Municipal Administration of He Xi Nan, Zhonghe Road, Jianye District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province
We're diving into honey today! But not just honey, yea we will talk about the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) sweetened type. You may have heard of HFCS before and wondered what it was actually. Okay, let us go through what is HFCS honey and why it differs from natural honey that comes out of the hive.
HFCS is a sugar derived from corn. To produce HFCS, corn starch is turned into a glucose syrup. How it works: Takes the starch out of corn and combines with water, then heat converts to a syrupy liquid. Then, they add special enzymes in the syrup to convert a portion of glucose into another sugar known as fructose which makes it sweeter. HFCS is high-fructose corn syrup, and it can be found in a lot of what you might eat on an average day — soda, candy bars, cookies. It is also found in items such as granola bars, yogurt and tons of snacks that we buy from the store.
It has been widely demonstrated that consuming an excessive amount of HFCS can contribute to problems like obesity, type 2 diabetes and even heart disease. This is because HFCS has an energy-dense / nutrient-poor character. HFCS can also alter how our bodies process a hormone called insulin that helps keep blood sugar down. When insulin doesn't do its job, it can lead to adverse health outcomes over the long term, so we would be well served to know how much HFCS we consume.
Now, let’s talk about honey. As you know that Honey is a sweet syrup which bees make through collecting the nectar from flowers. Bees gather nectar and take it back to the hive, where they process & store it as honey. For net tens of thousands of years, we have been using honey and many believe that it is healthier than processed sugars (such as High Fructose Corn Syrup). Honey is full of good things for our bodies, unlike HFCS — vitamins and minerals! Each of these offers our system important nutrients that we need to be strong and healthy. Also, honey hardly affects our blood sugar levels(upon consumption) as much HFCS does and this is another reason why many considers it a better option.
So, what is HFCS honey? The honey mixed with regular honey and HFCS in the U.S. By doing this, the honey will overall taste sweeter and have a little more thickness to it like plain HFCS. But, it retains some of the natural nutrients in honey. If you are in the market for something that tastes like honey, but does not quite have pure qualities of honey and lighter on your pocket then HFCS based Honey is a good way out.
Sometimes pure honey can be pricey, and this is where HFCS honey comes into play. For those reasons, it is more affordable and accessible to many people. HFCS honey: I had to throw a note in about this — for recipes, especially things will the need be sweeter. It is also a popular choice for people who like to cook or bake, but wish to cut costs.
Although HFCS honey may be a cheaper alternative but you must keep in mind however, this is still for commercial processed and should only be used sparingly. This translates into having ownership of it and thus not over-using these words just because they sound nice. As a healthier choice, pure honey is typically of higher quality and contains more nutrients that are good for our bodies. On the other hand, if you would still require a sweetener for your food or drinks, natural honey is always best option amidst others to make sure that it will provide healthy effects as well.