Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Just Sugar?

 
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a liquid form of sugar derived from the processing of commodity corn.  It has been villafied in the public as dangerous and blamed by many for the obesity epidemic.  Some food and soda companies have responded to this by reformulating their products with "real sugar."  And now, the Corn Refiners association is trying to change the name of High Fructose Corn Syrup to "Corn Sugar," in an attempt to win back public opinion.

This name change is probably a good ideas, because HFCS is indeed nutritionally similar to "real sugar" (sucrose).  In reality, HFCS is probably not anyworse for health than sucrose.  The real problem with HFCS is that it is ubiquitous.  Because it is cheaper than sucrose and a good preservative, it is used in countless numbers of processed foods, thereby exposing millions of American's to many extra sugar calories.  The other important issue is that its cheap price is articifical, as the true costs of production are externalized by government subsidies for corn and petroleum and damage to the environement and climate.  

So is avoiding HFCS a good idea?  Yes, definetly, but also is limiting intake of "real sugar", because nutritionally neither one is good for you and both contribute to the development of obesity.