FDA strikes a sour note for corn sweetener makers

FDA strikes a sour note for corn sweetener makers

There's chutzpah and then there's just plain wrong.

The Corn Refiners Assn., stung by accusations that high-fructose corn syrup is a leading cause of the obesity epidemic, applied to the Food and Drug Administration a couple of years ago for permission to change the name of the refiners' product to the more pleasant-sounding "corn sugar."

• David Lazarus
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The FDA has finally issued its ruling: No.

"The use of the term 'corn sugar' to describe high-fructose corn syrup â€" a product that is a syrup â€" would not accurately identify or describe the basic nature of the food or its characteristics," Tamara Ward, an agency spokeswoman, told me.

"Under FDA regulations, a sugar is a solid, dried and crystallized food, whereas syrup is an aqueous solution or liquid food," she said. "The term 'corn sugar' for high-fructose corn syrup would incorrectly suggest that it is a solid, dried and crystallized sweetener obtained from corn when it's actually a liquid sweetener solution derived from corn, following processing."

In other words, it wouldn't be an accurate description of the product, and would potentially mislead consumers into thinking it's something that it's not.

And that's exactly what the corn syrup industry was trying to do.

Their reasoning: If people have a negative perception of high-f ructose corn syrup, just call it something else.

Kind of like calling a tax increase a "revenue enhancer" or employee layoffs merely an act of "right sizing."

The Corn Refiners Assn. tried to spin the FDA ruling as best it could. Audrae Erickson, the industry group's president, said she and her cohorts strive "to educate consumers about high-fructose corn syrup, particularly that it is nutritionally equivalent to other sugars."

She insisted that the FDA's nixing of the name change was based on "narrow, technical grounds" and "did not address or question the overwhelming scientific evidence that high-fructose corn syrup is a form of sugar and is nutritionally the same as other sugars."

Erickson is right. Nutritionally speaking, there's virtually no difference between high-fructose corn syrup cooked up in a factory and the sucrose made from sugar cane or sugar beets, said Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist and obesity expert at UC San Fr ancisco.

But that nutritional equivalence is not why some believe high-fructose corn syrup is evil.

"The reason high-fructose corn syrup is evil is because it's cheaper than sucrose," Lustig said. "Because it's cheaper, it's finding its way into everything. Things that never had sugar before now have it."

Why? Because the body thinks sweet things taste better and responds with feelings of pleasure. And whenever the body feels pleasure, its first instinct is to want more of whatever produced the happy sensation.

The food industry knows this and has been pumping high-fructose corn syrup into everything from breakfast cereals to sodas. It's not that high-fructose corn syrup is worse for you than other sugars. Rather, it's that people consume a lot more of it.

"Any product that promotes reward will drive excessive consumption," Lustig said. "The cheaper it is and the more we want it, the deeper into trouble we get."

And we're in trouble deep.

About 42% of the U.S. population will be obese by 2030, according to a recent forecast in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. That means an additional 30 million Americans will count themselves among the supersized within 18 years.