Sweet Swaps for High Fructose Corn Syrup
The following article was written by Heinen’s Chief Dietitian, Melanie Jatsek RD, LD.
You’ve probably heard it’s best to avoid high fructose corn syrup, but do you understand why or what you should reach for instead? My goal is to reveal the truth about high fructose corn syrup and bring awareness to healthier, more natural sweetener options available at your local Heinen’s!
Before digging into the details, you should know that by shopping Club Fx™-approved products at Heinen’s you have an automatic partner in your quest for better health. We want you to feel confident making healthy choices for your body, which is why we’ve labeled hundreds of products across the store with green Fx™-approved buttons. Products bearing this stamp are free of artificial ingredients, including high fructose corn syrup.
What is High Fructose Corn Syrup?
Don’t let the fact that it’s made from corn fool you. Corn is a whole food; high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is not.
HFCS is derived from cornstarch, which is essentially a chain of glucose (a simple sugar) molecules joined together. The cornstarch is then broken down into individual glucose molecules, creating corn syrup.
To make high fructose corn syrup, enzymes are added to corn syrup to convert some of the glucose to fructose, also called “fruit sugar”, because it occurs naturally in fruits. But please don’t confuse the two. Fructose in fruit is natural. The fructose in HFCS is not natural because it is made by man manipulating glucose to create a “high” amount of fructose.
The Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup
With the manipulation of glucose to create high fructose corn syrup comes a host of potential health problems for humans such as:
- Obesity and weight gain. Because fructose doesn’t stimulate insulin secretion or leptin production (the satiety signaling hormone), eating foods with high fructose corn syrup won’t help you feel full and can lead to overeating.
- Fatty liver disease. Too much fructose stimulates fat accumulation in the liver, leading to potential fatty liver disease.
- Cholesterol imbalance. High fructose corn syrup can raise the amount of fat in your blood, which will show up in your bloodwork as elevated triglycerides. It can also increase LDL cholesterol (that’s the “bad” form of cholesterol.)
It’s worth repeating that high fructose corn syrup and the fructose naturally present in fruit are not the same. The fructose in fruit does not cause the negative biological effects of high fructose corn syrup. In fact, fresh fruit offers a healthy dose of fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.
How to Spot High Fructose Corn Syrup in Food
Also disguised as fructose, glucose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, maize syrup, or isoglucose on food labels, high fructose corn syrup can be found in certain brands of soda, juice, candy, applesauce, bread, cereal, baked goods, condiments (ketchup, BBQ sauce, pancake syrup, etc.), spaghetti sauce, and jam/jelly.
Since high fructose corn syrup can be produced at a fraction of the cost of more natural sweeteners, its used in a variety of products. One place you won’t find high fructose corn syrup is the Produce Department.
Fx™-Approved Sweetener Alternatives
Look for products that use honey, pure maple syrup, dates, coconut sugar, or molasses instead of high fructose corn syrup. If you’d like to sweeten your foods more naturally, try one of these Fx™-approved sweeteners:
- Heinen’s raw honey
- Fresh Energy dates
- Just Date date syrup
- Big Tree Farms coconut sugar
- Heinen’s pure organic maple syrup
- Wholesome blackstrap molasses
Key Takeaway
As a dietitian, I spend a lot of time looking at food labels with majority of my attention on the ingredient list. If a product doesn’t pass the ingredient test, nothing else on the label matters. I consider high fructose corn syrup a non-negotiable ingredient because it offers zero health benefits and nothing but potential problems. Do your precious body a favor and make an effort eliminate this artificial ingredient from your diet as much as possible!
