Whether or not added sugar is bad for you has NEVER been in dispute.  The less sugar you eat, the better off you are.  But whether HFCS is worse than plain ol' table sugar has long been a contentious issue.

Check out this chart to see how the two compare...

                                                        Calories         Carbs (g)          Sugars (g)

1 tbsp. white sugar                                 46                12                     12

1 tbsp. high-fructose corn syrup               53                14.4                   5

Here’s what you need to know: Both HFCS and table sugar, or sucrose, are built with roughly a 50-50 blend of two sugars: fructose and glucose.   That means in all likelihood that your body can’t tell one from the other — they’re both just sugar.

HFCS’s real sin is that it’s supercheap, and as a result, it’s added to everything from cereal to ketchup to salad dressing. Plus it may be affecting your health in many ways not yet fully understood by the scientific community.

Is it a good idea to minimize the HFCS in your diet?  Absolutely.  It’s best to cut out all unnecessary sugars.  But HFCS’s role as nutritional enemy #1 has been exaggerated.  

The bottom line is that your body processes both sugar and HFCS in the same way, and eating either can lead to obesity and diabetes.   That means neither is healthier than the other.   This means... READ YOUR LABELS so you can avoid unnecessary sugars of any kind in your diet. 

If nutritional labels just said "sugar," the task of cutting sugar out would be easy, but they don't so it's not. 

There are many more names for sugar out there.   This handy list reveals them all...

• barley malt
• beet sugar
• brown sugar
• buttered syrup
• cane-juice crystals
• cane sugar
• caramel
• carob syrup
• corn syrup
• corn syrup solids

• date sugar
• dextran
• dextrose
• diatase
• diastatic malt
• ethyl maltol
• fructose
• fruit juice
• fruit juice concentrate
• glucose
• glucose solids
• golden sugar
• golden syrup
• grape sugar
• high-fructose corn syrup
• honey
• invert sugar
• lactose
• malt syrup
• maltodextrin
• maltose
• mannitol
• molasses
• raw sugar
• refiner's syrup
• sorbitol
• sorghum syrup
• sucrose
• sugar
• turbinado sugar
• yellow sugar