The corn-derived sweetener known as High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is only (only!) 42% fructose. Big Food is putting a high octane version directly in food products that is 90% pure. Did Big Food name the new product Double Plus Good Corn Syrup? Extra Deadly Corn Syrup? Half the Cost and Twice the Margins Corn Syrup? No.

It’s called “Natural Sweetener”. How can something be natural when it’s the result of an industrial chemical process that includes fermented mold, you ask? Let’s see how natural HFCS-90 is:

To create HFCS-90, corn starch is converted into common corn syrup (glucose) via exposure to different enzymes, one being the product of fermented Aspergillus (mold). The second step converts the glucose into its kissing cousin (isomer) fructose by rearranging the atoms in the glucose molecules; this creates HFCS-42.

HFCS-90 is created by passing HFCS-42 through an ion exchange column whereby undesirable ions are sequestered by appropriately charged resin (small beads of crystalized alien sweat (or similar)).

This is your “Natural Sweetener”.