What's with the anti-science shit liberals are on lately?

[Blubbartron]

Sugar alcohols give pretty intense diarrhea if you eat too much of it. I have nothing else of value to contribute, besides agreeing with the general sentiment that people need to learn and appreciate science instead of allowing themselves to be manipulated by fear-mongering capitalists.

[Chun Liroy]

the concentration of fructose is slightly higher in HFCS than in sucrose - but they are both 100% made of sugars. There is nothing in HFCS or Cane sugar that is something other than a sugar - it's just a matter of what type of sugar we're talking about here. Monosaccarides (Glucose, fructose, galactose) vs. disaccaraides (sucrose, maltose, lactose) - but sucrose (table sugar) is a 50/50 glucose/fructose (both of which are sugars), where as HFCS (in like soda) is 55% fructose and 42% glucose (and a little other sugar for the remaining 3%)

tl;dr they're all sugar, all the way, there's nothing but sugars in there. both have the same sugar content - one just has a slightly higher percentage of fructose and slightly lower percentage of glucose than the other.


If you discount any water involved in the syrup, they are on a 1:1 ratio of sugar/volume. A tablespoon of sucrose (table sugar) would have more sugar than a tablespoon of HFCS, but that's because there is water volume in HFCS that isn't present in table sugar.

Yeah, I was going to say, what type of sugar are talking about, but archi already hit the nail on the head.

rofl@that link though.

[Niiro]

Good video on the subject.

Gives a simple, straightforward explanation of what HFCS is and why it's (wrongly) portrayed in such a terrible light.

[quannum]

My problem with HFCS has always been thinking it was higher sugar content than sucrose and it's really only a 5% difference.

If this is about the "high-fructose" part, high-fructose is in relation to regular corn syrup ... the low(er)-fructose corn syrup. im jumping in here, sorry if this has been said.

[kuronosan]

Nope, it's what I didn't know before. It's all good now.

[Jaybar]

Isn't the dependence on HFCS more of an economical/agricultural problem in the long-run? I think we've seen this with other countries' corn crops getting devastated because of poor economic yield (blame NAFTA) since US government heavily subsidizes corn manufacturing (and of course drives up the supply and demand). Ergo reducing usable land for other products - not to mention farmer's over-use of corn-feed for animals (ok I will admit I'm only going off of media conjecture on that part, but I will do some further research on corn-feed vs grass-feed if no one is able to supply me in this thread).

Then you get shit like super-mutant corn that is too smart for humans to realize that it is simply manipulating us through evolutionary prowess. Have you ever been beaten with a cornstalk? That's just the first step towards corn domination.

[Chun Liroy]

Idk, corn seems to have a lot of useful applications outside of HFCS (animal feed as you said, vegetable oil, food in general, and bio fuel) and it's cheap to manufacture. I say, why not make more corn ya digg.

[archibaldcrane]

Corn for biofuel is pretty stupid and terrible - very energy and water intensive.

[quannum]

iowa caucus, money out of politics, etc etc

[archibaldcrane]

iowa caucus, money out of politics, etc etc

2 senators per state, basically.

[Chun Liroy]

Corn for biofuel is pretty stupid and terrible - very energy and water intensive.

What about those bros that used vegetable oil to go across the country? I mean, not like it's going to become the next gas, but Ethanol is a very valuable product of Corn and is combined with gasoline to produce E85 (flex fuel). Granted, Ethanol can also come from a variety of things.

[archibaldcrane]

Biodiesel (vegetable oil) and corn ethanol (gasoline additive/replacement) are different topics.

[Chun Liroy]

This is splitting hairs, for me, but both are considered bio fuel. I was talking about both, but mostly the latter. Should have specified, and I agree they are different topics.

Either result is the same: Corn is very valuable, and the industry is working up ways to avoid crop wipe out (hi, this is what GMO is all about), so having more corn is always good, pretty much. I don't know much about the legislation behind it because quite frankly, I hate any and all politics so I almost never bother to read about them.

[Abandon]

you should probably read your own link first

jesus christ

lol

[archibaldcrane]

This is splitting hairs, for me, but both are considered bio fuel. I was talking about both, but mostly the latter. Should have specified, and I agree they are different topics.

Either result is the same: Corn is very valuable, and the industry is working up ways to avoid crop wipe out (hi, this is what GMO is all about), so having more corn is always good, pretty much. I don't know much about the legislation behind it because quite frankly, I hate any and all politics so I almost never bother to read about them.

It just depends on the goal. Reduce dependence on foreign oil? Yeah, corn ethanol helps do that.

Otherwise? The greenhouse argument is sketchy especially when talking about increasing acreage, because you lose a lot of CO2 abatement when deforesting or turning prairie into cornfields - some argue that you lose more than you gain. On top of that you're talking about increased water demand (as the more fields you create, the more you're getting into marginal lands that require more irrigation) increased pesticide runoff, etc. etc. etc. - growing corn isn't a particularly awesome bit of agriculture, and it's arguable whether further increasing corn acreage for ethanol production does more good than harm.

[Chun Liroy]

It just depends on the goal. Reduce dependence on foreign oil? Yeah, corn ethanol helps do that.

Otherwise? The greenhouse argument is sketchy especially when talking about increasing acreage, because you lose a lot of CO2 abatement when deforesting or turning prairie into cornfields - some argue that you lose more than you gain. On top of that you're talking about increased water demand (as the more fields you create, the more you're getting into marginal lands that require more irrigation) increased pesticide runoff, etc. etc. etc. - growing corn isn't a particularly awesome bit of agriculture, and it's arguable whether further increasing corn acreage for ethanol production does more good than harm.

This seems like a problem with agriculture overall more than specifically corn. Correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't looked into all the impacts of current agriculture and the arguments for it. I never meant to imply that everything is peachy cream with regards to agriculture. Although, I do know that there were/are experiments being conducted with plants that produce their own insecticide or herbicide, rather than genetically modifying them to be immune to the ones we use. I'm not entirely sure of the results, but genetic modification of anything is nearly limitless, which is why I love genetics so much, it's a matter of it maintaining current usefulness, and not posing problems with the environment that may be unseen.

Imagine an edible crop with the water and nutrient necessity of a cactus, completely immune to invading pests (fungal, bacterial, and insect alike) and mainting nutritional content/current uses but producing a higher yield?

[archibaldcrane]

This seems like a problem with agriculture overall more than specifically corn.

Definitely - it's just that our food demand grows slowly with population growth, while attempting to very quickly replace a certain percentage of oil with ethanol has led to an explosion of new corn production, to the extent where it's "farmland be damned". Instead of growing crops suited for certain states/climates, if you're making corn ethanol you need, well, corn specifically, and the more you try to force a crop into an environment that isn't perfectly suited for it, the more you expend more energy/water/pesticides to make it flourish.

This is an issue largely independent of "GMO controversy" - and yes if they can modify crops to flourish in more borderline conditions requiring less energy/water/pesticides that would be great, although it's a bit of an "if" at this point. By far the biggest GMO "success" has been making "roundup-ready" corn and soybeans...but what that means is they can dump roundup herbicide indiscriminately on the fields, killing all other plants other than the target corn/soy. While I'm sure that makes farming "easier" and cheaper - I'm not sure we should consider it a win for humanity.

[Chun Liroy]

Definitely - it's just that our food demand grows slowly with population growth, while attempting to very quickly replace a certain percentage of oil with ethanol has led to an explosion of new corn production, to the extent where it's "farmland be damned". Instead of growing crops suited for certain states/climates, if you're making corn ethanol you need, well, corn specifically, and the more you try to force a crop into an environment that isn't perfectly suited for it, the more you expend more energy/water/pesticides to make it flourish.

This is an issue largely independent of "GMO controversy" - and yes if they can modify crops to flourish in more borderline conditions requiring less energy/water/pesticides that would be great, although it's a bit of an "if" at this point. By far the biggest GMO "success" has been making "roundup-ready" corn and soybeans...but what that means is they can dump roundup herbicide indiscriminately on the fields, killing all other plants other than the target corn/soy. While I'm sure that makes farming "easier" and cheaper - I'm not sure we should consider it a win for humanity.

For sure. It's disappointing that both people place a negative stigma on GMO anything without being able to look at all the potential applications for it that are still being developed.

[archibaldcrane]

The schism seems to be between people who incorrectly think that GMOs means that the food is somehow worse for you, vs. the people who (so far correctly) note that GMOs haven't done anything "good" (roundup-ready helps agribusiness sure) for consumers.

I almost wish "GMO but organic" was a thing, so that the issues with herbicides/pesticides could be separated from "seeds that have tweaked genes".

[hey]

I almost wish "GMO but organic" was a thing, so that the issues with herbicides/pesticides could be separated from "seeds that have tweaked genes".

I'm still waiting for a good study that shows any health benefit from eating organic foods.