Taken from the book “Staying Healthy with Nutrition.”

By Elson M. Haas, MD

Image by Mae Mu on unsplash.com

"FRUCTOSE –

This is a natural sugar found in many fruits and honey. It is twice as sweet as sucrose, or cane sugar, and is now being used more frequently as a sweetener. It is available in bulk as well as being used in candies, preserves, ice cream, and “natural” beverage drinks and ices. The health food industry often uses fructose instead of sucrose. It seems to stimulate blood sugar and pancreatic insulin less rapidly than glucose (part of sucrose) and is absorbed more slowly. Still, too much fructose can be just as hard on our blood sugar level as too much table sugar or corn syrup. Fructose is basically safe in small amounts, as are most of the simple sugars. When used in excess, however, all sugars seem to affect the emotional, mental, and physical states of the user. It is best to use fructose and other sugars moderately and to consume more natural fruits and vegetables to obtain less simple carbohydrates."

JOCELYNE’S NOTE - The carbohydrates found in fruits and vegetables are complex carbohydrates. It is complex because it takes more steps to bread down into pure sugar as opposed to sugar which is straight sugar and goes immediately into your system.

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP –

"This kind of syrup is highly processed and as mentioned above is much sweeter than regular sugar. The problem with this sort of sugar is that we can consume a large amount of it and never get the feeling of being full (satiated) therefore it is very easy to consume a large amount way above what would be healthy to consume."  

A great example of this is the difference between a coke produced in Mexico with regular sugar vs one produced in the United States with High Fructose Corn Syrup.  At a movie theater they serve 64 oz of this beverage and I see people drink it in full.  Try drinking 64 oz of a soft drink with regular sugar.  Your body will ask you to stop, but with high fructose corn syrup you can just keep going.  

Food Manufacturers like this because it creates craveability.  

In my opinion it is best to consume a different kind of sugar and avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup altogether but if you do, monitor your consumption and limit it to a very small amount. Stevia, Monk Fruit, Just like Sugar, Honey and Maple Syrup are all great alternatives to this option.