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SWEETENERS Americans rely on corn for the majority of all the nutritive sweeteners they consume. Corn refiners produce three major classes of sweeteners: corn syrups, dextrose, and fructose.  CORN SYRUPSMention corn syrups and consumers think of the sweetness and energy they offer--outstanding characteristics--, but their value as food ingredients also flows from their adaptability to many circumstances and their other, less-known, advantages. Corn syrups can depress freezing to prevent crystal formation in ice cream and other frozen desserts. Salad dressings and condiments pour at manageable rates because of corn syrups' effect on viscosity. In lunch meats and hot dogs, corn syrups provide the suspension to keep other ingredients evenly mixed, and, like other corn products, the basic syrups can improve textures and enhance colors without masking natural flavors, as in canned fruits and vegetables. Refiners produce a variety of basic syrups to meet these needs, provide energy, and offer the right sweetness--enough but not too much--in thousands of foods Americans rely on.  DEXTROSEDextrose is highly nutritious and easily digested because of its purity and because it is a standardized food form of the basic sugar which humans and animals absorb and use in their bloodstreams. An economical source of carbohydrates, it sweetens products like chewing gum lightly. In jams, jellies, preserves and icing mixes it is used to temper the intense sweetness of sucrose but offers another advantage; it maintains moisture so products don't go stale. Dextrose has proved to be an excellent food for yeast to grow on during fermentation. The pharmaceutic industry is the single largest user of dextrose; it is the starting point for manufacturing vitamin C and is used in fermentation to produce penicillin and other antibiotics. Recently dextrose has gained importance in other fermentation applications--as a yeast food in brewing low calorie beers and as a feedstock for producing citric acid, lysine and other chemicals. In baking, another major market, dextrose again serves as a yeast food, but it also gives sweetness and improves the color and texture of breads, buns and rolls.  HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUPS & CRYSTALLINE FRUCTOSEHigh fructose corn sweeteners begin with enzymes which isomerize dextrose to produce a 42 percent fructose syrup. By passing 42-HFCS through a column which retains fructose, refiners draw off 90 percent HFCS and blend it with 42-HFCS to make a third syrup, 55-HFCS. Further processing produces crystalline fructose. All the syrups share advantages--stability, high osmotic pressure, or crystallization control, for example--but each offers special qualities to food manufacturers and consumers. 42-HFCS is popular in canned fruits, condiments and other processed foods which need mild sweetness that won't mask natural flavors. Sweeter 55-HFCS has earned a commanding role in soft drinks, ice cream and frozen desserts. Supersweet 90-HFCS is valued in natural and "light" foods, where very little is needed to provide sweetness. Crystalline fructose's capacity to produce greater sweetness in combination with sugar makes it useful in presweetened cereals, instant beverages and other dry mix products.  |
