Watching people with proper training (dietitians, doctors) tell us that there is no difference between sugar and high-fructose corn syrup is bad enough. Technically, they aren't the same, and this assumes we're talking HFCS-55 (55% fructose, 45% glucose).
But what if that product with high-fructose corn syrup contains HFCS-90?
Not wanting to play conspiracy games, but we don't honestly know what level of high-fructose corn syrup we're getting. We've been told HFCS-55, though we don't know.
According to Food Identity Theft, we know this has been in existence for quite some time.
"But now, the CRA (Corn Refiners Association) itself has come out and admitted that HFCS containing such mega doses of fructose has been in use "with FDA knowledge for decades."
Whether the FDA knows exactly what is going on is up for debate. We are the consumers ingesting high-fructose corn syrup, and we don't know what we are ingesting.
If some or most of the products containing high-fructose corn syrup had elevated levels of fructose (60%? 70%? 80%?), that would explain the liver problems and other health issues caused by excess fructose. Perhaps Dr. Robert Lustig can explain to us that sugar and HFCS-90 are "exactly the same."
I've made my biases against high-fructose corn syrup known, but if you think about this independently, every element of society, from processed food to lack of recess to video games to fast food, has been examined to see its role in childhood and adult obesity. Somehow, with high-fructose corn syrup, the political pressures are too high to give this a thorough study.
Yes, the experts tell us that sugar and high-fructose corn syrup have been studied and they are virtually/exactly the same. But the impact of high-fructose corn syrup and the significantly higher use of it in products hasn't been examined even lightly.
Like the pro-HFCS people will tell you, high-fructose corn syrup is not the sole reason for the obesity epidemic. Even I would never say that. High-fructose corn syrup has a significant role in the climbing obesity numbers. And if we've been eating HFCS-90 in some products, well, that would be a lot easier to prove.