Corn syrup and crack, and then there's panela

Here's an article from the New York Times about the backlash against high-fructose corn syrup. It states incorrectly that high-fructose corn syrup essentially has the same composition as table sugar. This is not quite true. Corn syrup is a mix of glucose and fructose, two monosaccharides, while table sugar is sucrose, a disaccharide composed of chemically-joined glucose and fructose. I imagine that much of the demonization, founded or not, of corn syrup is due to the fact that it is even more processed and refined than is table sugar.

In any case, I think that the article ends on the right note, pointing out that if you're eating horrid, highly-processed foods, it doesn't matter that much if you switch from one refined sugar to another. It's like making the change from crack to powder cocaine. Sure, there is probably some benefit, but you'd be better off avoiding the stuff in any form. Another article condemning the junk food industry in general appeared in Scientific American recently.

For my part, I use panela. Panela is a unrefined evaporated sugar cane juice, and is a staple here in Colombia. Check out a wikipedia article on it here. Apart from sugar, panela contains vitamins, minerals, and even a touch of protein, which is why it's considered a food product (that is, something that nourishes) and not just a sweetener (something that gives you blubber and diabetes). Think the old pioneer days in the US when blackstrap molasses (unrefined evaporated sorghum or sugar cane juice) was used as a general health tonic and multivitamin. In Colombia panela is regulated such that it can only be made artisanally, by the thousands of small farmers that depend on the product for their livelihood. Producing panela industrially, or even worse, dying sugar brown and selling it as panela, are grave offenses in Colombia, because panela is an important source of energy, vitamins, and minerals for many people, especially the poorest people in the country. It's still not as healthy as eating fresh fruits and vegetables, but your body does have to work some to digest panela, and I assume the body absorbs it a bit more slowly than white sugar.

Continuing my prior analogy, if corn syrup and white sugar are like crack and cocaine, horrid vices with no positive side, panela is like chewing coca leaves. It gives your body something more nourishing than a quick high, is not that detrimental if consumed in moderation, and is a base of culture and tradition. My wife and I only use panela in the fair-trade jams we produce and sell here in Colombia.