Well, if a source as authoritative as a guy in a park can't tell me what's wrong with it, it's clearly fine!

It's fine in moderation, except that it's in EVERYTHING!

sometimes i play a game where i try to decide which commercials i hate most: the smug high fructose corn syrup apologists or the "harry and louise" healthcare garbage.

It also provides immediate relief to people with low fructose.

"It's fine, honey - you're ALREADY a fat slob with diabetes."

It's hilarious to watch every dyad on television, and without fail, it will be fugly guy + gorgeous woman

fugly guy + gorgeous woman
fugly guy + gorgeous woman
fugly guy + gorgeous woman
fugly guy + gorgeous woman

what is with that

@6, In my experience it mirrors reality.

I think they did a study of this with the book Hot Chicks and Douchebags.

A sweet surprise alright...

A sweet, cancerous surprise.

Like plutonium, PCBs and rat droppings, it's fine in moderation...

Ethanol is made from corn, too, and who wouldn't want to drink that??? Yum.

On a chemical level, high fructose corn syrup is almost exactly the same as normal sugar. So it might not be great for you, but there is no reason to demonize it in comparison to cane sugar.

Oh FUCK that shit! Here's the reason I'm pushing 44 years old at 5'7''/122lbs and there's an entire generation of blub-ass, inner-tube, rolls-down-the-back women AND men behind me. High-fructose corn syrup, twats. This shit is not safe for you - unless you want to cuddle up with your D-cups every night and I mean men and women.

There's a certain population of fat chicks out there who need to stop thinking it's cute to have big tits - it's not: you're herfing around cancerous melons not to mention the liver-cancer belt riddling your waist. Not sexy. Cancer and grease are ugly!

Avoid HFCS - read labels! Some companies are now touting the HFCS-free thing, read and heed! You're FAT, America. Go snort Ritalin or something. No one born in the 60s or the 70s would allow this shit.

josh@12, high FRUCTOSE corn syrup is made from... surprise... fructose. Table sugar is sucrose, which is basically a glucose molecule plus a fructose molecule.

Glucose is the thing that raises your blood sugar level, causing your pancreas to have to produce insulin. The insulin also causes your body to start transfering the blood sugar directly into fat stores. And tax the pancreas enough times and it stops working, producing diabetes. When people talk about "glycemic index," they're talking about how quickly food gets turned into blood sugar.

Fructose gets metabolized by your liver directly into blood cholesterol. It doesn't show up in "glycemic index," so people don't think it's as bad as glucose. But of course blood cholesterol has a strong correlation (if not outright causality) to heart disease.

I'll leave it to you to decide if you like table sugar or fructose more. But they are most assuredly not the same thing, and many people think neither are good for you.

whoops, josh@12, I stand corrected. HFCS is in fact fructose spiked with glucose. So, yes, you're right: I guess HFCS is similar in effect to table sugar. A big dose of glucose to spike your pancreas and put fat on your ass, and a big dose of fructose to clog your arteries. They both suck.

@5 - Thanks for the lulz

@6 - I know, right?

There's a new term my friends and I have been throwing around. Fruct up.

"I got some organic ketchup today. It's not all fruct up."

"My son eats carrots and bell peppers for snacks. I don't want him all fruct up."

Though I'm not a fan of HFCS, Sven has it wrong on diabetes. Type II diabetes mellitus - what used to be called adult onset before kids starting being diagnosed with it - results not from an overtaxed pancreas but rather from body cells that become resistant to the insulin produced (though the trigger to produce insulin in the pancreas can become impaired as well) in response to high blood glucose. The bit about increased blood lipids from high fructose levels is correct.

@16

You know fructose is also in carrots and bell peppers right?

@18 Yes fructose occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables, but it is also served to us in unnaturally large amounts in foods that we do not usually associate with sugar. There lies the problem. Our bodies are not made to process the amount of sugars of all kinds that we are presently consuming in our society. A nation whose citizens spend a lifetime eating a combination of concentrated sugars and large amounts of trans-fats results is going to be a nation of the obese.

I apologize for not proof-reading: delete "results" in last sentence.

"Fruct up."

Oh, may that be Merriam-Webster's 2008 word of the year.