What is HFCS?

Ever since the US government started taxing the import of cane sugar and subsidizing the domestic corn industry with billions of dollars every year, the sweetener industry turned to corn-based sweeteners as an alternative to cane sugar. Although corn itself, depending on type of corn plant and the time it’s harvested, contains little sweetness, commercial processes have been developed to convert corn starch into a variety of sweeteners.

All conversion processes follow these two steps:

1. Corn starch is separated from genetically engineered corn through mechanical abrasion and chemical softening of the kernels with sulfurous acid.
2. Resulting starch is then converted into corn syrup by undergoing hydrolysis. During this process, the starch is either heated in a solution of hydrochloric acid or passed through a special enzyme.

During hydrolysis, the long chains of glucose that make up the starch, are broken down into smaller chains called maltose (2 glucose units), maltotriose (3 glucose units) and maltodextrins (4 or more glucose units). Complete hydrolysis of corn starch results in dextrose, which is just a fancy name for glucose molecules produced from starch.

The liquid that’s left over after hydrolysis is stopped is called corn syrup. The point at which hydrolysis is terminated determines the sweetness, also known as dextrose equivalent (DE) value, of the syrup. Hence corn syrups with higher dextrose equivalent values are sweeter and contain more unlinked glucose molecules. If corn syrup with DE value between 20 and 36 is dried to contain less that 10% water, it becomes corn syrup solids or soluble corn fiber. Soluble corn fiber, just as any other fiber, is not digested in the body but is fermented by bacteria in the digestive tract, cutting the number of calories from 4 per gram of corn syrup to 2 per gram of corn syrup solids. The key thing to remember here is that whenever corn syrup is listed in the ingredients list of a product, that syrup simply contains glucose in its single-molecule or chained form.

If you have read our “What is Fructose?” article, you would already be screaming “But glucose is good for you! It’s what all of our cells use for energy! I don’t understand why corn syrup is bad for me.” And you would be right. If you dismiss the fact that corn syrup is made from genetically engineered corn - which has recently been linked to organ failure in rats – through application of acids and enzymes, you can conclude that corn syrup is simply a liquid containing glucose and be done with it. But don’t forget that corn syrup is not the only sweetener derived from corn…

This is where High Fructose Corn Syrup (which is also known as HFCS, High Fructose Syrup, Isoglucose, Maize Syrup and Glucose/Fructose Syrup) enters the picture. Shortly after manufacturers learned how to make normal corn syrup, they realized that even syrups with high DE value were only 60% as sweet as cane sugar. Although such low sweetness could be acceptable in products such as cookies, ice cream and backs of envelope stamps, consumers would not settle for sodas which were less sweet than the ones made with cane sugar.

Under pressure from the soft drinks industry, corn mills realized that to make cheap corn syrup as sweet as, or even sweeter than sugar, they could convert the glucose in corn syrup to fructose using additional enzymes. After all of the glucose in corn syrup is converted to fructose, the resulting liquid is mixed with high DE corn syrup to produce HFCS. Hence, High Fructose Corn Syrup consists of fructose and glucose, mixed in different proportions. The most common varieties of HFCS contain the following ratios of fructose to glucose: 42% / 58%, 55% / 45% and even 90% / 10%.

As was mentioned in our “What is Fructose?” and other articles, consumption of high amounts of corn fructose has been associated with a host of problems, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, hypertension and insulin resistance. It should become clear now that it’s not corn syrup that’s the enemy, but HFCS.

To sum it all up, here is a list of all corn-derived sweeteners that may appear on your products’ labels:

• Corn Syrup - a liquid containing chemically-derived glucose (ie: dextrose) molecules which may be linked into longer chains. Dextrose Equivalent value indicates the proportion of single-molecule glucose present in the syrup.
• Corn Syrup Solids / Soluble Corn Fiber - powder resulting from drying corn-syrup to moisture content of less than 10%. Unlike corn-syrup, soluble corn fiber is not directly digested in our bodies but is fermented by bacteria in our gut.
• High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS, Isoglucose, High Fructose Syrup, Maize Syrup, Glucose/Fructose Syrup) - corn syrup in which some of the glucose molecules have been converted to fructose using enzymes. This is the worst kind of corn-derived sweeteners.
• Dextrose - a single molecule of glucose resulting from hydrolysis of corn starch.
• Maltose - two glucose molecules joined together, resulting from hydrolysis of corn starch.
• Maltotriose – three glucose molecules joined together, resulting from hydrolysis of corn starch.
• Maltodextrin - four or more glucose molecules joined together, resulting from hydrolysis of corn starch.

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