high fructose corn syrup vs "natural" sweet

[JJM]

Here's one I found in a quick google search.

[F]ructose's unique metabolism, mainly through energy balance regulatory hormones, has been suggested as a possible mechanism to explain temporal trends in HFCS consumption and obesity (16). ...

You did not read/understand the paper, it concludes that HFCS and glucose are similar in satiety:

[E]xisting theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that fructose induced problems are not more related to HFCS than sucrose consumption.

While it does not say so in the quote, satiety and glycemic index were the topics.

 

[CurtC]

So an hour after drinking an HFCS-sweetened soda (or eating an HFCS-sweetened granola bar, although the study didn't test this directly), you feel (more) hungry, so you're more likely to go get a (nutritionally unnecessary) snack.

I haven't read this study, only the snippet you posted. IF the study had found that people were hungrier immediately (and therefore would tend to eat more), I would find the "satiety difference" explanation pretty plausible. But after an hour, that seems to be too long to be attributable to the difference in how the sweeteners taste.

I guess there could still be some difference based on the time it takes the body's enzymes to break down sucrose into glucose and fructose, but from my understanding from other sources that should be a small, nearly insignificant factor.

Since the error ranges on this study's results were pretty large, and since men had the opposite reaction from women, with no apparent (to me) reason why this should be so, this study seems to be somewhat suggestive but far from conclusive.

 

[JJM]

Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback, right? It' a nostalgia thing they do once in awhile. It's only for five weeks, though I think this is the third time they've done it. ...

That intrigued me and I went looking to compare the Mtn Dew "throwback" to the regular on their nutrition labels. I think I found the last package of throwback in the county. It seems they both contain the same amount of carbohydrate. That means that throwback should be less sweet, to start. However, over time the sweetness of throwback should increase (per the article linked in the OP). I did not do a taste-test because I don't like the stuff.

 

[JJM]

... PS HFCS-55 is identical to sucrose in sweetness.

Per the link in the OP

Although the glucose part is less sweet than sucrose, the fructose is so much sweeter that the overall effect is to get more sweetness with less sugar. [with HFCS]

 

[hgc]

Has anyone tried the Red Bull Cola? It's also a "throwback," cola, sweetened with cane sugar. It's very tasty; the taste of spices is very pronounced.

It's impossible to attribute any taste differences with the recipe so different from, say, Coke. But then, who knows what's in Coke, since its ingredient list is partially secret (formula 7x).

Red Bull Cola Ingredients:

Coca leaf
Kola nut
Lemon/lime
Clove
Cinnamon
Cardamom
Pine
Corn mint
Galangal
Vanilla
Ginger
Mace
Cocoa
Liquorice
Orange
Mustard seeds

 

[Augustine]

Per the link in the OP

A common misconception about HFCS is that it is sweeter than sucrose and that this increased sweetness contributed to the obesity crisis by encouraging excessive caloric food and beverage consumption. HFCS is not sweeter than sucrose. The sweetness of several common nutritive sugars in crystalline and liquid or syrup form is compared in Table 2.


Sweetness intensities of crystalline compounds were reported in pioneering work by Schallenberger and Acree in 1971. They determined that fructose in the crystalline, β-d-fructopyranose anomeric form has

1.8 times the sweetness of crystalline sucrose; the relative sweetness of crystalline glucose is lower at 0.7–0.8. Note that the sweetness of HFCS cannot be determined in crystalline form because HFCS does not crystallize. It is this marked difference in sweetness between fructose and sucrose in crystalline samples that is often confused and inappropriately attributed to HFCS, a blend of equal amounts of glucose and fructose in liquid or syrup form.
Once in solution, β-d-fructopyranose undergoes rapid mutarotation to give a mixture of several tautomers with lower and differing sweetness intensities. White and Parke reported the sweetness values of liquid and syrup samples relative to the sucrose standard as established by trained, expert food industry taste panels. In syrup form at 10% solids (the approximate sweetener concentration in most carbonated beverages), HFCS-55 and sucrose yield the same relative sweetness. Under the same experimental conditions, HFCS-42 is less sweet than sucrose, with a value of

0.9.
In 2000 Schiffman et al reported the absolute sweetness of syrups at various concentrations and temperatures. The HFCS absolute sweetness value reported in Table 2http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content-nw/full/88/6/1716S#T2 was calculated by regressing Schiffman's data for fructose and glucose to 10% solids and then substituting the resulting values into the known compositions of HFCS-55 and sucrose. Using sucrose once again as the standard by setting its sweetness equal to 100, a sweetness value of 97 was calculated for HFCS-55, providing independent validation for the value reported by White and Parke. Schiffman's work also confirmed the earlier work of Hyvonen et al and White that temperature has little effect on sweetness intensity. These data confirm what the food industry has claimed for more than 20 y: the sweetness intensities of HFCS-55 and sucrose are equivalent. The replacement of sucrose by HFCS-55 did not change the sweetness intensity of foods and beverages, nor did it lead to a "sweetening of America"

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content-nw/full/88/6/1716S

Table 2:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content-nw/full/88/6/1716S/T2

 

[joobie]

i don't like the mountain dew throwback and i love the pepsi throwback, even though i don't like pepsi. i don't know how to quantify the difference except to say it doesn't taste as sharp as the hfcs version.

dr pepper is marketing a "real sugar" version (called heritage dr pepper, not to be confused with regular dr pepper nostalgia packaging) for a limited time but i haven't seen it for sale yet.

 

[JJM]

[Making the point that HFCS is not sweeter than sucrose] http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content-nw/full/88/6/1716S

Table 2: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content-nw/full/88/6/1716S/T2

Thanks for that, others seem to agree.