Dan,
The biggest problem with non-diet sodas is that one can consume a lot of calories in a day by drinking them, and never actually feel that one has eaten much. So by cutting out sodas you are effectively significantly reducing your calorie intake without your body feeling deprived.
HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup is not exactly a "grafted" product. Instead, it contains both fructose and glucose, and somewhat more fructose than glucose. Because these are separate sugars, the body tends to metabolize them a lot faster than sucrose (which is a molecule made up of glucose and fructose), which can be bad for diabetics (the glucose rushes right to the blood to raise its sugar level quickly). Almost as bad are refined starches like white flour, white rice. These are actually worse than sucrose because when digested they yield glucose molecules very quickly as well.
I'm not sure the business in the link about the liver getting overtaxed by processing fructose is true or not, and it's apparent that rats with copper deficiency should not drink sodas, but it's interesting anyway.
HFCS is a highly processed product, that's true. Turning 60% of the glucose into fructose takes an expensive enzyme but like all enzymes you don't need much of it to do its work. As I recall, fructose tastes sweeter than glucose, so you can use less total sugar for the same amount of sweetness. It also probably tastes very similar to sucrose which is the sweet taste we've gotten used to. Plus despite the expensive enzyme, HFCS is cheaper than sucrose.
The biggest problem with non-diet sodas is that one can consume a lot of calories in a day by drinking them, and never actually feel that one has eaten much. So by cutting out sodas you are effectively significantly reducing your calorie intake without your body feeling deprived.
HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup is not exactly a "grafted" product. Instead, it contains both fructose and glucose, and somewhat more fructose than glucose. Because these are separate sugars, the body tends to metabolize them a lot faster than sucrose (which is a molecule made up of glucose and fructose), which can be bad for diabetics (the glucose rushes right to the blood to raise its sugar level quickly). Almost as bad are refined starches like white flour, white rice. These are actually worse than sucrose because when digested they yield glucose molecules very quickly as well.
I'm not sure the business in the link about the liver getting overtaxed by processing fructose is true or not, and it's apparent that rats with copper deficiency should not drink sodas, but it's interesting anyway.
HFCS is a highly processed product, that's true. Turning 60% of the glucose into fructose takes an expensive enzyme but like all enzymes you don't need much of it to do its work. As I recall, fructose tastes sweeter than glucose, so you can use less total sugar for the same amount of sweetness. It also probably tastes very similar to sucrose which is the sweet taste we've gotten used to. Plus despite the expensive enzyme, HFCS is cheaper than sucrose.
