Sugar Industry to Sue Over "Corn Sugar" Label

by Jason Best, Posted Apr 29th 2011 @ 1:00PM

corn commercial commercial Photo: YouTube

The battle over sweeteners just got a whole lot more bitter.

As the Associated Press reports, a group of sugar farmers and refiners, including big names like C&H Sugar, have filed suit against the makers of high-fructose corn syrup. Their beef? They want the corn industry to stop trying to hawk their souped-up sweetener as "corn sugar."

As the country has watched its collective waistline get bigger and a generation of kids turn into outsized roly-polys, perhaps no product has come to be as maligned as high-fructose corn syrup. Indeed, among certain members of the Bugaboo-stroller set, feeding your kids anything that contains the super sweetener might as well be the equivalent of letting them snack on crack.

Faced with an image crisis (American consumption of high-fructose corn syrup fell to a 20-year low last year), the corn industry went on the offense, running golden-hued ads of bucolic American farmscapes that essentially touted high-fructose corn syrup as nutritionally the same as sugar and asking the federal government for permission to market the stuff accordingly as "corn sugar."

The Food and Drug Administration has yet to rule on the request, but the sugar industry isn't waiting around. It charges that corn processors are engaging in deceptive advertising that has unfairly damaged big sugar's bottom line.

"This suit is about false advertising, pure and simple," one sugar industry exec told the AP. "If consumers are concerned about your product, then you should improve it or explain its benefits, not try to deceive people about its name or distort scientific facts."

To which the president of the Corn Refiners Association essentially responded: "Sugar is sugar. High-fructose corn syrup and sugar are nutritionally and metabolically equivalent; experts have supported this claim. The name 'corn sugar' more accurately describes this sweetener and helps clarify food products labeling."

Tags: HFCS, high fructose corn syrup, Sugar

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Reader comments (Page 2 of 2)

4-30-2011 @9:00PM SFDavis1089 said... What next? Is BIG SUCROSE going to sue the writers of biochemistry texts for referring to "simple" and "complex" sugars and not just restricting the sugar designation to THEIR product? Sugar is a much more generic concept than the Capitalist Propaganda Machine seems to understand; and if someone with a PhD in biochemistry can accurately use the name for sucrose, dextrose, fructose, maltose, glucose, lactose or picknose, he certainly doesn't need the likes of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe (-;who probably flunked "I love you, you love me" anyway;-) strongarming him/her into doing otherwise.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
GOD HELP THE GOVERNMENT!!!!
(and a hearty "w'alaikum as-salaam" to all)

PS: « http://www.slashfood.com/confirm/[32-digit hex suppressed]/ » doesn't seem to work
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5-02-2011 @12:56AM Mal said... I have no tolerance for HFCS, but to be fair, C&H should have to call their product-
"Sugar, with bone char".
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5-18-2011 @11:20AM Philip said... ...let's not forget that HFCS is from GMO ingredients. This major difference seems to overlooked. Cane sugar is not. Sugar beats, possibly.

Analyze the health ailments before and after genetically modified ingredients made up 80-90% of the US processed food diet. The rise in health issues from cancers to allergies that cannot be explained may be right on our plates or farms.

Has anyone noticed that increase in soy allergies after GMO soy was deregulated?

HFCS is no different. Corn sugar? HFCS does not exist in natural. Pure sugar cane does.

Corn itself and large corn agri companies (i.e. Monsanto) make billions on the crop. The US gov't has a lot of money invested in this. The US gov't makes a lot of money on corn. So of course the corn companies are going to fight.

Educate yourself on others about GMOs. As the consumers, we have a chance to reclaim our food and beverages from the multi-billion dollar agri corporations.
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