Fructose corn syrup vs sugar?

[Guest]

So if I understand correctly you guys in the US have Coca Cola for example with Corn fructose syrup, but in Europe we still have sugar in it.

 

I know the Europe part because I live here. But how is it in America? And can you still get your favorite soda with regular sugar?

[Nineshadow]

Why would you use fructose?

Sweeteners are usually way worse than sugar itself.

 

Is this any different?

[Bluethulhu]

I know you can get Pepsi and Mountain Dew without HFCS (labelled as throwback), but I'm not sure about Coke products.

[M-ursu]

There is not a huge taste difference, but corn cyrup is cheaper 

[brownninja97]

both goml

[Guest]

Why would you use fructose?

Sweeteners are usually way worse than sugar itself.

 

Is this any different?

It's actually almost identical to sugar.....45% glucose 55% fructose or the other way around while sugar is 50.50.

 

It's not a sweetener like aspartame.  It has calories too.

[Nineshadow]

It's actually almost identical to sugar.....45% glucose 55% fructose or the other way around while sugar is 50.50.

 

It's not a sweetener like aspartame.

Oh,that's good,I guess.

[Guest]

Oh,that's good,I guess.

Yeah, it's just the taste difference I think.

[Osmium]

"Sugar" is a very broad term. Fructose is a type of type of sugar so really "Fructose corn syrup" is the same is saying "Super sugary corn gloop".

[Guest]

There is not a huge taste difference, but corn cyrup is cheaper 

Yep, main reason they use it.

[Guest]

"Sugar" is a very broad term. Fructose is a type of type of sugar so really "Fructose corn syrup" is the same is saying "Super sugary corn gloop".

Gloop.....

 

Nice word.

[SMURG]

Biochemically, there's really not a huge difference between fructose and sucrose (what you're calling 'sugar', although as has been pointed out they are both sugars). Sucrose is just a disaccharide of fructose and glucose, so really you're eating/drinking fructose whichever way you slice it. Fructose itself is just a monosaccharide like glucose.

The only major difference between sucrose and fructose therefore is that the former contains 50% glucose whereas the latter is 100% fructose. The implications of this are in the way they get metabolised in the body. Whilst glucose can be metabolised anywhere (most notably in the brain and muscles) as a rapidly accessible form of energy, fructose cannot. Fructose is processed solely in the liver, which uses it for glycogenesis (formation of glycogen). Glycogen is how your body stores energy for later, so if you eat more fructose you will store more glyocogen, whereas if you eat more sucrose (which is 50% glucose) you will use more of it for energy immediately.

In that sense if you are a less active person who already has plenty of energy in their diet (i.e. 95% of the Western world), fructose is much worse for you than sucrose because the liver will store twice as much of it as glycogen and eventually fat, potentially leading to liver disease and/or obesity. Interestingly however, fructose uptake is not insulin-dependent, so a high intake of fructose does not carry the risk of developing insulin resistance and eventually diabetes, whereas a high intake of glucose or sucrose would. Fructose is also really great for tackling alcohol toxicity because it messes with the liver's metabolic pathways, so if you're in the USA and your friend is seriously drunk, try and get some coca cola into them I guess lol.

[Anthony10]

wat...

[TTesla]

sugar is SOO much better, corn syrup makes a slimy throat all nasty, they use it here because its cheaper (I think thats why)

I hate it, and when ever they have sugar in them instead its such a special occasion that they advertise it on the can and its a special edition and stuff 

[Guest]

sugar is SOO much better, corn syrup makes a slimy throat all nasty, they use it here because its cheaper (I think thats why)

I hate it, and when ever they have sugar in them instead its such a special occasion that they advertise it on the can and its a special edition and stuff 

Wow....

[Mooshi]

I think it's more America has really stupid policies on fuels derived from corn somehow being a brilliant idea (protip: it isn't and is one of the dumbest ideas considering how inefficient it is!) and the farmer subsidies. Corn is kept artificially cheap and as a byproduct, we get crappy artificial sweeteners for things even though actual sugar is better for you all things considering. You can definitely taste the difference between corn syrup Pepsi and Pepsi with sugar. The latter has a smooth finish while the former has a tinny after taste.

[SMURG]

I actually don't mind the taste difference. I prefer sucrose purely because I'm well-fed and not particularly active - therefore I don't metabolise fructose into energy and it gets stored as glycogen. Sucrose is only 50% fructose, the other 50% being glucose which probably goes to my brain more than anywhere else. Were I more active or didn't get much of any other sugars, fructose wouldn't be a big deal because it'd just get converted into glycogen and then used to power whatever it is I was doing.

Drinking loads of fuctose-coke is probably actually better for you than drinking loads of sucrose-coke if you're really active, since you avoid the diabetes risk

[Askew]

if you're in the USA and your friend is seriously drunk, try and get some coca cola into them I guess lol.

 

What if his favourite drink is Jack and Coke? <_<

[SMURG]

What if his favourite drink is Jack and Coke? <_<

Then it will take longer for him to get drunk than if he had been drinking jack and water in equal measures. The caffeine and fructose in the coke will interfere with the effects and metabolism of the alcohol. If you present to hospital with alcohol poisoning, they will give you fructose as a treatment.

[catbutts]

I'll leave this here:

http://grist.org/article/food-2010-09-21-op-ed-corn-subsidies-make-unhealthy-food-choices/

 

Why would you use fructose?

Sweeteners are usually way worse than sugar itself.

 

Is this any different?

 

for decades taxpayers have given corn growers incentives to grow as much as possible through the skewed federal farm subsidy system. The $73.8 billion lavished on corn since 1995 has helped to churn out a host of cheap and unhealthy foods — from chips to sugary sodas to high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

 

in 2009, $15.4 billion in subsidies were lavished on the growers of corn, cotton, rice, wheat, and soybeans. In that same year, fruits, vegetables, and organics received only $825 million in support from the federal government.

Overproducing corn is more profitable than importing sugar from the tropics, and in the US we all love profitability

[MrTomnus]

Biochemically, there's really not a huge difference between fructose and sucrose (what you're calling 'sugar', although as has been pointed out they are both sugars). Sucrose is just a disaccharide of fructose and glucose, so really you're eating/drinking fructose whichever way you slice it. Fructose itself is just a monosaccharide like glucose.

The only major difference between sucrose and fructose therefore is that the former contains 50% glucose whereas the latter is 100% fructose. The implications of this are in the way they get metabolised in the body. Whilst glucose can be metabolised anywhere (most notably in the brain and muscles) as a rapidly accessible form of energy, fructose cannot. Fructose is processed solely in the liver, which uses it for glycogenesis (formation of glycogen). Glycogen is how your body stores energy for later, so if you eat more fructose you will store more glyocogen, whereas if you eat more sucrose (which is 50% glucose) you will use more of it for energy immediately.

In that sense if you are a less active person who already has plenty of energy in their diet (i.e. 95% of the Western world), fructose is much worse for you than sucrose because the liver will store twice as much of it as glycogen and eventually fat, potentially leading to liver disease and/or obesity. Interestingly however, fructose uptake is not insulin-dependent, so a high intake of fructose does not carry the risk of developing insulin resistance and eventually diabetes, whereas a high intake of glucose or sucrose would. Fructose is also really great for tackling alcohol toxicity because it messes with the liver's metabolic pathways, so if you're in the USA and your friend is seriously drunk, try and get some coca cola into them I guess lol.

I was scrolling down waiting for someone to give a chemist's/biologist's (I suppose biochemist's?) answer

 

Pretty much what you said. I didn't think sucrose was a longer molecule than glucose though... but I'm probably wrong. It's been a year since I've done enzymes and polysaccharides I wish my A level course was as in depth as what you said... All I've learnt about is blood glucose control in homeostasis. That's why I hate college, they never explain anything completely

[SMURG]

I was scrolling down waiting for someone to give a chemist's/biologist's (I suppose biochemist's?) answer

 

Pretty much what you said. I didn't think sucrose was a longer molecule than glucose though... but I'm probably wrong. It's been a year since I've done enzymes and polysaccharides I wish my A level course was as in depth as what you said... All I've learnt about is blood glucose control in homeostasis. That's why I hate college, they never explain anything completely

Yeah, my education on the subject is pretty in-depth. University is like that . I do biomedical science though, so biochemistry is only part (probably about 33%) of what I do. I could have gone into more detail, but frankly I'm lazy and it wouldn't have been that relevant to the question anyway.

Sucrose is a disaccharide of fructose and glucose, glucose is a monosaccharide. You can have poly-glucose in stuff like starch though, which would then be a much longer molecule than a single sucrose dimer. For this reason, if you hold bread in your mouth for a long time without swallowing it, it will start to taste sweet because the amylase in your saliva will break the starch into the individual glucose molecules.

Regarding homeostasis, fructose uses different GLUT receptors to glucose and is therefore maintained separately to glucose in the blood. That's why the risk of insulin resistance (leading to type 2 diabetes) is much lower if you eat a load of fructose than if you eat a load of glucose, because fructose is not regulated by insulin.

You planning on taking a science course at university after A level?

[MrTomnus]

Yeah, my education on the subject is pretty in-depth. University is like that . I do biomedical science though, so biochemistry is only part (probably about 33%) of what I do. I could have gone into more detail, but frankly I'm lazy and it wouldn't have been that relevant to the question anyway.

Sucrose is a disaccharide of fructose and glucose, glucose is a monosaccharide. You can have poly-glucose in stuff like starch though, which would then be a much longer molecule than a single sucrose dimer. For this reason, if you hold bread in your mouth for a long time without swallowing it, it will start to taste sweet because the amylase in your saliva will break the starch into the individual glucose molecules.

Regarding homeostasis, fructose uses different GLUT receptors to glucose and is therefore maintained separately to glucose in the blood. That's why the risk of insulin resistance (leading to type 2 diabetes) is much lower if you eat a load of fructose than if you eat a load of glucose, because fructose is not regulated by insulin.

You planning on taking a science course at university after A level?

Thanks for the info! Haha, I knew about the bread thing. It's kinda cool - most people would say the first stage of digestion is in the stomach, but it starts the moment you put food in your mouth And that's pretty interesting about insulin... I've just been learning about that actually, the islets of Langahans in the pancreas, glycogenesis, gluconeogenesis... It's a lot to take in, especially with four other subjects I'm studying.

 

I think I will be doing science at uni, yeah. My plan is to study Aeronautics and Astronautics at Southampton. I've also applied for Physics at Exeter, and, if everything fails, computer games programming in Leicester. However biology has been the only thing I've been interested in revising for recently I don't think it's as cool as physics, but the stuff about nervous control and DNA technology we've been doing is really interesting. I think we might be lucky enough to do some PCR when I go back in two weeks