Corn growers look to rename high fructose corn syrup as consumer fears continue to rise.

High fructose corn syrup could soon be known as ‘corn sugar’. The Corn Refiners Association in the US has been on a media campaign recently, aiming at changing the way the public views high fructose corn syrup. According to the Associated Press, consumption of high fructose corn syrup is at a 20 year low, depressed by growing consumer interest in avoiding what many consider to be an unhealthy sweetener. Whether or not high fructose corn syrup is actually worse than other sugars doesn’t seem to be relevant. The Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the US FDA to allow it to rename high fructose corn syrup as ‘corn sugar’ on food labels. Alas, high fructose corn syrup by any other name would still taste as sweet. This renaming business is just the latest and lamest attempt from industrialized food producers to direct how we eat. It always seems that in the fight to change consumer habits in the US, misdirection is the weapon of choice.

The US public has slowly come upon the idea that eating large amounts of high fructose corn syrup is bad. Where did they get this idea? There’s been experimental evidence popping up for years (here’s some recent work at Princeton) and many have pointed out to the correlation between rises in obesity and the rise in use of high fructose corn syrup in the US since the late 1970s. Whether or not these concerns over the sweetener will be confirmed by protracted scientific research doesn’t really matter. Consumers are fleeing high fructose corn syrup for other choices like beet and cane sugar.

For their part, corn growers and refiners have maintained that the body processes high fructose corn syrup the same as it does any other sugar. They have a website pushing the ‘facts’ about corn syrup, which cites its own scientific support. Yet, even as they attempt to persuade us that high fructose corn syrup isn’t as bad as we think, they’ve cut their losses and are looking to rebrand the product. Hence the arrival of corn sugar. They’ve given the new product it’s own website, and have aired commercials which highlight the “high fructose corn syrup is really just corn sugar” angle. Here’s an ABC News segment that summarizes the campaign and gives a brief example:

I, like many, started to wean myself off high fructose corn syrup years ago. It was difficult, the stuff is in nearly everything. Slowly, however, as I tried to find products that didn’t have the ‘corn sugar’ I found that I had to buy products that didn’t have any sweeteners at all. It dawned on me that avoiding high fructose corn syrup just to consume more ‘brown sugar’, ‘cane sugar’, molasses, honey, or agave nectar didn’t make much sense. As we’ve said before, consumers in the US simply eat too much sugar. Honestly, I no longer really care if high fructose corn syrup is worse for you than other sugars, I’m trying to avoid them all.

What I do care about is how companies try to mislead us using names and labels. Rebranding high fructose corn syrup as corn sugar – is that really going to fool people? Probably. We get fooled by labels all the time.

Not to pick on Shady Brook Farms, but here are three misleading parts of their packaging: 1) idyllic farm picture 2)using the ambiguous term 'natural' 3) representing meat-fat ratios by weight rather than calories. In regards to the latter, this meat has 8g of fat for every 112g serving (7%), yet 70 of its 160 calories per serving come from fat (44%).

Here’s one that gets me: fat percentages on meat packing. Ever bought lean meat that was “90/10″ or “93/7″ or “99% fat free”? Meat fat percentages are labeled by weight, but nutritionists have us thinking in calories. 90/10 meat is only 10% fat by weight, but it is typically 40% or more fat if you look at the caloric intake. That’s because a gram of fat has more calories than a gram of muscle. When given the option of labeling fat content by weight or calories, everyone chooses weight. Makes the meat seem leaner, and helps it sell better and typically at a higher price.

But wait there’s more. Look at many meat packages (or any food packages, really) and chances are that you’ll see a picturesque representation of a farm somewhere on it. A little red barn, a silo, some children playing maybe – it’s all very wholesome. It’s also almost always a lie. Industrial farming dominates agriculture in the US. There aren’t a lot of cute little red barns; there are enormous warehouses full of pinned animals, there are fields maintained by pesticides, and there are large corporations instead of family farms.

If you want that idyllic picture of a farm to be a reality, you may be tempted to buy products that are labeled as ‘all-natural’. The US FDA, however, doesn’t really regulate what constitutes ‘natural’. If it’s in the world it’s part of nature…so it’s natural, right? You could check for more meaningful labels such as ‘organic’ or ‘free range’ but you should be aware that those labels come with their own qualifications and limitations. Here’s a pro-animal interpretation of common meat labels, and another more general guide from a different non-profit.

To some degree pointing out the ways that food labels mislead us is too easy. The whole point of the bright colorful packaging is to get people to buy what’s inside. The packaging itself is the first sign that someone’s working to manipulate you. Which maybe means that we should stop buying packaged food, but also could mean we just need to understand and decode what the labels really mean. Corn sugar is just high fructose corn syrup, which is really just an added sugar that a product probably doesn’t need. Or if it does need it to be palatable…why are you choosing to eat it? Keep your eyes open folks, and let me know what other examples you find of misleading packaging. The pursuit of longevity starts with understanding what you are really putting in your body. Eat wise, everyone.

[image credit: Tshirt Insurgency, Shady Brook Farms]
[video credits: ABC News]
[sources: Associated Press, Princeton News]

Scientists have been tinkering with the DNA of commercial food for nearly two decades, and they’ve covered most of the food pyramid. Modern soybeans, cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, rice, and sugarcane have all had their genomes tweaked to serve the human species. Most of the genetically modified (GM) food in the world sprouts on American soil, but the practice is growing in Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and China, to name just a few.

Maybe the strangest part of GM food is that most people have no idea they eat it. The majority of Americans don’t know how it’s done, why it’s done, how it’s regulated, or why they should care. The Grocery Manufacturers of America estimates that 70-75% of all processed foods in your local grocery store contain ingredients from GM plants. Genetically modified food: it’s what’s for dinner.

Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger

So why remix food genomes? It depends. Some GM food is designed to resist diseases, insect attacks, or herbicides regularly used in modern industrial agriculture. Plants can be made hardier and more tolerant to environmental stress such as drought or irregular weather. Crops can be made to mature faster (decreasing their growing time) and rot slower (increasing shelf-life). GM food can also produce higher crop yields, and be engineered to lack unwanted toxins (such as allergens).

But that’s not all. Genetic modification is giving a new meaning to the phrase “super food”. Crops are being engineered to produce more nutrients, vitamins, and all that healthy stuff. Work is also underway to turn plants into little pharmaceutical factories, pumping out desired drugs… is “Pfizer Farm” trademarked yet? And (of course) GM foods are specially tweaked to please your taste buds, engineered to make every edible on your plate that much more appetizing.

The ubiquity of GM foods – that 70-75% statistic – comes from its presence in staple ingredients for processed food. Soybean oil, cottonseed oil and corn syrup are three cornerstones of the Western diet, and each one is mostly likely GM-derived. Everything from bread and cereal to frozen pizza gets a dose, not to mention almost every soda on the market.

So now that it’s already in your body, wanna hear how it’s done?

Gene Cuisine

In olden days, farmers had to modify crop genomes the old fashioned way: selective breeding. At the very least, they had to work with the genes already at their disposal (in their crops). No longer. Genetic engineering lets scientists plop totally new genes – ones that would never naturally occur in corn, for example – into the target species to produce a new effect.

Sort of like skinning a cat, there’s a number of ways to genetically modify a genome. Still, they all share the same principles: first, isolate a gene that does something interesting. Next, insert that gene into a vector: a virus, plasmid, or other stretch of DNA capable of invading a cell’s nucleus. Introduce the vector to the target organism’s cells, and allow the new genes to be incorporated into the original genome.

So who does the remixing? Most of the GM strains available to farmers have been developed, patented and marketed by the agricultural biotech giant Monsanto. If you didn’t just wince at your computer screen, you probably haven’t heard of them. Cue transition to controversy section.

Give Me Spots On My Apples

The heated debates around GM food are tricky to untangle. Monsanto, a biotech company leading the way in creating new food strains, is sort of your prototypical evil corporation. Okay, maybe “evil” is a strong word… Let’s go with “ethically questionable”. In the fine tradition of Chevron and Dow, Monsanto has been accused of every manner of unethical behavior. From dumping hazardous waste to bullying small farms, the company has a pretty nasty laundry list of unsettling policy and action. Worse, lots of higher-ups within the company have occupied positions in the EPA, the Department of Agriculture, etc. One begins to wonder where interests conflict.

As Monsanto is the largest supplier of GM food seeds in the world, criticisms of GM food can be difficult to distinguish from attacks on the corporation itself. Bananas aren’t evil, but United Fruit was. Sure, Monsanto made Agent Orange… but is GM food a boon to mankind, innocuous but for the company that weilds it? Is it actually safe?

You might be wondering why you’ve never seen GM food labeled with a little “tinkered genome” sticker (I’m thinking a little double-helix would suffice). The FDA has approved all GM foods, and doesn’t consider the genetic engineering to pose any major risks to your health. Critics claim there haven’t been any long-term studies done (GM food has only been around for 20 years), that supportive research was biased or inadequate, and that the FDA rushed the approval. Others feel that GM foods might impact whole ecosystems in unpredictable ways, disrupting natural food chains in a sort of domino effect. A few countries – from Hungary to Venezuela – have banned GM foods altogether.

Middle Ground

Unless you’re technophobic by nature (in which case, reading this blog amounts to masochism), it’s hard to deny the benefits of GM foods. In the 90′s, reworking the papaya genome saved Hawaii from having a staple crop wiped out by a virus. GM foods resistant to insect attack actually require fewer pesticides than their natural counterparts, a seeming win for the environment. Stress-resistant GM crops can survive droughts and disease, warding off famine in developing countries across the globe. Frankly, it’s amazing that we can remix our food to be more nutritious, disease- and pest-resistant, faster-growing, longer-lasting, and tastier to boot.

Like all of genetic engineering (say, artificial life), GM foods show the power of the modern biotech revolution. They have the potential to make us healthier, improve ag production, make pharmaceuticals, and survive hell and high water. Maybe future crops could recycle more nutrients back into dirt and help avert the looming topsoil crisis. What kinds of GM foods would you want to see?

But the benefits don’t erase the legitimate concerns over health and the environment. I wouldn’t want Chevron running the EPA; is having Monsanto officials working at the FDA all that different? Ecosystems are so intricately complex and interconnected that it’s difficult to determine the consequences of even small changes (the most important aspect of endangered species conservation). GM foods are so new and exciting, it’s possible that our best science isn’t yet capable of understanding its long-term consequences (making regulation a dicey process). And with Monsanto patenting every crop they remix, it won’t be long until they own the genome of every fruit and vegetable you eat.

So that’s what all the fuss is about.  Given their widespread (and spreading) use, it’s important to keep you, dear consumer, up to date on the food that hits your plate. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.