Natural Sugar Vs. High-Fructose Corn Syrup

The bright red label on a bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice cocktail boasts that it contains no high-fructose corn syrup. Its sweet replacement: sugar.

Other juice producers also have replaced the sweetener with cane or beet sugar. Big-name products including Log Cabin syrup, some Kraft Foods dressings and certain Pepsi products have gone the same route. Starbucks has undertaken a switch from high-fructose corn syrup to sugar in its bakery goods.

The turnabout is another step in the ongoing demonization of high-fructose corn syrup, a potent symbol of processed food's many evils. Since use of the sweetener exploded in the 1980s, it has been derided as unnatural and lacking any meaningful nutritional value, often mentioned in the same breath as such food villains as trans fats and artificial dyes.

First Lady Michelle Obama recently added to the criticism by saying she will not serve food made with high-fructose corn syrup to her two young daughters.

The beneficiary of this demonization has been sugar -- which some consumers have come to view almost as a health food. But most scientists and nutritionists agree sugar is no better than high-fructose corn syrup for a healthy diet.

Many consumers see sugar as more natural, because making high-fructose corn syrup involves using enzymes in a complex series of chemical reactions. Environmentalists are concerned that depending on corn for sweeteners depletes the soil quality on land where it is farmed. Researchers have reported detecting traces of mercury in a small sampling of high-fructose corn syrup, though they cautioned that the study was limited.

Some consumers say foods made with sugar simply taste better.

Those issues have come to outweigh high-fructose corn syrup's benefits -- it helps keep foods moist, extends the shelf life of products and is cheaper to produce than cane or beet sugar. Consequently, it has become a popular ingredient in processed products in nearly every aisle of the supermarket.