As oxymoronic as it sounds, I believe this to be true: If big business has a reputation for lying, obfuscating and being generally deceptive, they come by it honestly.

A case in point is the Corn Refiners Association‘s (CRA) recent petition to the FDA to allow them to change food ingredients labels from “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS) to “corn sugar”.

The CRA’s claim is that this change in labeling will help to end “confusion” among consumers. There are the more cynical among us who suspect that the intent is to create confusion among consumers.

Given that HFCS has become nearly ubiquitous in our food supply, there is actually a remarkable paucity of good science on the public health effects of HFCS, and it’s always important to remember that “correlation is not causation”. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of anecdotal and statistical evidence to suggest that HFCS is a problem.

You can read more about this latest attempt to sacrifice public health on the altar of industry profit here (“If It’s Called “Corn Sugar,” NOT High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Is It Better?”).

I have a personal interest in this topic, so you an rely on seeing more about this in my blog in the future.