It's made by "cooking" corn starch to break down the starch to glucose.
My
impression is that some of the glucose is then converted enzymatically
to
fructose. Product specifications available on the web indicate that it
does contain about 50% of its sugars as glucose. I imagine that it's
used
more because its sweeter. It also gives a moister product in baked
goods. (The cynic in me suggests that maybe it's also used so that
sugar
doesn't have to be the main ingredient on the list, thus not scaring
away
some calorie-conscious consumersl.)
Gary
At 01:48 PM 5/30/2003 +0100, Carl Pike wrote:
>Does anyone know how high fructose corn syrup is made? Is it from
>stalks? Is it simply extracted from corn, and it happens to be high
>in fructose naturally? Is it processed in some way? I thought it
>could involve use of invertase to break down sucrose, but then it
>would be high in glucose as well as fructose. Or is fructose added
>to the extract? Why is it so common in processed foods (as compared
>to plain ordinary corn syrup)?
>---
Dr. Gary Coté
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
Box 6931
Radford University
Radford, VA 24142-6931
Ph: 540-831-5630
Fax: 540-831-5129
email: gcote at radford.eduhttp://www.radford.edu:8800/~gcote/
---
