Why Is Corn Syrup In Everything?

If you walk around the aisles of any grocery store, you'll see corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in a huge number of products; some of them will surprise you. While there are many countries where (HFCS) is highly discouraged and isn't used at all, in America our food is riddled with it. 

Corn syrup is cheaper and more addictive than sugar, and it’s sweeter so you can use less of it. It's a prime example of profits over people. Let’s take a look at some of the products where corn syrup is hiding.

Soda:

We all know sodas are bad. We all know they have a lot of sugar. 

But do you know what the primary source of sugar is in Pepsi? HFCS. Coca-Cola? HFCS. Minute Maid Lemonade? Fanta? Tonic Water? You guessed it: HFCS.

Here's the kicker: In other countries they highly, highly discourage the use of HFCS. So, if you get a bottle of Coca-Cola in the U.K., it's sweetened with real sugar. But in the U.S., not only do we use HFCS, on top of that, it's from GMO corn. 

It's sweeter, it's cheaper, and it's more addictive, so you come back and you consume more and more. Corn syrup is absorbed into your body much more quickly than regular sugar. It’s no wonder one out of three Americans are Type2 diabetic or prediabetic.

“Corn syrup is cheaper and more addictive than sugar, and it’s sweeter so you can use less of it.”

Ketchup:

This is officially America's bottle of ketchup. What's the sweetener in here, probably a lot of sugar, right? No. The only sweeteners in here are GMO HFCS and corn syrup, to the tune of four grams per serving.

But get this; a serving size is one tablespoon, one little squirt. Every serving has an entire teaspoon of HFCS. And let’s be honest, everyone's using way more than one tablespoon. 

But here's the part that makes me mad. Just like with the soda, this same exact bottle of ketchup is also sold in the U.K., and in Jolly Old England it’s made with regular sugar. Once again, their government strongly discourages using HFCS, so Heinz uses sugar there. But in the U.S., we’re stuck with HFCS. Profits, profits, profits over you and me.

I will give Heinz a little credit, because they do make a no-sugar-added version. I was expecting it to use sucralose or Splenda, but it's actually sweetened with stevia. So, kudos to them on that.

But my go-to is Primal Kitchen. I usually buy it on Thrive Market, where it's a bit cheaper. There's no sweetener, no stevia, it's just the sweetness from the tomatoes and balsamic vinegar.

This is great; HFCS ain't.

Fruit Snacks:

Welcome to the kids’ fruit snack area. The problem is there's not much fruit here. The package says “Fruit is our first ingredient,” but that’s about all the fruit you’re going to get. Let’s take a look at the label:

There are a lot of red flags here. Yes, fruit puree is the first ingredient, but they also use artificial flavors. If that doesn’t concern you enough, each serving contains nine grams of added sugars, which come from the corn syrup and sugar. That’s just over two teaspoons of added corn syrup and sugar, plus the artificial flavors. Why would you ever feed this to your kids? 

Instead, I recommend a snack like Bear Real Fruit Yoyos.

It’s just fruit, nothing else. No corn syrup, no artificial flavors. All thriller, no filler!