In response to consumer demand, "Hunt's®, a ConAgra Foods brand, is pleased to announce that it has removed the high fructose corn syrup from every bottle of its ketchup products. Hunt's 100% Natural Ketchup brings forth the naturally rich tomato flavor of Hunt's tomatoes and contains only five simple ingredients: tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, salt and other seasonings, with no high fructose corn syrup, artificial ingredients or preservatives."

The entire PRNewswire report can be seen here.

It's the comment "in direct response to consumer demand..." that I like to see.

Bill

That's better than Heinz removing salt from their ketchup in response to government pressure. Our mayor wants a law to force restaurants not to use salt. What is funny is a recent study shows that most people are self regulating in their salt intake- they crave it when they don't have enough and eat less of it (or drink more fluids) when they have had too much.

quote:

It's the comment "in direct response to consumer demand..." that I like to see.

Of course, the next question is:

Was the consumer demand to remove it...

Or was the consumer demand (federal mandate) for more ethanol for vehicle fuels that diverted corn to that use and reduced supply / increased the price of HFCS.

I doubt that there was a problem with not enough corn/high prices for Hunt's. I haven't seen this happening with other manufacturers. If this were the case, Hunt's as well as all manufacturers would simply have raised the prices of their products. They wouldn't have changed their recipe.

Neither of us can be certain about their motivations on this.

Bill
photo-synthesis

quote:

Hunt's as well as all manufacturers would simply have raised the prices of their products.

Not necessarily, when you see things like last (this?) week's announcement by Walmart that they were cutting the price of Heinz ketchup.

While that may be partly a loss-leader on there part that Walmart takes the loss on, it impacts everyone's ability to raise prices.

I dug around at http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/sugar/data.htm for a few minutes. Kind of dense data (Department of Energy puts out similar stuff on energy that are much more user friendly).

In 2000 1# of HFCS cost $0.13, and 1# Refined Sugar cost $0.42. It was over three times the cost per pound (I don't know if there is a pound for pound substitution, or if you need more of one to equal the sweetness of the other).

In 2006 HFCS was $0.31/lb, and Refined Sugar was $0.54/lb...a little less then twice as expensive.

With 1985 as "100" the price index for all corn sweetners goes like this:

2000 118
2001 115
2002 120
2003 123
2004 122
2005 125
2006 150
2007 133
2008 139
2009 165 (Started at 163 in January, ended at 190 in December)
2010 203 through April

Clearly something dramatic is inflating the price of corn sweeteners, and that seems to coincide with the beginning in 2006 of federal mandates for renewable fuels (i.e. ethanol) in gasoline.

Not that consumer choice isn't an important factor -- looks to me at least Hunt's could see this as a "win/win" -- they can market that they're HFCS free, and move to a more stable priced source of sugar, and one that is relatively more affordable then it used to be.

Now, if we could just stop Yoplait from putting it in their yogurt.

--J--

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Now, if we could just stop Yoplait from putting it in their yogurt.

Try Mountain High brand.

From their site:
"But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what some of our customers have to say about our yoghurt:

I love that there is no high-fructose corn syrup and it's available in Fat-Free Vanilla. Even the fat free has a creaminess to it that others don't. I have recommended it to my patients as a diabetes educator and researcher. Great product!"

— Steve, yogurt fan

That sounds good. And I like flavored yogurts, like vanilla. Mom used to buy plain yogurt when I was a kid, but I was never that fond of it, because even if you added fruit to it, it had a strong sharpness to it.

--J--

Remind me why this is so evil? Is it just because it is one of those things that causes insulin spikes? What is it called?? High-something or other? I love Yoplait and will not give it up until it is clawed out of my cold, dead hands. I also like Greek yogurt when I'm feeling plain and straightforward. And I use the fake fat-free-I'm-not-half-and-half-but-love-molecular-gastronomy sometimes because it is less fat and my coffee is fine.

Seriously, though, why the panic over HFCS?

I think that some people would like to think that it the root of all obesity mainly because it's in sodas but I think that cooking actual meals at home, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and not drinking a dozen sodas a day would make a big difference too. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more natural products with less additives and salt but I don't that that we are going to find the bottom line cause of obesity in any one food.

To me the HFCS is a symptom, not the disease.

The disease is federal farm policy that subsidizes farmers to grow and sell corn for a loss. Which lets companies like ADM & Cargill undercut sugar companies for sweetners, or to sell grain for cattle food to feedlots for less then a farmer could grow and feed his own grain to his own cattle (you get the subsidy if the corn leaves the farm, you don't get the subsidy if it stays and turns into meat there).

That's caused a financial and agronomic death spiral where you need ever larger loans to buy ever larger acreage and ever larger amounts of fertilizer and ever better yielding (read GMO) varieties and ever larger machines to plant, spray, and harvest, to grow ever larger amounts of corn for ever larger losses to collect ever larger subsidies and find ever larger markets to dispose of all this surplus corn only being produced because of the federal subsidy system.

quote:

Remind me why this is so evil?

Sure. How about this: "The body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream."--SFgate, from 2004!

or this:
"While the rise in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) parallels the increase in obesity and diabetes, a significant increase in dietary fructose consumption in industrialized countries has also occurred. The increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup, primarily in the form of soft drinks, is linked with complications of the insulin resistance syndrome.–PubMed.gov

-- Steve

quote:

increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup, primarily in the form of soft drinks, is linked with complications of the insulin resistance syndrome.

My point exactly - quit drinking so many sodas! Although I do agree with Matt too.

both refind sugar and corn syrup use nasty chemical to refine them.....watched it on how it made... or one of those shows and could not believe such a thing is allowed.....

Like Matt, I fear the rampant proliferation of GMO agriculture, enough reason for me to *try* to avoid HFCS in my family's diet. I happened on some interesting beet sugar refinement recipes here somewhere and intend to try it with my GH bounty if all goes well. Didn't realize it was so straightforward.