Sugar as the enemy, and a sugar-free trap

There is a popular word, the writer says, that almost everyone has an interest in, and that word is diet. People try to keep from gaining weight for beauty or for health, and the methods on offer run into the tens of thousands, which, in this reading, also means there have been many failures. One-food diets, detox diets, and the so-called emperor diet are named; in all of them, sugar is the main enemy. Even people who recommend intermittent fasting, and who say one may eat a full plate of whatever one likes at a single daily meal, would find it hard, the writer thinks, to smile on eating as much sugar as one wants.

Food and drink firms have begun to offer products with no sugar at all. The most familiar, the notes say, is still-sweet candy labeled sugar-free. Many people on a diet, and many who are only worried about their health, now prefer a drink without sugar to ordinary cola. The writer compares it to ordering a jumbo meal at a fast-food shop and still choosing a zero cola, as if that much at least had kept one’s conscience. The trap in those sugar-free drinks and foods, in this reading, is liquid fructose.

A corn syrup, mixed, and not quite natural

The English abbreviation, the notes say, is HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup, which in Korean can be unpacked as high-fructose corn syrup. Spellings differ a little, but the root is the same: some of the glucose in a syrup is turned into fructose by an enzyme treatment, so that the syrup will taste sweet. As the name corn syrup already suggests, corn starch is made into a liquid, sweetened, and then filtered, refined, and concentrated into a liquid sugar that mixes glucose and fructose.

The writer will not call it a natural syrup. Corn starch is a polysaccharide, and an artificial process is used to split those molecules into simple sugars, so the notes class it as an artificial sweetener. Sugar, by contrast, is glucose and fructose bound together; liquid fructose is a mix of the two, and the ratio, the notes say, can be adjusted. Those exact shares are not given in the unique lines used here, and none are added. Energy bars, yogurt, and soft drinks are named as everyday places where the syrup already feels familiar.

A 1950s start, a 1971 turn, and a cheap sweetness

Liquid fructose was first developed in the 1950s, the notes say, but a method for extracting it that the notes call completely harmless to the body was worked out only later, and practical use began in 1971. Soft-drink firms then used it eagerly and made a large profit, and many other food firms followed. That phrase about harmlessness is the notes’ wording about the extraction method, and is not treated here as a later official finding. The years stay in that window.

In food taken at a low temperature, a small amount can make a sweeter taste than sugar, the notes add, though a tongue whose sense has grown dull in very low temperatures means one cannot simply say colder is always sweeter. Because it is a liquid, it is easier to handle than sugar and cheaper, so manufacturers prefer it. Today, the writer says, feeling against sugar is strong, while liquid fructose is still little known to the public, which lets a product stay sweet without using sugar at all. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A student report on liquid fructose, written in the notes as HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup.
2. A 1950s start and a 1971 turn to practical use, and a method the notes call harmless, left as the notes word them.
3. Sugar-free labels, zero cola, and everyday foods the writer names, including energy bars, yogurt, and soft drinks.

Last updated: 14 November 2026