Sugar Versus 'High Fructose Corn Syrup' in False Advertising Lawsuit

Friday, April 29, 2011 by Reuters

Sweet Suit

SAN FRANCISCO - Sugar producers think recent marketing efforts by manufacturers of high-fructose corn syrup aren't so sweet.

In a lawsuit filed last week, three sugar distributors say that equating HFCS with real sugar -- with slogans like "your body can't tell the difference" -- misleads consumers.

They accuse defendants, including Archer Daniels Midland Co and Cargill, of using the publicity campaign to offset growing customer concerns about obesity.

"This suit is about false advertising, pure and simple," said Inder Mathur, CEO of Western Sugar Cooperative, one of the plaintiffs.

Audrae Erickson, president of the Corn Refiners Association, said the lawsuit is without merit, as HFCS and sugar are nutritionally and metabolically equivalent.

"Sugar is sugar," Erickson said.

The United States is the biggest consumer and manufacturer of high-fructose corn syrup, with soft-drink makers the largest users.

The sweetener was added to beverages such as Coca-Cola in the early 1980s, but U.S. food makers have been edging away from it in recent years, trying out a return to sugar in some products after studies linked corn syrup to obesity.

However, HFCS has been able to regain market share recently amid surging sugar prices.

The Corn Refiners Association has asked federal regulators to allow HFCS to be called "corn sugar." But the lawsuit says the defendants "jumped the gun" and started using the term before receiving approval.

Erickson said the Corn Refiners Association will "vigorously" defend its right to petition for the name change with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"We stand by the message in our ads and the science behind it," Erickson said.

The case in U.S. District Court, Central District of California is Western Sugar Cooperative et al. v. Archer Daniels Midland Co et al, 11-3473.

Fructose--or "Corn Sugar"--Is Not The Same As Sugar

by Dave Wittenborn - September 16, 2010

On September 14th, the Corn Refiners Association petitioned the FDA to approve the use of the name "corn sugar" to replace "fructose."

While this may be the equivalent of placing a fake nose and glasses over the substance formerly known as high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, the assumption by corn refiners such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland that the general public is too stupid to see through the disguise is nowhere near as offensive as the outright lies being told by the industry that your body can't tell the difference between HFCS and sugar.

If you would like an in-depth, but very entertaining explanation of how your body metabolizes fructose differently than sugar, watch this outstanding presentation by Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D., a UCSF Professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism.

vidlink

Here's the deal. HFCS used in most food products is a blend of about 55% fructose and 42% glucose. Sugar, or sucrose is also composed of about the same proportions of the same two substances. The difference, and your body considers it to be a BIG difference, is that in regular sugar, the fructose and glucose components are chemically bonded together. In HFCS, they are not chemically connected.

 This diagram depicts roughly what a molecule of sugar would look like, fructose and glucose, bound together. Take away the "bar" that connects the two, and you have the equivalent of HFCS.

Because of this difference, according to researchers at Princeton University, your liver metabolizes HFCS in a very different, and harmful, way than it metabolizes the same amount of calories from cane sugar, leading to significant relative weight gain and other health problems from HFCS.

As if that's not enough, recently a UCLA research team found that cancer cells that were fed fructose grew at a significantly faster rate than did cells that were fed common sugar.

Study author Dr. Anthony Heaney, Associate Professor of Medicine and Neurosurgery at UCLA's cancer center, said it was likely that fructose would also speed the growth of other cancers as well. The study was published in the August 1, 2010 issue of Cancer Research.

The bottom line is this: if HFCS was indeed the same as sugar, the corn refiners would be providing research to prove it, rather than hiding behind the smoke and mirrors of changing its name. The truth is, it's NOT the same, and independent research proves it. The FDA should ignore the name change request and focus on the lies being told to the public.

High fructose corn syrup to be called ‘corn sugar’: Industry lobbies to change food labels

By The Associated Press - Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

RELATED: High fructose corn syrup (aka "corn sugar") literally fuels cancer cell growth, study finds

Americans' consumption of corn syrup has fallen to a 20-year low on consumer concerns that it is more harmful or more likely to cause obesity than ordinary sugar.

However, some scientists have linked consumption of full-calorie soda — the vast majority of which is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup — to obesity.

The Food and Drug Administration could take two years to decide on the name, but that's not stopping the industry from using the term now in advertising.

There's a new online marketing campaign at http://www.cornsugar.com and on television. Two new commercials try to alleviate shopper confusion, showing people who claim they now understand that "whether it's corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can't tell the difference. Sugar is sugar." (bullshit--jef)

Renaming products has succeeded before. For example, low eurcic acid rapeseed oil became much more popular after becoming "canola oil" in 1988. Prunes tried to shed a stodgy image by becoming "dried plums" in 2000.

The new name would help people understand the sweetener, said Audrae Erickson, president of the Washington-based group.

"It has been highly disparaged and highly misunderstood," she said. She declined to say how much the campaign costs.

"Soda pop sweetened with sugar is every bit as conducive to obesity as soda pop sweetened with high fructose corn syrup," he said. (but corn sugar feeds cancer cells more than sugar--jef)

Americans increasingly are blaming high fructose corn syrup and avoiding it. First lady Michelle Obama has said she does not want her daughters eating it.

Parents such as Joan Leib scan ingredient labels and will not buy anything with it. The mother of two in Somerville, Mass., has been avoiding the sweetener for about a year to reduce sweeteners in her family's diet.

"I found it in things that you would never think needed it, or should have it," said Leib, 36. "I found it in jars of pickles, in English muffins and bread. Why do we need extra sweeteners?"

Many companies are responding by removing it from their products. Last month, Sara Lee switched to sugar in two of its breads. Gatorade, Snapple and Hunt's Ketchup very publicly switched to sugar in the past two years.

The average American ate 35.7 pounds of high fructose corn syrup last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's down 21 percent from 45.4 pounds 10 years before.

Cane and beet sugar, meanwhile, have hovered around 44 pounds per person per year since the mid-1980s, after falling rapidly in the 1970s, when high fructose corn syrup — a cheaper alternative to sugar — gained favor with soft drink makers.

With sales falling in the U.S., the industry is growing in emerging markets like Mexico, and revenue has been steady at $3 billion to $4 billion a year, said Credit Suissesenior analyst Robert Moskow. There are five manufacturers in the U.S.: Archer Daniels Midland Inc., Corn Products International, Cargill, Roquette America, and Tate & Lyle.

Corn refiners say their new name better describes the sweetener.

"The name 'corn sugar' more accurately reflects the source of the food (corn), identifies the basic nature of the food (a sugar), and discloses the food's function (a sweetener)," the petition said.

Will shoppers swallow the new name?

The public is skeptical, so the move will be met with criticism, said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

"This isn't all that much different from any of the negative brands trying to embrace new brand names," he said, adding the change is similar to what ValuJet — whose name was tarnished by a deadly crash in 1996 — did when it bought AirTran's fleet and took on its name.

"They're not saying this is a healthy vitamin, or health product," he said. "They're just trying to move away from the negative associations."