Milling & Baking News - April 6, 2021 - 21

per gram, whether HFCS, sugar, honey, agave or other sweeteners.

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glucose and 10% unhydrolized sucrose.
Honey is about 48% fructose and 52%
glucose. " Regular " corn syrup is 100%
glucose. Concentrations of fructose over
50% make HFCS sweeter than sugar, but
not as sweet as many expect. The word
" high " in high-fructose corn syrup is
somewhat of a misnomer, especially in
the case of HFCS42, which is only about
92% as sweet as sugar.
The main differences between sucrose and HFCS, according to the Food
and Drug Administration, is that HFCS
contains water. Both glucose and fructose are monosaccharides. In sucrose a
chemical bond joins glucose and fructose
molecules that are broken down rapidly
by stomach acids. HFCS has no such
chemical bond joining glucose and fructose, thus it's a disaccharide. That difference, and how the body subsequently
processes sucrose, glucose and fructose
has fueled much of the debate surrounding HFCS. Adding to the debate is the
fact that HFCS is " manufactured " rather
than occurring naturally in the corn kernel, unlike sugar that occurs naturally
in beets and cane. The " natural " debate
continues today, in part because the
FDA has never defined what constitutes
a " natural " food. Most agree that once
broken down, the human body processes the basic molecules in the same way
whether from sugar or HFCS.
Also important is that nearly all caloric sweeteners have about four calories
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The early years: Growth
HFCS jumped in popularity in the
late 1970s when sugar prices skyrocketed to more than 70¢ a lb. The Coca-Cola
Co.'s use of HFCS to replace sugar in the
1980s to cut costs while it was battling
No. 2 Pepsi-Cola was dramatized in The
History Channel's " Cola Wars " segment
of " The Food That Built America " series,
which aired as recently as March.
" Beverage manufacturers were
looking for alternatives to high sugar
prices, " said Craig Ruffolo, vice president, McKeany-Flavell Co.
Coca-Cola was locked in a battle with
the Pepsi-Cola Co. in the 1970s. Pepsi's
famous " Pepsi Challenge " that showed
consumers preferred the sweeter,
slightly more syrupy taste of Pepsi over
Coke in blind taste tests allowed Pepsi
to begin taking market share from
Coke, although Coca-Cola always has
led in sales. Coca-Cola then embarked
on several changes in the 1980s, including the release of Diet Coke in 1982, still
the most popular diet soda. Then chief
executive officer Roberto Gouzueta
led Coca-Cola to switch from sugar to
HFCS55 for cost savings.
" HFCS had been around for five
or six years but had not received that
much attention, " said Kyd Brenner, an
agricultural trade consultant who was
an employee and vice president of the
Corn Refiners Association from 1975 to
2000. " High sugar prices spurred the
interest of big food companies. "
Coca-Cola first used HFCS in some minor brands in the 1970s, but then phased
in use in its flagship brand in the 1980s.
The History Channel also noted that
" the switch to corn syrup opened the
door for bigger changes to the original
Coke's recipe. " What followed was the
famously disastrous release of reformulated " New Coke " in 1985, which
included a new formulation in addition to HFCS. A consumer " uprising " prompted Coca-Cola to bring
back the old formula as " Coca-Cola
Classic " just three months after the
release of New Coke, but the classic
remained sweetened by HFCS.
" HFCS production capacity had
built up and the food industry knew
how to use it by the early 1980s, " Mr.
Brenner said.
In addition to lower price, Mr. Ruffolo
noted that HFCS offered other key benefits - adequate supply and uniformity.
The product was derived from field
corn, the most widely grown crop in the
United States, and the manufacturing

process ensured a uniform final product
no matter the supplier.
Domestic deliveries of HFCS for
food and beverage use, based on data
from the US Department of Agriculture, went from zero in 1967 to a high
of 63.8 lbs per person in 1999, compared to sugar at 98.5 lbs per person
in 1967 (reaching an all-time high of
102.3 lbs in 1972) falling to 66.4 lbs
in 1999, less than a pound more than
HFCS. Total per capita deliveries of caloric sweeteners were 114.2 lbs in 1967
and peaked at 151.6 lbs in 1999.
Sosland Publishing Co. began reporting HFCS prices in the mid-1980s.
The mid-years: Controversy, maturity
" Success breeds contempt, " actor
Samuel L. Jackson said in 2016, referring to rivals Marvel and DC Comics
in adapting comics to movies, a statement not unlike " familiarity breeds
contempt, " stated by Mark Twain and
others throughout the years.
HFCS certainly had become successful and familiar, at least in the
food industry from 1967 to 1999.
While HFCS use was growing rapidly, obesity rates also were shooting skyward. As the two trends were occurring
nearly simultaneously, some were quick
to point a finger at HFCS as the reason
Americans were getting fatter. Several
early scientific studies initially " confirmed " the connection, while others
subsequently showed no causal effect.
" HFCS was a disruptive technology, "
Mr. Brenner said. " There was a fear of

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