Cane, Beet, Corn – What is Sugar?

I have seen several articles lately on the battle between high fructose corn syrup and regular sugar from sugar cane or sugar beets.  There is a perception by the public that cane and beet sugar is better for you than sugar from corn. 

Most nutritionists believe that the all of these sugars are equal from a nutritional standpoint, that is, they all think we should consume much less of them than we are now.

Even Heinz Ketchup has gotten in the middle of it.  A few months ago, they started marketing ketchup made with regular sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup that they called Simply Heinz.  They kept the regular ketchup with the same recipe, but marketed Simply Heinz as an alternative to their regular brand.

The feedback has been, to say the least, very interesting.  The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an article on how the feedback has ranged from people wanting to have products with regular sugar, but hating the taste of it, to people wanting to keep things the same.  Other companies like Pepsi have come out with soda’s with regular sugar as a throwback item.  I, myself, am a Mountain Dew fan and I must admit that I much prefer the taste of current Mountain Dew with high fructose corn syrup than the taste with “real” sugar.

The corn industry is trying to get a ruling that they can legally change the name of high fructose corn syrup to corn sugar.  It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.