Many soup recipes call for just a touch of sugar, especially if they contain tomatoes, so it's not wholly untoward to add some. But to add high-fructose corn syrup? Sugar crystals help neutralize the acidity of tomatoes, so it is helpful to add some to tomato soups and soups which contain tomatoes. But high-fructose corn syrup is simply sweet - thus causing some soups to contain both HFCS *and* sugar. So if sugar is the optimal ingredient, why does soup have high-fructose corn syrup in it? My guess as to why they also add HFCS is because, in addition to being a sweetener, it has a thickening effect. So a soup can be "thick and creamy" - which is usually an effect of slow-cooking for many hours - without actually having been cooked … [Read more...]