A new category of food is seeing a switch from high fructose corn syrup to white sugar: ketchup. Hunt’s announced a sweetener swap in its ketchup last month, while Heinz has begun offering a variety of its ketchup that’s high fructose corn syrup-free. They follow on similar announcements from other brands, like Gatorade, in opting for processed cane or beet sugar. But this recipe reformulation is really driven by marketing departments. Why? Because the science is clear: High fructose corn syrup isn’t metabolized any differently from processed sugar—a view shared even by America’s top food nags. And while processed sugar has an “all-natural” marketing halo (for now), in reality it requires just as industrial an effort to make as high fructose corn syrup.
In other words, as we told readers of The Charlotte Observer on Friday, the “new” ketchup isn’t really any different:
Switching from high fructose corn syrup to processed sugar won't change the nutritional value of their products one drop. Hunt's has admitted as much, saying the sweetener swap was in "response to consumer demand" and apparently not based on science. And it's similarly telling that Heinz labels its corn sugar-free variety of ketchup as a "lifestyle-driven" product. …
The American Dietetic Association, which represents 70,000 food and nutrition experts, says that "high fructose corn syrup … is nutritionally equivalent to sucrose." (Sucrose being the refined white sugar we use in coffee, homemade cookies, and now ketchup.)
High fructose corn syrup is simply a sugar made from corn. In other words, a dollop of the "new" Hunt's will be just like the old variety. Same old ketchup, brand new bottle.
Read the whole piece here.
