Every so often, some company really will admit that it made a terrible, terrible mistake and that one of its products causes cancer or zombies. So in a world full of recalls and class-action lawsuits, it's only natural to be wary of the health scares that show up in your email inbox. The problem is that some of the most well-known product hazards are pure bullshit.

6 High Fructose Corn Syrup Is Much Worse for You Than Sugar

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The Myth:

Ever since sweetened products began replacing regular sugar with the much-less-natural-sounding high fructose corn syrup, there has been a growing and vociferous backlash against HFCS, which is popularly seen as some kind of super-sugar responsible for a rise in heart disease, obesity, cancer, and tooth decay. After all, didn't everyone start getting fatter right around the time the stuff was introduced?

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The FDA should really also ban the passage of time.

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The Reality:

Proponents of the "you can't spell murder without HFCS" crowd can in fact point to statistics showing that American obesity began its rapid ascent at about the same time corn sweetener began its dominance of the edible garbage industry. If you stop there, it looks like a pretty convincing argument. But researchers who like to look at the bigger picture see it another way -- the reason companies switched to corn syrup in the first place is because it's cheaper than regular sugar. Using it pushed the price of sugary foods down, making them more affordable to the masses. So it's not just that we started eating high fructose corn syrup, it's that we suddenly started eating a lot more bullshit.

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In actual fact, studies so far have shown that the body doesn't seem to know the difference between high fructose corn syrup and regular sugar. After all, they both contain the same ingredients, in the same quantities. The only difference is in how they're extracted and combined.

Of course, high fructose corn syrup is still really bad for you, as are the foods that are chock-full of the shit. There's also no doubt that our addiction to sweet-tasting foods and drinks is making us fat as hell. It's just that it's no worse than if those same products were made with sugar.