By now, surely everyone has seen the commercials from the Corn Refiners Association of America which accomplish two purposes. One, they sneakily change the name of corn syrup to the less familiar/less scary sounding “corn sugar”. Two, they make sure to let everyone know that this “corn sugar” is the same as cane sugar.

At the end of May, the FDA ruled that the Corn Refiners are not allowed to change the name of corn syrup to corn sugar. Consumers Union was happy because a name change would have given consumers (like you and me) the impression that corn sugar is “natural”, which it isn’t.

A Mother Jones article on the subject has the author stating that they don’t think this ruling means anything because cane sugar is still as bad for you as corn syrup. Just because it gets to be called “natural” doesn’t make it good for you! Many of us still fall into this trap at the supermarket, buying only “natural” items or things “made with natural ingredients”, which doesn’t mean that the contents of these packages are automatically good for you.

What do you think of the article? Do you fall into the trap of buying “natural”? Does the FDA decision really matter? Discuss with us on Facebook!