Debating High Fructose Corn Syrup
PHILLIPS: Well, CNN is taking a cross-country food journey all this week. We've sent reporting teams to every corner of America and beyond. Our mission is to get fresh answers about how our food is grown, how the choices we make impact our health, our state of mind, our budgets and the pure joy of just eating. We've teamed up with the new cnn.com food destination, eatocracy.com to bring you "Eatocray, Mind, Body and Wallet." And this hour, we're taking a closer look at one of the ingredients that seems to have popped up on all sorts of food labels no matter what grocery store aisle that you're in, high fructose corn syrup. It's sugar. And critics say it's fueling America's obesity problem. Brianna Keilar hit up the grocery store and the laboratory to find out more.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): To look for molasses. (voice-over): Just walk down the aisles of your grocery store, check out the ingredients on labels, and you'll see the same thing over and over. (on camera): High fructose corn syrup is the first ingredient. (voice-over): It's in pancake syrup, cookies, ketchup, jelly, even cereal and soup. (on camera): Tomato soup, high fructose corn syrup.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the third ingredient after tomato and water. Yes. So there you go. Some people think tomato it's a vegetable, I'm giving my child, you know, a vegetable serving.</s>KEILAR (voice-over): Each year Americans consume on average almost 38 pounds of high fructose corn syrup. But not Jessica Haney. This mother of two and the voice behind a blog called Crunchy Chewy Mama has cut the corn based sweetener out of her family's diet.</s>JESSICA HANEY, BLOGGER: It's not just squeezing out the corn and getting the sugar or something, it's not that you're eating corn. It's not a vegetable. It's a highly industrialized product that has been shown to do lots of yucky things in your body and we just don't need it.</s>KEILAR: Many Americans are convinced high fructose corn syrup is one of the culprits of the country's obesity epidemic. In a recent study, 57 percent of those polled said it was a top food safety issue. Right up there with artificial growth hormones in milk and mad cow disease. That concern is reflected in the demand for food that's free of high fructose corn syrup. Just check out Pepsi's newest offering. Sierra Mist made with real sugar.</s>ANNONCER: It's the soda nature would drank if nature drank soda.</s>KEILAR: For all of the bad buzz around high fructose corn syrup, a number of studies suggest there is no difference how the body responds to it versus plain old sugar. In 2008, the American Medical Association said, "insufficient evidence exists to specifically restrict the use of high fructose corn syrup." But the issue isn't settled. The AMA also encouraged further independent research on the health effects of high fructose corn syrup. (on camera): We're here at Princeton University because this is where one of the most recent studies -- and a very controversial one, on high fructose corn syrup and how it's different than sugar, was recently conducted. It's a study that involves rats, and it was released just this year.</s>BART HOEBEL, PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Our studies were conducted in the simulated soft drink. It was high fructose corn syrup in water.</s>KEILAR (voice-over): Professor Bart Hoebel and his team of researchers gave a second group of rats access to regular sugar dissolved in water. The rats drinking the high fructose corn syrup mixture actually consumed fewer calories than those drinking water sweetened with real sugar. And even so -- (on camera): You found that the rats consuming the high fructose corn syrup got significantly fatter?</s>HOEBEL: Exactly. And this what is led us to believe that those two are not the same after all.</s>KEILAR: Critics of high fructose corn syrup point to Hoebel's research as proof that body metabolizes it differently than sugar while some experts criticize the voracity of his findings. Hoebel says more research needs to be done. As to scientific verdict on high fructose corn syrup remains inconclusive, the Corn Refiners Association, which represents producers of the sweeter knows it has a public perception issue, and is trying to rebrand it as "corn sugar."</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I learned whether it's corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can't tell the difference. Sugar is sugar.</s>KEILAR: IN addition to this multimillion-dollar ad campaign, the Corn Refiners Association has petitioned the FDA to use corn sugar on ingredient labels.</s>AUDRAE ERICKSON, PRESIDENT, CORN REFINERS ASSOCIATION: High fructose corn syrup is simply a sugar made from corn. It is an added sugar in the diet, and this effort to provide clarity to consumers will help them recognize added sugars in the diet.</s>KEILAR: Many skeptical consumers, like Jessica Haney say high fructose corn syrup by another name is still something she won't be feeding her family. (on camera): You think the change of the name is very misleading.</s>JESSICA HANEY, DOES NOT BUY PRODUCTS WITH HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP: Oh, yes. I do. We do molasses and honey and maple syrup, things that all have minerals embedded within them and that come with fiber, whereas the fructose corn syrup doesn't.</s>KEILAR: But it would take a lot of Jessica Haneys to eat away at that startling statistic, 38 pounds of high fructose corn syrup per American per year. Brianna Keilar, CNN, Arlington, Virginia.</s>PHILLIPS: While some Americans may not be eating healthy, many are hard pressed to eat at all. They go hungry. More than 49 million Americans do not have consistent access to decent food. That's one in six, the highest number since the government began tracking what it called food insecurity over a decade ago. Celebrity chef Tom , his wife and others are actually documenting families who worry about where their next meal is coming from. Here is what they're working on. It's a documentary called "Hungry in America."</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This can happen to anybody. You think it won't happen to you? It might happen to you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm out of food already. You know, I have another week to go.</s>PHILLIPS: And oftentimes those hunger pangs start as a child. We talked to the Top Chef judge about combating that hunger and proving kids with healthy meals in the - improving, rather -- kids with healthier meals in the cafeteria.</s>TOM COLICCHIO, "TOP CHEF" JUDGE: You send kids to school, and you give them books and a desk. This should be part of learning -- for children to learn part is nourishing them. We did do a challenge on "Top Chef," and what we found out -- for years, you've always heard that kids don't want to eat healthy food. They want pizza and they chicken fingers. And we found out that if you feed kids really good, healthy nutritious food, they'll eat it. In fact, they were asked for seconds and thirds and fourths. So, just based on -- it's not a scientific study, but just based on the 200 children we fed that day, they'll line up for healthy food.</s>PHILLIPS: "Eatocracy: Mind, Body and Wallet" continues next hour. Remember, CNN.com/eatocracy for more stories on healthy eating. It's also where you can learn more about how to unlock the CNN Healthy Eater badge on Foursquare. We're trying to match up another seeker with a job in our "30- second pitch." Meet a woman who's 59 years old and can't find work. Her son says he'll take care of her, but she says that's not how it's supposed to be.