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What to know how they make corn syrup: They take corn starch and add hydrochloric acid to convert the starch into sugar (mostly glucose). They started making corn syrup in the 1880's. Then in the late 1970's they discovered that they could raise two different bacterial cultures, extract two different enzymes from these cultures, and react these enzymes with corn syrup to convert part of the glucose into fructose. HFCS started invading our diet in the 1980's, about the some time that obesity started becoming epidemic in the USA. Corn syrup/HFCS is uncommon in foods made outside of the USA. The rampant use of corn syrup/HFCS in this country is fallout from the sugar tariffs leveled on sugar imported into the USA. The tariff was put in place to protect the sugar cane growers in FLA and LA, but the tariffs also jacked the price of sugar high enough in this country that corn syrup/HFCS became cost competitive with sugar.
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