently.” As such, it is scientifically inaccurate
to apply results of studies on pure fructose to HFCS.
MYTH #2: HFCS and table sugar (sucrose) are vastly different
products.
FACT: Table sugar (sucrose) is made up of equal parts
fructose and glucose – essentially the same composition as HFCS. HFCS and sucrose are both 4 calories per
gram, and both contain about an equal amount of sweetness. According to Guy H. Johnson, Ph.D., of
Johnson Nutrition Solutions, LLC, "Once absorbed, the body has no way
of knowing whether a molecule of fructose came from sucrose, HFCS, honey or
fruit. Since the proportion of glucose and fructose in HFCS and sucrose are
similar, these two sweeteners are virtually indistinguishable by the
body."
MYTH #3: A rise in HFCS consumption during the past few decades
has resulted in a rise in the consumption of pure fructose.
FACT: That assertion is patently false. While there has been a rise in HFCS
consumption during the past two decades, there has been a concurrent decrease in the consumption of sucrose during that same
time period. Remember – both HFCS and
sucrose contain about an equal portion of fructose. As a result, the ratio of fructose in the
diet (especially as it relates to HFCS consumption) has not changed
considerably. In fact, a study by the
Office of Special Nutritionals, Food and Drug Administration, found the total
amount of fructose in the diet has remained relatively constant since 1977,
accounting for about 7 to 9 percent of our caloric intake.9
The debate rages on, but I can’t
forget Richard Anderson at the Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville,
MD10 quoted by Mr. Cohen in the AARP article mentioned above as
stating, “High fructose corn syrup is metabolized differently than other sugars
and it has a different effect on health.”
If we also see this in bees, as I discussed in last month’s article, is
it not conceivable there could be a parallel in humans? I am left to conclude no one yet knows for
sure what this revolutionary product really means to either the bees or ourselves.
References:- 12 is the first reference in the second part, 13 is the second and so on.
12. National Library of Medicine JAMA. 1987 Apr 24;257(16):2176-80 . <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3560398&dopt=Abstract>,
accessed May 4, 2004.
13. British Heart Association web site <http://www.bhf.org.uk/professionals/index.asp?secondlevel=72&thirdlevel=945?, accessed May 4, 2004.
14. Messenger-Inquirer web site <http://www.messenger-inquirer.com/news/usworld/7031511.htm>,
accessed May 4, 2004.
15. Atkins Nutritionals web site <http://atkins.com/howto/>, accessed May
4, 2004.
16. <http://www.mendosa.com/wolever.htm>,
accessed May 4, 2004.
17. Washington Post, March 10, 2204, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8003-2003Mar10?language=printer>,
accessed May 4, 2004.
18. Weston A. Price Foundation web site, <http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html>,
accessed May 4, 2004.
19. Cohen, M.F. 2004. AARP Bulletin/April 2004, “What’s
Worse Than Sugar?” pp. 18-19.
20. Corn Refiners web site <http://www.hfcsfacts.com/hfcsmyths.htm>,
accessed May 4, 2004.
21. <http://www.barc.usda.gov/bhnrc/nrfl/nrflsci.html>,
accessed May 4, 2004.