Is High-Fructose Corn Syrup the Culprit?
In 2006, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) threatened a lawsuit against Cadbury Schweppes for falsely advertising 7 Up as “all natural,” citing that it contains high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Although the Federal Drug Administration has no definition of “natural,” CSPI claimed that HFCS was not natural, due to the significant amount of processing and use of one or more genetically modified enzymes required to produce it. Cadbury Schweppes announced in January 2007 that it would cease describing 7 Up as “all natural.” Since the 2004 publication by Dr. George Bray and associates of an article suggesting a causal association of HFCS in the obesity epidemic, ongoing controversy continues about the role played by this ubiquitous sweetener. Dr. Bray and his coauthors noted that the consumption of HFCS increased more than a thousand percent between 1970 and 1990, exceeding changes in intake of any other food or food group (Bray, Neilson, and Popkin 2004). Bray and associa
