sugar versus corn syrup?

[seperis]

Also, this is random, but I'm curious.

I have been trying, without success, to cut soda out of my diet on weekdays, what with thyroid and health and whatever, and well. This would work if I didn't have to go to work, where somehow, the two minutes it takes to make tea feels like a lifetime and the coffee at work does really unfortunate things which aren't mentionable in polite company so please don't ask.

However, a couple of weeks ago, Pepsi Original (WITH SUGAR!) came back again and I switched to drinking that, figuring if I am going to be unhealthy I might as well drink something I love. There is no fructose or related corn syrups. And my weight dropped. Like, in a way that was vaguely disturbing, as my favorite jeans now require a belt and I love my jeans.

Now granted, I am in the middle of thirty to forty-five minutes a day of Dance Dance Revolution 3 on Difficult Level (God I love that game), but a.) I am not interested in losing weight (did I mention I went up a cup size last year and happiness?) and b.) I am not trying to lose weight, and c.) I've only been doing this for about five days, so there's no fucking way. I freaked with my jeans and verified with the scale there's been at least a seven to twelve drop in the last three and a half weeks (corresponding when I went through my trying-to-quit-soda to started-original-sugar-pepsi). Now granted, I have been religious in taking my thyroid medication, but I'm five ten and no matter what BMI says, there's a point where I start to take on the vague look of someone who has far too many bones and to remind myself, I pull out high school pictures of the dark days of 130 pounds and college 125 to 150 and wince heartily because no, no, and God no. And also, my hair. God. What was I thinking? Which is why you will never see pictures of me from that age, because it's fucking creepy.

Does sugar burn off faster than corn syrup or something? Granted, we're talking combination of factors, but that's the only two things I can verify have changed in my diet. Well, fine, and I got more Duncan Donuts coffee (my God, yes), but really, if that was the answer, I think it would be a lot more popular.

I also want to recommend Dance Dance Revolution 3. It has a rickroll and that is awesome. It also has Ice Ice Baby, Just Dance, Enjoy the Silence, and Hungry Like the Wolf. The latter two confuse Child a great deal (Wolf with added WTF--seriously, this and seeing the video to Africa by Toto are incredibly, painfully jarring). There's just no way to explain the eighties video aesthetic. There's also no way to explain The Space Dance, really; that's just disturbing. Gorillaz, however, is never not awesome. The surreality of three separate decades of music cannot enough be commented on.

Comments

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

There appeared to be some correlation between increasing obesity and use of high-fructose corn syrup (cheaper for manufacturing). Whether that remains the case is up to some debate.

They are using sugar again??? I was told they use it in Europe but I figured the manufacturers here would oppose it because of higher costs. Hummmm.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Limited time, in eighties-era white cans! I am stocking up. It tastes so much better. I'm going to say anecdotally, yeah, the sugar seems to be making a difference.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

I remember when I stopped drinking soda, it was sort of unreal? I thought 'gosh, no caffeine, etc, and WHAT THE HELL?'

*pets you*

Of course I run, bike, or do some dance stuff nearly every day..so. Yes, but I know what you mean.

[airglowsgold.livejournal.com]

i have no idea if this has been scientifically validated or not, but corn syrup seems to contribute more to weight-gain than sugar; my dad works at a mammoth food manufacturing and distribution company that employs a lot of mexicans, and one of them came back from a family visit with a couple 24-packs of coke for him (mexican and canadian cola uses sugar), and i lost three pounds drinking it before we ran out and switched back to the american stuff

chemicals are weird. eh, stick w/ the sugared pepsi, sugar's probably not that much less processed than corn syrup but every little bit counts, right? also, you've convinced me to try pick up a ddr for ps2, if that and bikram yoga turn me into some type of freakish skinny muscled creature i'm blaming you

[seperis.livejournal.com]

THE VIDEOS ARE HILARIOUS.

I tripped twice during the first viewing of Hungry Like the Wolf with WTF IS THAT WHAT. Oh eighties. You were so stoned. I hope. If you did that shit clean and sober, IDEK.

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

I may need to stock up. I've been drinking diet but real sugar...

[seperis.livejournal.com]

DDR3 is my drug of choice. I like it because it loads fast enough that I can do a few dances or settle in for the long haul either way. Plus, there is nothing not awesome or hilarious about dancing to Ice Ice Baby. My God.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

I don't have a wii, so...

But I can imagine the videos being hilarious. I have looked at some stuff and wanted to ask some (all) musicians of that decade WHAT WERE YOU ON???

[macbyrne.livejournal.com]

I think the more refined the complex carbs are, the easier they stick and the harder they are to lose. So with that being said, sugar would be less refined than say, fructose or sucrose (corn syrup) and so would be lost easier.

I think.... LOL.

[margi-lynn.livejournal.com]

Yes, sugar's composition is completely different from corn-syrup!

Corn syrups are way less sweet than any amount of sugar, however they are also cheaper. Also the hidden calorie part applies as well - you're not tasting the compound that makes up the syrup part of the corn sweetener but oh is your body!

Way more corn syrup must go into a can of coke than equivalent refined sugar. That is honestly how much cheaper high-fructose corn syrup is.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I feel this is something I blocked out of chemistry class and wish I hadn't. Stupid complex molecule things.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sad sense. And God, it tastes so much better. The only thing that comes close is simple syrup which I thought was kind of amazing in that they brought it to the table at a restaurant and it was good in my coffee and my pancakes. That my friend is a useful, useful thing to have around.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

There should be a list of the Top Ten WTF Videos of the Eighties. I mean, I will say this--they had fun.

[margi-lynn.livejournal.com]

I know, right? Delicious.

Oh I went to my bf's family dinner and his great-aunt had molasses.

Sweet Deities, a sugar that is good for you (with nutrients even!) and it was like heaven on Earth on my plate.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, I remember back when MTV DID play music videos, and watching things (being young at the time, the stuff is rather blurry) but WORD.

Someone should make a list.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Molasses cookies are just--yes. And my grandmother used to make a cake I think with it? God yes.

[opusnone.livejournal.com]

of note, with Passover coming up, all Coca Cola products certified Kosher for Passover (not just regular Kosher) are made with sugar rather then corn syrup as corn is prohibited during the holiday. If their products are your thing it might make sense to stock up.

[zeenell]

i love pepsi throwback so much.

Like, I have this obsession with mt dew, and the only thing i like equally well is pepsi throwback.

(regular pepsi, I am very - if it's there, but otherwise no about)

[disbelief11.livejournal.com]

Let me just say that I used to think I had some sort of Serious Problem with being Obsessed With Food. I ate and ate and was still hungry...I would just have finished eating and would be so damn hungry minutes later.

...then I started cutting out HFCS and other stuff with weird names I can't pronounce. I haven't cut them out entirely (it's amazing how much stuff has HFCS in it - including my favorite mustard) but within a very short time of cutting back I noticed that I was no longer spending every waking minute thinking about what I could eat next. I could decide that I was full and done. It was like a miracle.

[ratcreature]

I remember reading about a study with mice, in which some were fed sugar water, some fructose water, some water with artificial sweetener and some plain water. They found that both groups of mice getting calories from their water ate less solid food, so overall all mice ate about the same calories, but the mice drinking the fructose water still got fatter, whereas the sugar water drinking mice didn't. They found the liver affected my too much fructose, and suspected that it aversely affected their metabolism.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I bring SCIENCE!

Yes, sucrose (="table sugar") is made up of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose. Fructose is of course the simple sugar enhanced in HFCS, though HFCS also includes simple glucose.

The important point is: your cells only directly eat the simple sugars. In order to get calories out of sucrose, your body has to invest energy to break the two component sugars apart. The simple sugars (monosaccharides) in HFCS can go directly to GO, no intermediate steps, so they translate into calories very quickly and directly.

I also suspect that because you've gotten used over the years to consuming much more simple sugar than sucrose, your body has become "rusty" at breaking the sucrose apart into its components. If you mostly eat/drink sugar in the form of sucrose, over time your body will become more efficient at metabolizing it again, and your weight will go up.

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

I found HFCS in my saltines *cries*

[cpt-untouchable.livejournal.com]

There's increasing evidence to suggest that high fructose corn syrup (which is added to so many processed foods it's unreal) has a lot to do with the obesity epidemic in America. And ... now I'm going to be such a killjoy I kinda want to pre-emptively punch myself in the face. A study has linked pancreatic cancer with soda. Specifically, women who drink more than two sodas a week. It's something to do with the high sugar content. Artificial sugar is actually worse, though. Aspartame is being linked more and more frequently with brain cancer. It's in a lot of sugar-free and low-cal foods, including most chewing gum.

Yay! Whole foods.

[ratcreature]

AFAIK here in the EU sugar beet production gets subsidies just like corn gets in the US. Also sugar from cane for example is subject to an import tax, because sugar industry in Europe has several ten thousand employees, and like a quarter million of small farms produce sugar. So sugar prices overall are actually artificially high here (about three times per ton than international sugar prices I think) so that the farms can continue to operate (much to the protest of many developing countries who produce cane sugar). But I strongly subject that corn syrup must be taxed to protect beet sugar just like cane sugar is to make sure that here it would not be cheaper to use anything but beet sugar for soda production and such.

[margi-lynn.livejournal.com]

And you know what? Good medical science says you're not crazy.