High fructose corn syrup is any group of corn syrups that has undergone enzymatic processing to convert glucose to fructose to get that sweetness. In the U.S. most companies use high fructose corn syrup in lieu of cane sugar, simply because it’s cheaper. Corn is subsidized by the U.S. government, making the high fructose corn syrup cheaper.
While tariffs and import taxes are placed on foreign sugar. High fructose corn syrup contains 24 percent water and the rest of it is sugars. The most widely used type of high fructose corn syrup called HFCS 55 has 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose. The relative sweetness of HFCS 55 is somewhat equivalent to sucrose. Since high fructose corn syrup is a liquid, it makes it easier to blend in to products than sucrose, or table sugar, is.
HFCS was first introduced in 1957 by Richard O. Marshall and Earl R. Kooi, but they weren’t able to mass produce the stuff. That came later by Dr. Yoshiyuki Takasaki.