This article says that starchy carbs may not be as bad as all that.  But that it’s the sugary carbs we should be worried about, specifically citing high-fructose corn syrup and its effect on insulin.

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An extremely odd study on the effects of high fructose corn syrup on hunger and satiety was released by the University of Washington late last week. The gist of the study was that they had 37 people drink soda pop in the morning – some drank soda pop that was sweetened with hfcs and others drank soda pop that was with sweetened with sugar.

Hours and hours after this, the subjects took part in an “all you can eat” lunch buffet and all consumed virtually the same number of calories.

I have approximately 3 problems with this study (maybe more, once I dig into it). The first is that the purported problem with hfcs is that your body does not process it when it should, in a timely manner, thus WHILE you are having a soda pop with your meal, your body does not detect the calories of HFCS, so does not send the fullness indicator when it should. If you consume hfcs much earlier in the day and THEN eat, of course it’s not going to impact how much you eat – because the hfcs in the soda pop is not a factor in your CURRENT meal.

Another problem I have is that this study did not disclose what was on the menu at the all-you-can-eat buffet. Was it totally devoid of high fructose corn syrup? Or did everything contain high fructose corn syrup? And did all subjects have the same daily calorie requirements? If one person there had a smaller daily calorie requirement and still ate the same number of calories as the person next to him who had a higher daily calorie requirement, then that person overate. And if that person overate, was hfcs in the current meal a factor? Was a menu item with hfcs consumed by that person and not by the person who did not overeat?

My last problem is partially addressed above as hfcs being prevelant in most foods and not just soda pop. The hfcs in soda pop is the hfcs 55 – which is virtually the same as sugar (though not quite, and it doesn’t come by its fructose naturally – it is upped by a genetically modified enzyme in a man-made process). BUT the hfcs that is in most of our food, especially baked goods, is hfcs 90. That means that 90 (NINETY!!!!) percent of that concoction is artifically processed/created fructose and only 10% is naturally-occurring sucrose. And this study does not address THAT at all.

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