April 28, 2009 • 18 mins
High fructose corn syrup gets a bad rap, but is it deserved? Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss the origins of this ubiquitous sweetener -- and why it's not so sweet for your health -- in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot Com. Join Josh and Chuck,
the guys who bring you Stuff you Should Know, as
they take a trip around the world to help you
get smarter in a topsy turv economy. Check out the
all new super Stuffed Guide to the Economy from house
(00:22):
stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant, right, Josh,
you want to bite? I thought you loved me mine, dude,
pick two bites. But it's got high fruit toast corns
for it in it, so well, you know what they
(00:42):
say about that stuff? What that it's uh that uh
that it's made from corn, has the same calories as sugar, honey,
and it's fine and moderation. You only brought one the
end and seen, Chuck. I feel dirty right now. We
were clearly riffing on popular commercial yes, touting high fruit
(01:04):
toast corn syrup. Yeah, um, which is kind of a
big deal these days, right Chuck? It is indeed? Yeah,
So Chuck and I are going to talk about um
high fruit toast corn syrup, and you know, maybe some
of the concerns what it is and whether or not
it actually is bad for you. So we will get
to that right this moment. Right, And welcome to Matt,
(01:25):
our guest producer for the week. Yes, thank you for
Matt for filling in for Jerry, who is on vacation
hopefully not enduring any life threatening circumstances as is usually
the case. Right, And we love young and talented Matt,
so welcome. Yeah, young talented and well groomed Matt. How's
it going, Matt? Alright, so on the high fruit toast
(01:45):
corn syrup. Chuck. Okay, so this stuff didn't exist before
nineteen fifty seven. Did you know that? Okay? Um, let
me explain. Let me explain a little further. Okay, Um,
So in ninete some researchers figured out that you could
take a glucos and corn syrup. I think corn syrup
is like all glucose, and glucose is uh one of
(02:08):
our primary energy sources. And did you know that insulin's
job is to actually go in and basically open the
cellular membrane to let the glucoast in for burning. Okay, um,
well anyway, so if you want a lot of energy,
you could basically pound a bottle of corn syrup, just
playing old corn syrup. Um. But these these researchers figured
(02:30):
out in nine that if you added a couple of
enzymes at different stages, you could convert glucose into fruit
toast and fruit tose josh, as you know, is naturally occurring.
It's a simple sugar. It's produced by a lot of
different plants, and it's really really sweet, and it's more
soluble in water than glucose, which is also a simple sugar.
(02:54):
So that's why it's good for things like soft drinks
and products like that. Plus it's also cheaper. Well yeah, sure,
and we'll get to the reason why it's twoper in
a minute. Did we mention my cold in this one?
Uh no, you have a cold. I have a terrible cold. Everyone.
I'm very sorry if I do that, so in advance,
right right, But we also should say really quick to
(03:14):
just so people have their sugar understanding. There's also table
sugar is what people probably think of a sugar that
is sucross, and that's what you get when you combine
fruit toast and glucose. Well that's what UM high fruit
toast corn syrup is as well. Is it common. It's
sucros too, it's just in a slightly different amount. There's
about tim percent more fruit toast and high fruit toast
(03:35):
corn syrup than there isn't common table sugar, which doesn't
sound like a lot initially it doesn't, but don't don't
give it away. Yeah, okay, so UM seven they figure
this out, there's the enzymatic action and then budda boom baha,
being you've got high fruit toast corn syrup. I get
the impression that at the at the time it was
probably a very costly process. And then in the seventies
(03:59):
people went back to it and and uh they basically
UM perfected the process made it cheaper. Now, the concept
of like using UM high fruk test corn syrup really
dovetails nicely with what we hear in the States called
a farm bill, and that is this massive bill which
(04:19):
they they deliberate every five or seven years. I'm not sure,
actually I can't remember either. Um anyway, Uh, the farm
bill uh gives tons of money to corn producers to
the point where, uh you can overproduce corn corn we
do not need because everybody's got a cob in their mouth,
(04:42):
and um, they'll still get money for it. Plus, corn
is useful in a lot of different ways, so like
corn syrup, and so we have an abundance and over
abundance really of corn and chuck out. That's absolutely true.
There was, Um you can use corn and ethanol. You
can't use it in high freak toast corn serrup. The
(05:02):
thing is is we used to before the seventies and
we we started throwing corn into corn syrup production. Um,
we used to send a lot of that surplus corn
to Africa right as food aid. So in the seventies,
on the day that they perfected the high fruit toast
corn syrup process, some poor Ethiopian uh shuddered and didn't
(05:26):
know why that was why. Oh yeah, food aids definitely
dried up. And people also make the argument that the
same we're gonna have an even bigger problem with with food,
not just exporting it, but here too if it becomes
a viable fuel like ethanol. So they're basically going to
be using up the corn for the high fruit disc
corns are up ethanol, and there's not enough to feed
(05:48):
the world. Is that what you're saying, they'll use it
for whatever they can make the most money off of. Obviously,
good point. Yeah, um so okay, so that was my
little aside, my little hippie liberal aside there, Chuck, very nice. Okay.
So in the seventies we've got the high fruk toast
corn syrup thing down and the world becomes a wash
in the stuff. It's in absolutely everything it is, and
(06:10):
it's in products that you would never even think associate
with sweetness, like it becomes. Corn syrup isn't very sweet initially,
but high fruit dost corn syrup is really sweet, and
it's in things like crackers that you wouldn't even imagine.
And they're starting to put it in meats too because
it's a great preservative. So that's again, there's only ten
(06:31):
percent more fruit toast in high fruit toast corn syrup
than there is a regular table sugar, and everybody knows
you should eat sugar and moderation, right, So, um, I
guess approaching it in that respect, you wouldn't really think
that there's any kind of problems with it, right, But
it's really taken hold it has And also this I
(06:51):
think the thing that that really started to generate concern
is over the past couple of decades, it's become clear
that about the time high fruc toast corn serr replaced
table sugar um in um products like soft drink, that
kind of thing. Um, the incidents of type two diabetes
(07:11):
and obesity in the US started to climb as well. Right,
I got a step for you. I want to hear
if you're talking, how much it's really taken over the
other sugars. In nineteventy more than of sweetener consumed in
the US was sucros by It dropped to almost in half,
(07:31):
and the rest of the sweetener sent was hyproc dose
corns scrupt and that was at seven. Now I bet
it's even off the charts here, it's even more prevalent.
Yeah and and uh so yeah, so public opinions starting
to turn, which is why the Cord counselor somebody started
the ad campaign. Right, um, and uh, what's what's the problem. Well,
(07:54):
the problem is I got another stat which is kind
of indicated. Uh. They did a study in of middle
school students and they found that nearly one third of
their caloric intake was added sugars and we're not talking
about like fruits and vegetable sugars. No, those are called
natural sugars. They're not usually taking into account when you're
talking about sugar intake. Added sugar and stuff like high
(08:17):
fruit toast corn service not naturally occurring. So one third
and so in two thousand five they didn't not a
study another study. Sorry, and Americans uh that year consumed
forty two pounds of high fruc dose corn sup per person. Okay,
but again you can say, well, they could be consuming
table sugar in the same amounts. They could be getting
(08:38):
the same caloric intake from table sugar in the same amounts.
What's the problem? Why is everyone picking on high fruit
corn STARp. Do you want me to tell you that
sounds like a great set up? Okay, thanks, I just
set myself. You know, there's like self aliops, you throw
it up and then you jump up and slam it.
You dunk it. Have no idea a boomerang, I don't know.
(08:59):
It's like a frisbee that you can play with by yourself.
We'll go no, it's not like that at all. It's basketball. Uh.
Since Australians writing in now, yeah, we just raised their
ire um again, I'm going to set myself up. Do
you want to know why, I'll tell you why. Here's
the problem with fruit toast our bodies don't use it
(09:20):
like we use glue coast Like glue coast is such
a common energy source for us that we can metabolize
it just about any way. It can go to just
about any cell or organ or you know, um, anywhere
in the body and say hey, metabolize me pal, and
all of a sudden, we've got some energy. Right with
fruit toast um, there's only one organ that can possibly
(09:42):
metabolize it, and that's the liver. And the liver has
a certain limit of what how much fruit toast it
will process in their energy, and after that it turns
them into triglycerize, which we like to call facts. So
that's one of the problems. Well. And and and since it's
in everything from like bread to crackers and things that
seemingly and meets for preservatives, it's, uh, we're getting way
(10:04):
way too much of it. Sure, it's kind of like
that episode of Seinfeld where like everybody's eating this low
fat yogurt. You can't believe it's low fat, but it
turns out it's not they had it tested exactly. So
everybody's putting on all this weight. And I think that's
kind of what happened to America over the last couple
of decades, where unknowingly consuming this tremendous amount of sugar
(10:26):
uh and it gets converted into fats very easily, and
all of a sudden, we're a fat diabetic nation. I've
got some stats. I love your stats to your hand
on my knee while you read them. I will UH.
In two thousand seven, and this is kind of makes sense.
Colorado is the only state in the whole country with
less than of his population uh qualifying as obese healthy. Yeah,
(10:50):
they hike in all that stuff, which is good. Um.
And another one as far as diabetes goes, between ninety
four and two thousand four, uh a new diagnosed ease
of type two diabetes increased by which is a big jump.
And a lot of people think that the the HFCs
has something to do with that. Ye. Wait, a way
to throw an acronym in there, buddy like that? Yeah. Yeah.
(11:12):
Can I say one other problem with fructose, okay, it
is that there is ten more in high fruc toose
corn syrup than in regular table sugar, and when you
start to eat a lot of it and it starts
to appear in all sorts of different foods, that ten
percent really starts to add up. So that would also
(11:32):
account for why we're a much a meteor country than
we were before. Except Colorado. Of course, everything's fine in Colorado. Um.
But but ultimately, again back on the metabolic level, UM,
there's been studies that show that the taste of artificial
sweeteners or added sugars like high fruit toose corn syrup
(11:53):
actually make us want to eat more. And it's not
has nothing to do with what we're doing with that metal.
Likely it's the taste we love to taste so much.
It's like crack to us. So when we eat something
that contains glucoset right, um, and when we eat anything generally, uh,
there's this chemical that's producing the stomach is called grellin.
(12:16):
I know it's it's kind of terrible name, but it's
actually really important. Grolan travels up to the brain and says, okay, stop,
this person doesn't need to eat anymore. Here, she's full.
We got all the nutrients we need down here, so
just cut it off for a little while. And then well,
you know, another chemical will let you know when we're hungry, right, Um,
(12:37):
we don't produce grilling when we eat fruit toast, so
the brains never getting those signals that it's used to
getting saying stop. So, which is why you can sit
there and eat Little Debbie brownies by the box full
all day long. Yeah those are good. Twiss cake rolls
ain't too bad either. Yeah, not to pick on Little Debbie.
It's a Little Debbie is a fine, fine company and
(13:00):
are from the only company using high fruit tose corn.
It's everywhere, It's everywhere. So, Josh, I think we're at
the point now where we can talk about what you
can do if you're worried about something like this, which well,
clearly everything in moderation, just like the cheesy little commercial
says that we mocked. Um. But what you need to
do is you need to start checking the packaging of
(13:23):
your of your foods, and better yet, you can try
to start avoiding package foods as much as you can.
That's really where it's at. I mean, I had a
friend that had high blood pressure and his doctor said,
you can do a couple of things. You can either
get on this medication or you can start eating fresh
foods and avoid package foods. Medication. No, yeah, absolutely no. No,
(13:45):
he controlled it through diet, dude, and he quit buying
anything in a box, anything in a package. He fresh
like in the yard. Yeah, he ate fresh fruits and vegetables.
He ate meat, um, and his blood pressure dropped dramatically.
Meats he found in the yard. Cats he raised cattle
in his good but um, yeah, I mean it's always
(14:05):
best to avoid packaged foods. When you look at any
kind of packaged food ingredients, it's it's kind of frightening
what's in there. Well, one of the problems is that
high frue toast corn syrup is substantially cheaper than regular sugar.
It is, so that means the food prices are cheaper,
which is I guess by extension or my hypothesis or theory,
I would say, because I'm sure it's been tested. Why
(14:27):
the poorer classes also tend to be the most malnourished
because the stuff that they're eating is so processed, so packaged,
and so chuck full of not just stuff like high
fruit toast corn syrup, but all sorts of other preservative
that we shouldn't be eating. But are cheap and allow
companies to produce cheap food. It's a horrible vicious cycle.
But I mean, try try eating organic in this economy. Pal,
(14:49):
you can't do it. You have to be like filthy
rich to eat organic these days. But you know what's
not cheap? What the diabetes? No, that's true. It's an
excellent in hospital stays and heart attacks. Uh so that's great.
Do yourself a favorite. You'll save some dough in the
long run if you if you eat better and take
care of yourself. Plus you'll keep your foot. Yeah. True.
(15:12):
So there's high freuk toast corn syrup. Um. We I
guess we'll just sit back and expect an angry season
desist letter from the corn Council or somebody right right,
we love corn corns great, I love corn on the
coblic You would not believe me too, It's one of
my favorite anyway. Um, that's high freak toast cord syrup.
And followed by our disclaimer that Chuck and I actually
do like corn and American farmers in America in general.
(15:34):
So there you go, And are we plugging anything these days?
We can give a quick mention to the blog. You know,
we have a blog on the website you can access,
and I think most folks are catching on. Now we're
getting some good numbers, and hell, let's plug the thing
that we're making money off of. Well yeah, sure, okay,
the super Stuff Guide to the Economy with Josh and Chuck.
(15:56):
You can buy that for four bucks on iTunes and
learn about econom x and get a little better understanding
of what's going on in the world. And uh, it's
a time for listener mail. Yeah, Chuck, So Josh, I
was impressed with this one. This is uh not a
high kup, but it is a poem. And a seventeen
(16:16):
year old named Daniel in Colorado wrote us a sonnet.
There's like more than an eight percent chance he's not obese,
okays in Colorado force Alright, so here we go. From Daniel,
I would that there were just one reason why the
podcast did delight me fully, so that I might be
in hasty time. Supply a nicely packaged blurb so you
(16:39):
might know. I'll ask. No single reason will suffice. The
podcast is a pleasure labyrinthine. To try to craft a
reason too precise would make a burly rope of stingy twine.
But in those fleeting moments in the night. One wonders
does one really need to know whether one can really
die of fright? Or if How Anger Works is at proposed?
(17:00):
But though it may be triviality, the podcast comes to
us completely free. How about that? That was great? I
couldn't write one of these. Oh no, definitely not. Try
try fitting labyrinthine in So Daniel in Colorado, seventeen years old?
You is he? Is he an adult? He's seventeen? Okay? Great,
(17:21):
good to know that he may or may not be
an adult either way. Thank you very much, Daniel. We
appreciate the effort, and we've always also said you can
only gripe so much because it is free, right sure.
Thank you for supporting that point. If you want to
send us a gorgeous poem, or just type the word
labyrinthine and uh in an email and send it to us, um,
(17:41):
you can shoot that over to stuff podcast at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Emery.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot Com. Join Josh and Chuck,
the guys who bring you Stuff you Should Know, as
they take a trip around the world to help you
get smarter in a topsy turv economy. Check out the
all new super Stuffed Guide to the Economy from house
(00:22):
stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant, right, Josh,
you want to bite? I thought you loved me mine, dude,
pick two bites. But it's got high fruit toast corns
for it in it, so well, you know what they
(00:42):
say about that stuff? What that it's uh that uh
that it's made from corn, has the same calories as sugar, honey,
and it's fine and moderation. You only brought one the
end and seen, Chuck. I feel dirty right now. We
were clearly riffing on popular commercial yes, touting high fruit
(01:04):
toast corn syrup. Yeah, um, which is kind of a
big deal these days, right Chuck? It is indeed? Yeah,
So Chuck and I are going to talk about um
high fruit toast corn syrup, and you know, maybe some
of the concerns what it is and whether or not
it actually is bad for you. So we will get
to that right this moment. Right, And welcome to Matt,
(01:25):
our guest producer for the week. Yes, thank you for
Matt for filling in for Jerry, who is on vacation
hopefully not enduring any life threatening circumstances as is usually
the case. Right, And we love young and talented Matt,
so welcome. Yeah, young talented and well groomed Matt. How's
it going, Matt? Alright, so on the high fruit toast
(01:45):
corn syrup. Chuck. Okay, so this stuff didn't exist before
nineteen fifty seven. Did you know that? Okay? Um, let
me explain. Let me explain a little further. Okay, Um,
So in ninete some researchers figured out that you could
take a glucos and corn syrup. I think corn syrup
is like all glucose, and glucose is uh one of
(02:08):
our primary energy sources. And did you know that insulin's
job is to actually go in and basically open the
cellular membrane to let the glucoast in for burning. Okay, um,
well anyway, so if you want a lot of energy,
you could basically pound a bottle of corn syrup, just
playing old corn syrup. Um. But these these researchers figured
(02:30):
out in nine that if you added a couple of
enzymes at different stages, you could convert glucose into fruit
toast and fruit tose josh, as you know, is naturally occurring.
It's a simple sugar. It's produced by a lot of
different plants, and it's really really sweet, and it's more
soluble in water than glucose, which is also a simple sugar.
(02:54):
So that's why it's good for things like soft drinks
and products like that. Plus it's also cheaper. Well yeah, sure,
and we'll get to the reason why it's twoper in
a minute. Did we mention my cold in this one?
Uh no, you have a cold. I have a terrible cold. Everyone.
I'm very sorry if I do that, so in advance,
right right, But we also should say really quick to
(03:14):
just so people have their sugar understanding. There's also table
sugar is what people probably think of a sugar that
is sucross, and that's what you get when you combine
fruit toast and glucose. Well that's what UM high fruit
toast corn syrup is as well. Is it common. It's
sucros too, it's just in a slightly different amount. There's
about tim percent more fruit toast and high fruit toast
(03:35):
corn syrup than there isn't common table sugar, which doesn't
sound like a lot initially it doesn't, but don't don't
give it away. Yeah, okay, so UM seven they figure
this out, there's the enzymatic action and then budda boom baha,
being you've got high fruit toast corn syrup. I get
the impression that at the at the time it was
probably a very costly process. And then in the seventies
(03:59):
people went back to it and and uh they basically
UM perfected the process made it cheaper. Now, the concept
of like using UM high fruk test corn syrup really
dovetails nicely with what we hear in the States called
a farm bill, and that is this massive bill which
(04:19):
they they deliberate every five or seven years. I'm not sure,
actually I can't remember either. Um anyway, Uh, the farm
bill uh gives tons of money to corn producers to
the point where, uh you can overproduce corn corn we
do not need because everybody's got a cob in their mouth,
(04:42):
and um, they'll still get money for it. Plus, corn
is useful in a lot of different ways, so like
corn syrup, and so we have an abundance and over
abundance really of corn and chuck out. That's absolutely true.
There was, Um you can use corn and ethanol. You
can't use it in high freak toast corn serrup. The
(05:02):
thing is is we used to before the seventies and
we we started throwing corn into corn syrup production. Um,
we used to send a lot of that surplus corn
to Africa right as food aid. So in the seventies,
on the day that they perfected the high fruit toast
corn syrup process, some poor Ethiopian uh shuddered and didn't
(05:26):
know why that was why. Oh yeah, food aids definitely
dried up. And people also make the argument that the
same we're gonna have an even bigger problem with with food,
not just exporting it, but here too if it becomes
a viable fuel like ethanol. So they're basically going to
be using up the corn for the high fruit disc
corns are up ethanol, and there's not enough to feed
(05:48):
the world. Is that what you're saying, they'll use it
for whatever they can make the most money off of. Obviously,
good point. Yeah, um so okay, so that was my
little aside, my little hippie liberal aside there, Chuck, very nice. Okay.
So in the seventies we've got the high fruk toast
corn syrup thing down and the world becomes a wash
in the stuff. It's in absolutely everything it is, and
(06:10):
it's in products that you would never even think associate
with sweetness, like it becomes. Corn syrup isn't very sweet initially,
but high fruit dost corn syrup is really sweet, and
it's in things like crackers that you wouldn't even imagine.
And they're starting to put it in meats too because
it's a great preservative. So that's again, there's only ten
(06:31):
percent more fruit toast in high fruit toast corn syrup
than there is a regular table sugar, and everybody knows
you should eat sugar and moderation, right, So, um, I
guess approaching it in that respect, you wouldn't really think
that there's any kind of problems with it, right, But
it's really taken hold it has And also this I
(06:51):
think the thing that that really started to generate concern
is over the past couple of decades, it's become clear
that about the time high fruc toast corn serr replaced
table sugar um in um products like soft drink, that
kind of thing. Um, the incidents of type two diabetes
(07:11):
and obesity in the US started to climb as well. Right,
I got a step for you. I want to hear
if you're talking, how much it's really taken over the
other sugars. In nineteventy more than of sweetener consumed in
the US was sucros by It dropped to almost in half,
(07:31):
and the rest of the sweetener sent was hyproc dose
corns scrupt and that was at seven. Now I bet
it's even off the charts here, it's even more prevalent.
Yeah and and uh so yeah, so public opinions starting
to turn, which is why the Cord counselor somebody started
the ad campaign. Right, um, and uh, what's what's the problem. Well,
(07:54):
the problem is I got another stat which is kind
of indicated. Uh. They did a study in of middle
school students and they found that nearly one third of
their caloric intake was added sugars and we're not talking
about like fruits and vegetable sugars. No, those are called
natural sugars. They're not usually taking into account when you're
talking about sugar intake. Added sugar and stuff like high
(08:17):
fruit toast corn service not naturally occurring. So one third
and so in two thousand five they didn't not a
study another study. Sorry, and Americans uh that year consumed
forty two pounds of high fruc dose corn sup per person. Okay,
but again you can say, well, they could be consuming
table sugar in the same amounts. They could be getting
(08:38):
the same caloric intake from table sugar in the same amounts.
What's the problem? Why is everyone picking on high fruit
corn STARp. Do you want me to tell you that
sounds like a great set up? Okay, thanks, I just
set myself. You know, there's like self aliops, you throw
it up and then you jump up and slam it.
You dunk it. Have no idea a boomerang, I don't know.
(08:59):
It's like a frisbee that you can play with by yourself.
We'll go no, it's not like that at all. It's basketball. Uh.
Since Australians writing in now, yeah, we just raised their
ire um again, I'm going to set myself up. Do
you want to know why, I'll tell you why. Here's
the problem with fruit toast our bodies don't use it
(09:20):
like we use glue coast Like glue coast is such
a common energy source for us that we can metabolize
it just about any way. It can go to just
about any cell or organ or you know, um, anywhere
in the body and say hey, metabolize me pal, and
all of a sudden, we've got some energy. Right with
fruit toast um, there's only one organ that can possibly
(09:42):
metabolize it, and that's the liver. And the liver has
a certain limit of what how much fruit toast it
will process in their energy, and after that it turns
them into triglycerize, which we like to call facts. So
that's one of the problems. Well. And and and since it's
in everything from like bread to crackers and things that
seemingly and meets for preservatives, it's, uh, we're getting way
(10:04):
way too much of it. Sure, it's kind of like
that episode of Seinfeld where like everybody's eating this low
fat yogurt. You can't believe it's low fat, but it
turns out it's not they had it tested exactly. So
everybody's putting on all this weight. And I think that's
kind of what happened to America over the last couple
of decades, where unknowingly consuming this tremendous amount of sugar
(10:26):
uh and it gets converted into fats very easily, and
all of a sudden, we're a fat diabetic nation. I've
got some stats. I love your stats to your hand
on my knee while you read them. I will UH.
In two thousand seven, and this is kind of makes sense.
Colorado is the only state in the whole country with
less than of his population uh qualifying as obese healthy. Yeah,
(10:50):
they hike in all that stuff, which is good. Um.
And another one as far as diabetes goes, between ninety
four and two thousand four, uh a new diagnosed ease
of type two diabetes increased by which is a big jump.
And a lot of people think that the the HFCs
has something to do with that. Ye. Wait, a way
to throw an acronym in there, buddy like that? Yeah. Yeah.
(11:12):
Can I say one other problem with fructose, okay, it
is that there is ten more in high fruc toose
corn syrup than in regular table sugar, and when you
start to eat a lot of it and it starts
to appear in all sorts of different foods, that ten
percent really starts to add up. So that would also
(11:32):
account for why we're a much a meteor country than
we were before. Except Colorado. Of course, everything's fine in Colorado. Um.
But but ultimately, again back on the metabolic level, UM,
there's been studies that show that the taste of artificial
sweeteners or added sugars like high fruit toose corn syrup
(11:53):
actually make us want to eat more. And it's not
has nothing to do with what we're doing with that metal.
Likely it's the taste we love to taste so much.
It's like crack to us. So when we eat something
that contains glucoset right, um, and when we eat anything generally, uh,
there's this chemical that's producing the stomach is called grellin.
(12:16):
I know it's it's kind of terrible name, but it's
actually really important. Grolan travels up to the brain and says, okay, stop,
this person doesn't need to eat anymore. Here, she's full.
We got all the nutrients we need down here, so
just cut it off for a little while. And then well,
you know, another chemical will let you know when we're hungry, right, Um,
(12:37):
we don't produce grilling when we eat fruit toast, so
the brains never getting those signals that it's used to
getting saying stop. So, which is why you can sit
there and eat Little Debbie brownies by the box full
all day long. Yeah those are good. Twiss cake rolls
ain't too bad either. Yeah, not to pick on Little Debbie.
It's a Little Debbie is a fine, fine company and
(13:00):
are from the only company using high fruit tose corn.
It's everywhere, It's everywhere. So, Josh, I think we're at
the point now where we can talk about what you
can do if you're worried about something like this, which well,
clearly everything in moderation, just like the cheesy little commercial
says that we mocked. Um. But what you need to
do is you need to start checking the packaging of
(13:23):
your of your foods, and better yet, you can try
to start avoiding package foods as much as you can.
That's really where it's at. I mean, I had a
friend that had high blood pressure and his doctor said,
you can do a couple of things. You can either
get on this medication or you can start eating fresh
foods and avoid package foods. Medication. No, yeah, absolutely no. No,
(13:45):
he controlled it through diet, dude, and he quit buying
anything in a box, anything in a package. He fresh
like in the yard. Yeah, he ate fresh fruits and vegetables.
He ate meat, um, and his blood pressure dropped dramatically.
Meats he found in the yard. Cats he raised cattle
in his good but um, yeah, I mean it's always
(14:05):
best to avoid packaged foods. When you look at any
kind of packaged food ingredients, it's it's kind of frightening
what's in there. Well, one of the problems is that
high frue toast corn syrup is substantially cheaper than regular sugar.
It is, so that means the food prices are cheaper,
which is I guess by extension or my hypothesis or theory,
I would say, because I'm sure it's been tested. Why
(14:27):
the poorer classes also tend to be the most malnourished
because the stuff that they're eating is so processed, so packaged,
and so chuck full of not just stuff like high
fruit toast corn syrup, but all sorts of other preservative
that we shouldn't be eating. But are cheap and allow
companies to produce cheap food. It's a horrible vicious cycle.
But I mean, try try eating organic in this economy. Pal,
(14:49):
you can't do it. You have to be like filthy
rich to eat organic these days. But you know what's
not cheap? What the diabetes? No, that's true. It's an
excellent in hospital stays and heart attacks. Uh so that's great.
Do yourself a favorite. You'll save some dough in the
long run if you if you eat better and take
care of yourself. Plus you'll keep your foot. Yeah. True.
(15:12):
So there's high freuk toast corn syrup. Um. We I
guess we'll just sit back and expect an angry season
desist letter from the corn Council or somebody right right,
we love corn corns great, I love corn on the
coblic You would not believe me too, It's one of
my favorite anyway. Um, that's high freak toast cord syrup.
And followed by our disclaimer that Chuck and I actually
do like corn and American farmers in America in general.
(15:34):
So there you go, And are we plugging anything these days?
We can give a quick mention to the blog. You know,
we have a blog on the website you can access,
and I think most folks are catching on. Now we're
getting some good numbers, and hell, let's plug the thing
that we're making money off of. Well yeah, sure, okay,
the super Stuff Guide to the Economy with Josh and Chuck.
(15:56):
You can buy that for four bucks on iTunes and
learn about econom x and get a little better understanding
of what's going on in the world. And uh, it's
a time for listener mail. Yeah, Chuck, So Josh, I
was impressed with this one. This is uh not a
high kup, but it is a poem. And a seventeen
(16:16):
year old named Daniel in Colorado wrote us a sonnet.
There's like more than an eight percent chance he's not obese,
okays in Colorado force Alright, so here we go. From Daniel,
I would that there were just one reason why the
podcast did delight me fully, so that I might be
in hasty time. Supply a nicely packaged blurb so you
(16:39):
might know. I'll ask. No single reason will suffice. The
podcast is a pleasure labyrinthine. To try to craft a
reason too precise would make a burly rope of stingy twine.
But in those fleeting moments in the night. One wonders
does one really need to know whether one can really
die of fright? Or if How Anger Works is at proposed?
(17:00):
But though it may be triviality, the podcast comes to
us completely free. How about that? That was great? I
couldn't write one of these. Oh no, definitely not. Try
try fitting labyrinthine in So Daniel in Colorado, seventeen years old?
You is he? Is he an adult? He's seventeen? Okay? Great,
(17:21):
good to know that he may or may not be
an adult either way. Thank you very much, Daniel. We
appreciate the effort, and we've always also said you can
only gripe so much because it is free, right sure.
Thank you for supporting that point. If you want to
send us a gorgeous poem, or just type the word
labyrinthine and uh in an email and send it to us, um,
(17:41):
you can shoot that over to stuff podcast at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Emery.
It's ready, are you
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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